All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 22, 2026 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
01:00:11
Episode 3078 - The Scott Adams School 01/22/26

The Scott Adams School hosted by Shelly Adams~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Guest Brick Suit, Inadequate Sleep Mental Impact, Minnesota Protester Arrests, President Trump, Greenland Acquisition, Newsom's Kneepads, Board of Peace, DHS Self-Deportation Policy

|

Time Text
Good Morning, Shelly 00:15:06
Everyone, I want to make sure everybody has a chance to get on.
Let's just make sure all the platforms have loaded.
Just want to make sure everybody gets a chance to hear what I have to say today.
Again, good morning, everyone.
I think we're live, so I'm going to go forward.
For those of you that haven't had the chance to meet me, my name is Shelly.
I'd like to begin today by sharing a short clip from an interview Scott did on Real Talk with Zuby.
So we're going to try this and here we go.
What do you want your legacy to be?
Oh, that's really interesting.
I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't think of it in those terms.
I think about sort of what I can do while I'm here.
I don't know if I've ever said this publicly, but I have a philosophy to live my life to have the biggest funeral.
So I want people to come to my funeral because I did something for them.
No other reason, not because they've heard of Dilbert or something.
I want people to say, you know what?
I read his book.
I tried his diet advice.
I did something, just anything.
And he made my life better.
And I'm going to take that forward, you know, teach my kids and stuff.
That would be the, I want the biggest possible funeral.
Awesome, man.
Well, Scott, your work has definitely made my life better.
And I know it's done the same for millions of others.
I do believe in the afterlife.
And I hope we'll see you up there in a good place.
I'll see you there.
Let's hope you're right.
I'll see you there.
It was Scott's wish not to just include his closest friends and family, but to include the community he built, those he inspired, those he taught, encouraged in his celebration of life.
Therefore, a live stream honoring his legacy will take place this Sunday, January 25th, roughly around 11 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.
And now I'd like to welcome for today's show, Owen, Erica, Marcella, and Sergio for the Scott Adams School.
Thank you, Shelly.
We also want to introduce a special guest that's joining us today.
I think you'll recognize him as soon as his camera turns on.
Oh, there he is.
I was just waiting for the queue.
I was just waiting to hear Brick Suit and then I would jump in.
There he is, Brick Suit, our special guest today joining us and so fashionable.
And I feel very underdressed in my pajamas.
Sorry.
So you guys, I think we need to sip.
Now, Shelly, am I sipping or are you sipping with the video?
We're trying to be fancy today, guys.
We think we're going to be able to get this on screen for you.
You're muted, Shelly.
You're muted.
There we go.
Oh, we had to drop the screen.
Okay.
All right.
We're going off one more time, guys.
We'll be right back after this simultaneous sip.
So get ready.
Thanks, guys.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to what will surely be the highlight of human civilization.
Yeah, you thought it was Twitter or X, but it's not.
It's not.
It's this show.
And if you'd like to take it up to levels that only the weekend can survive, well, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of tankered Chelsea stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dope of being here today.
The thing that makes everything better, it's called the simultaneous sip.
It happens now.
Go.
Ah, that was pretty good.
Pretty, pretty good.
So if you're not a subscriber on Locals or on X, where you can see the Dilbert Reborn comic, but only there, the series is now about the boss sending his employees onto the streets to get things for him when he lives in a city that has become dangerous.
So the employees are complaining about the danger of coming to work.
And he just sent Tina to get his lunch.
And I'll read it to you, but it's basically Tina, she's a little unhappy talking to the boss.
And she says, thanks for sending me through the gauntlet of lawlessness to pick up your lunch.
I got 20,000 steps just for, I got 20,000 steps just fleeing for my life.
And the boss says, you have a Fitbit?
And Tina says, I did, but now it's the property of a guy they call the Midnight Crapper.
So you would not have seen that when Dilbert was in newspapers.
So let me say again that my creative revival is really fun.
Every time I sit down to make the comic now, I'm enjoying it.
Like I'm looking for time.
Oh, I'd love to write some comics today.
Every single day for 10 years, at least 10 years, prior to being canceled, I hated my job.
Now, it was better than a real job because I could just sit there drawing pictures and stuff.
But I didn't like it because, you know, anything you like is great until you have to do too much of it.
And if you have to do a comic every single day, every day, you get tired of it after 25 years.
So believe me, getting canceled was like, I swear it was like being reborn.
I call it Dilbert reborn, but it was like I was reborn because I actually love my job.
So my thoughts of desperately wanting to retire, which I did prior to being canceled, I desperately wanted to retire.
I just needed to find a way to do it.
That wasn't the way it just happened.
But man, it's good.
It's good stuff.
Okay, guys, come back.
Oh, I love that we were lucky enough one afternoon.
Scott, so Scott used to live stream from locals sometimes, like in the middle of the day.
We'd be so lucky.
All of a sudden, Scott, you'd get the notification.
We're like, what's he doing?
And sometimes he would just be drawing out Dilbert cartoons, even robots read news.
And he would like workshop it with us.
Like, what do you think a funny name would be?
Or whatever.
We'd all be putting it in.
And as soon as he saw the one he loved, I mean, the laughter, like the head would go back, like the eyes start watering, the glasses come off, the whole thing.
Oh, it was so good.
But hi, everybody.
I'm Erica.
I'll let everyone introduce themselves and then we'll get into it.
Good morning.
I'm Marcella.
And I'm Owen Gregorian.
We should probably take a sip.
Oh, oh, all right.
Did you guys sip?
I didn't get to sip with y'all.
Okay, here we go.
I sip.
I'm good.
Okay, good.
And so, and we have Sergio.
So, Brick Suit, a lot of us recognize you.
I think most of us do.
And I think maybe we wanted to ask you a couple of questions too, because you've had quite a fascinating run over the years with President Trump and his campaign.
And I don't know if I forgot this, but the group reminded me today that you were at in Butler, Pennsylvania, that horrendous day, weren't you?
What happened?
I was.
I was there.
I was in the front row, a rally, much like every other rally I'd been to.
And the reason I had that time off was because I was actually a delegate for California for the RNC.
So I was a Trump delegate planning on going to Milwaukee.
And then they added the Butler rally kind of at the last minute.
And I had the time off.
And I just, you know, I looked at how much it would cost to restructure my ticket to go to Butler.
I had a couple of reasons I wanted to go there.
First of all, it was a Trump rally.
Second of all, I thought there might be a VP pick.
And third, there's actually a guy in the Pittsburgh area who bought a suit just like mine and would go to rallies.
So I felt the need to defend my turf being that close to Pittsburgh.
And, you know, I made the decision to go there.
And, you know, we all know what happened.
That was an incredible day.
Oh, my God.
I can't even imagine.
I mean, just watching it.
I can't imagine being there.
And, you know, we've seen so many times where President Trump has brought you up on stage at a rally, shouted you out from the podium.
I know Scott got a big kick out of you.
You know, it's just fun.
It's like this character you've created, right?
And how has that worked out for you?
Totally unexpected, totally, totally not something I ever thought would happen.
But as I'm looking down on my phone here to get a call, to get up, there's a direct link actually between Scott and me becoming Bricksuit.
Not many people know this.
I just put up in my pinned tweet.
The first rally I ever went to was in Las Vegas.
And I was very far back.
And I thought, you know, after the rally, I went up to the people in the front and said, how early did you get here?
When did you get here?
And they told me the next rally I went to was in 2018 in Mesa, Arizona for a senator candidate who's, I think it was Martha McSally in Arizona.
And at that time, I'm on the Donald on Reddit.
You know, I'm definitely tuned into Scott.
And he picked up on the slogan from Reddit: jobs, not mobs.
So that got into my consciousness.
And I ended up making a shirt for that, went to the rally early in Phoenix.
And then President Trump actually got a picture of me on the grounds there wearing my Jobs Not Mobs shirt and tweeted that out.
So the very second rally I went to, I pick up a slogan from Scott, I make a shirt, it gets a picture of me tweeted out because it was Twitter back then, it wasn't posted, it was a tweet, tweeted out by the president.
And so later, when I decided to become a human meme, I really drew a lot of inspiration from that experience where taking a slogan out of cyberspace, out of the web, and putting it into real life and becoming a meme in real life.
And that's basically why I decided to buy the suit.
You guys have questions for Brick's suit?
I know you do.
It's so interesting.
I do.
This is an amazing honor to have a living legend meme, you know, with us walking.
I wasn't to a rally and I might have seen you there.
Did you go to Tucson ever on 2020?
I don't think I went to Tucson in 2020, but I went there in 2024.
There was a rally at the Linda Ronstadt Center that I went to.
Okay.
There was an imposter taking a...
So no, but the beautiful lesson here that you give us a break to Mr. Brickshut is that you are telling us that with that effort that you did to stand out, you got the attention.
which is the number one rule in persuasion, to get attention, right?
Scatora's that.
And you got the attention of the president to make you into not just like one-dimensional meme, but a three-dimensional meme that is multiplying, that is taking videos, that is spreading everywhere like that.
And that's what a meme is.
You know, we're all memes, basically.
Every person is a living meme in a way.
Some are more proliferous than others.
But this is wonderful to have you here and show us what it can be done.
Well, actually, that's kind of what actually happened is because basically my motivation at the beginning was get to the rallies early so that I could be up near the front because I wanted to be there.
But then when I had the very third, the third rally I ever went to, I bought this because I had two extra days in DC.
I had a trip planned back east.
I was flying into DC and I wanted something to be able to trigger the leftists.
So I bought the whole suit.
And the day before I left my home in San Diego, President Trump announced a rally in Montoursville, Pennsylvania.
I was able to go to that rally.
I got there at midnight.
I was third in line.
I ended up in the front row.
And that's where he first called me up on stage.
And so then as I began to go back to rallies, you know, I would get up near the front.
And this is 2020.
This is, you know, there's a lot of press coverage at that time.
And it became apparent to me, like, I will say this, the first time I ever gave an interview, I was terrible at it.
It was not a talent that I had.
It wasn't something I was able to do well.
As I did more of them, I got better.
And from a, from, I guess, a very selfish perspective, I realized that I had done so many of these interviews that I was actually better at articulating whatever it was the administration was trying to convey at that point in time.
So I felt like if I get there early and I wear this suit, the media will come to me because they're going to assume that I'm just some fool dressed up like a clown.
Under the Radar 00:01:58
And then I can give them sound bites that the Trump team is actually putting out there and trying to emphasize in that given timeframe.
So I was kind of like, you know, I was under the radar to the media at that point.
They had no idea who I was.
I would show up.
They didn't really know who I was, except he's a guy that had been on stage twice.
And I was able to get the message out.
Very useful.
You became a useful person, not just an entertainment.
What made you want to do this?
You know, what made me want to do this is a really good question.
It stems back.
First of all, I voted for Reagan in 84.
And then that was the last election I ever voted in until 2020.
Okay, so I was completely divorced from the political realm, wasn't even registered in 2016, did not even think that President Trump would be a value, you know, a viable presidential choice, hated Hillary, didn't want her to win, so certainly on board with President Trump in that way.
But then he gets in office and he really starts doing what he says he's going to do.
And as I said earlier, I'm really tied up in the Donald Discord at this time.
And then in 2018, we saw the purge from social media of a lot of voices.
We saw, you know, Alex Jones is gone.
I mean, YouTube pages were canceled.
Facebook profiles gone, Twitter pages gone, and just a lot of names went off the radar then.
And I figured at that point in time, if you can't have free speech on the internet, I'm going to bring it back to real life.
Wearing The Hat 00:02:19
And I ordered my first Make America Great Again hat, and I started going out in San Diego to farmers markets and baseball games and golf tournaments, wearing a Trump hat in 2018 at a time when it was not very popular.
And it was really, doing that was really just driven by my experience at that first rally and how effective it can be to take something out of the realm where it's normally seen and then take it into real life.
And that was kind of how I got the inspiration to make the suit because I'd already been doing that with just a very simple hat that I would keep in my car and put on when I went about my daily business in San Diego.
And how did you find the suit?
Did you have to have it custom tailored or was there someone actually selling the suit?
The suit is actually made.
It's an off-the-rack suit.
It's called a stag suit.
It's from England.
And apparently, unlike an American bachelor party, when they have these in England, all the lads will order similar clothing so they can be identified in the group.
So they behave much like an American bachelorette party would in terms of their apparel.
Now, couple that with the best clubs in London having a dress code that the men have to wear suits, there became this cottage industry for semi-disposable, cheap polyester suits and very loud patterns for this type of bachelor party.
And so they have like rocket ships and skies and thunder and lightning bolts.
And one of the ones they just had was a brick wall.
And when I did my initial suit for something to trip, my initial search for something to trigger leftists when I went to DC, I'm thinking, what do I do?
Like taxes?
No.
How do I get a border shirt?
What about a wall suit?
And I searched for wall suit.
This came up.
And I, you know, I ordered it and it's the best 80 bucks I ever spent.
Nice.
I love that.
It's kind of like when I was saying with Sergio.
Supporter's Perspective 00:06:19
So Sergio has taught this group how to easily make memes using Chat GPT.
And so now we have all these meme warriors.
And I think it's kind of like what you're doing, saying you're a living meme, because you're not saying anything.
You're just putting a visual out there for interpretation.
So I see it and I laugh and maybe my neighbor will cry.
So you didn't say anything.
It's like, it's your reaction.
I love that.
Marcella, Owen.
Sorry, I cut you off.
Hi, Brick Suit.
I'm also a fellow Californian.
So I wanted to ask you two questions.
One is, how is it living in California?
It's very hard.
I personally know being a Trump supporter since 2015, how hard it is to be a supporter.
Have you had any issues with either the government or people?
Oh, well, I had some gentlemen from the FBI come and visit me, you know, at my workplace in early 2021.
So I had that issue.
But I think the main question you might be asking is about, have I had any blowback from my public support of the president?
And I can tell you this, when you're an undercover Trump supporter, and nobody knows it, and then you go to a rally and the president calls you up on stage, and two days later, you're on Fox and Friends, and then you come back to work, the secret is kind of out.
You know, when you get doxxed by the president in that way, you know, you have to make a decision.
And I decided to roll with it now.
My former employer cannot say enough good things about them.
No issues from management.
I worked in a facility where there were approximately 300 employees.
So as you can imagine, there were some in there who just despised me, some who just were just really thought it was cool, a lot of low-key acknowledgement.
And then there were people who were just like, you know, I don't really like the president, but it's cool what happened.
So, you know, there were people, there was all sorts of range there.
So absolutely, yes, I did get blowback.
But it's certainly because of the company I worked for, you know, it was not as bad as it could have been.
I was never at risk of losing my job.
It was just made clear, you know, don't do politics at work and we're golden.
And so I abided by that rule.
The other question came from someone at locals, Andy Wang.
He wanted to know if you were in DC on January 6th.
And if not, can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, I was in DC on January 6th.
At that time, I was working as a contractor for RSBN.
RSBN actually hired me in the latter half of the campaign in 2020 to cover some rallies because they did not have enough internal staff to cover three rallies a day schedule.
And they basically put the call out there.
And, you know, there are some other alumni from those guest host days, names that people will recognize, such as Scott Pressler was one of those guest hosts.
Brian Glenn, now at RAV, was one of those guest hosts.
And I did probably about seven.
So in January, I had just come from the rally in Dalton two days prior, which I attended myself, then flew into DC where I was slated to cover the segment of the rally, basically a secondary speaker rally that was going to take place near the Capitol steps after the main rally of President Trump by the White House.
So I was in DC on January 6th.
Did you have any issues afterwards by the FBI or any other thing regarding January 6?
I did.
I did because an image of me actually appeared on a wanted poster from the Metropolitan Police Department for felony assault of an officer.
So they put that out there, like wanted in conjunction, felony assault.
I knew I had done nothing, but what they really wanted was the camera that they saw me holding.
They wanted the footage.
So that was kind of their way of getting in touch with me or finding out who I was.
Did they get it?
Oh, I gave them the footage, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I gave them the footage.
Because I had footage of the policeman, the Capitol policeman being tased in the neck.
So I had footage of that.
And I didn't even know I captured it at the time.
I captured it incidentally just because I was holding a camera up.
I wasn't looking at that when it happened.
But when I heard about it later and I reviewed my footage, I said, Yeah.
For everything that went on that day, I still think assaulting an officer with a taser to the neck is not acceptable.
And still, of course.
I did give them the footage.
So, when I came back to work after that, after that January, shortly thereafter, I did get a visit from the FBI and it was, they were just following up in every lead.
I didn't get the impression that they were after me for anything that I'd done.
It's just that they were, you know, checking names off a list.
Had a brief conversation with them, a little chit chat.
They're playing like the good agent, bad agent.
You know, so like the one guy starts off the interview and says, like, before we start, I got to ask you, where did you get that suit?
And so I tell them the story, much like I told you about how I got the suit.
And then the very next question is, so on January 6th, were you in Washington, D.C.?
Good Stories Today 00:06:30
And did you see anything violent at the time?
Which having learned from General Flynn, I immediately positively invoked my Fifth Amendment rights.
And they politely, you know, ended the interview at that point.
And I never heard from them again.
So smart.
I know, right?
Know your rights, you guys.
Before we switch to talking about the news, which Marcella and Owen will lead us on, I see socially Sherry on locals asked, does Brick plan to rebrand when JD Vance runs for president?
No, I don't plan to rebrand.
It's a really good question.
You know, when I initially, first of all, when I first got pulled up on stage, I had no social media accounts.
And so I had to think very hard about how to brand.
First of all, I had to think about, do I want to do this?
This is at a time when people were getting attacked in public for wearing a hat.
You know, I had to think about, do I really want to make a target of myself in this climate in 2018?
And so I purposely tried to pick a name that I felt was, you know, to use a term evergreen, Brick suit, emblematic of how most people remember first seeing me.
It's not tied to any one specific issue, although it is a metaphor for a border wall.
It is not just that.
And so, no, I will not be rebranding.
I will continue an America first coverage perspective.
And, you know, strong border controls is an evergreen issue.
It is never going away.
If there's ever another period of time where we lose control of our borders as we did under Joe Biden, we will be again at existential risk as a country of losing everything we've built over 250 years.
So, no, I will not be rebranding.
If that happens, we will all buy a brick suit suit and join you.
Thank you so much.
That's so interesting to talk to someone who's been on the ground like that.
And your persuasion, Scott is definitely smiling about that because he's a believer in it and you do it so well.
Can I toss this over to Owen and Marcella to talk about some news stories?
Take a sip, you guys, in between while they're setting up.
We'll grab a sip, okay?
Let's go.
Owen, you have to help me today.
All right.
I'm happy to do it.
I think we've got some good stories today.
But I do want to ask you a couple more questions.
So have you been involved with the actual border issue actively in making a lot of these things happen?
Because it seems like we've made tremendous progress in Trump's second term.
Have I been involved?
To the extent of my involvement, really, so far, remember, I was holding a full-time job at the time.
So, I would go to rallies and I viewed myself as, you know, I'm calling attention to the issue.
I'm getting out press bites, sound bites beforehand during the rally.
You know, I'm close enough.
The president would usually see me when he comes out.
And then, you know, if he wanted to use me as a prop during the rally, I was there.
It wasn't about, you know, it wasn't about so much about me wanting to be recognized at every rally.
It's just that, you know, low-key, if he wanted to be calling attention to that, I was kind of there as something he could point to.
And not just as a prop, but also as a really, this is important.
It's really, it's really as a proxy for all of his supporters.
You know, there's another group of people who go to all the rallies, the front row Joe's, which I'm sure many people are familiar with.
And so, you know, I believe that the president did like to recognize all of us on occasion because it reminds everybody out there of his supporters.
And, you know, have I been to the border directly?
No.
Have I covered those stories directly?
No.
That probably will change, though, in the coming years.
I am now fully retired and looking to do some more stuff.
I wasn't able to make it to Minneapolis, but I'm hoping to go to some other cities where similar operations occur in the future.
Yeah.
And I mean, there may be more rallies coming up too.
I know there's been some talk about doing that.
There's one on Tuesday in Iowa, and I am trying to get there.
Hey, one, I would like to add one thing on Butler, that chart that saved the president.
That chart became the most famous chart ever.
I used to make power, I was a PowerPoint guy back in corporate.
And when that chart came up and president looked at it, has anybody tried to make a suit of that chart?
No, there are people who are selling brick suits on Etsy right now.
I mean, there's a couple people, people, I get messages about that.
Really not something I can control.
There are other people who have kind of cashed in on it, but I have not.
No, okay.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Thank you.
I thank you, Brick Suit, because I know you've stayed in California.
And to be honest, you're a symbol for all of us that are silent, basically.
Obviously, not anymore for me.
But there's so much support for Trump and for dating bands and such policies.
But there's lots of Californians that have to be very quiet because they'll lose their job.
They'll do anything to them.
And there's also this social thing of like, oh, you like a Nazi, you like this, you like that.
And I really, you are a brave man.
You are absolutely a brave man.
And Scott appreciated you and loved you.
And I'm glad you're here with us.
And thank you for being the symbol.
Well, it's been my pleasure.
I'm glad to be here this morning.
And it's very early for me to be in the full suit, but you know, like maybe next time just the hat if I come back.
Negative Feedback Loop 00:10:02
So, you know, but probably the suit.
I think it's appropriate.
It's your choice for sure.
I'm reading all the feedback.
Everybody's so enjoying you and what you're saying and finding you interesting.
They're thanking you for your service.
And there's even been a few AI upgrades on your suit with different wall patterns.
So the options are endless.
Yes.
I'll let Ellen and Marcella take it away.
Oh, Shelly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just, I was going to say thank you for coming on.
Scott would have loved it.
Thank you.
Okay, so stay with us, Brick Suit.
We're going to talk some news and we'd love for you to chime in, okay?
Thanks.
Well, starting off with a little science, Eric Dolan, one of Scott's favorites from SciPost, is saying that maladaptive personality traits are linked to poor sleep quality in a new twin study.
So apparently, not getting enough sleep makes you a bad person.
It says all these traits were linked to worse sleep, including negative effectivity, detachment, dysinhibition, and psychoticism, which I guess is probably psychosis.
I think this clearly falls in the category of you could have just asked Scott.
Any one of us probably would have known if you don't get enough sleep, it probably makes you grumpy and does bad things.
So that's what I would expect Scott would have said on that one.
Marcella, what do you think?
Well, that's interesting.
He probably would have said maybe backward signs as well.
But I think it's funny because Scott, I know personally, you got like four hours, maybe three hours of sleep a day.
And he obviously didn't have any issues.
So it depends on how you're built.
But I think, I think, I don't know what others would think of that.
I just laughed at Scott would be like, oh, like, I hate sleeping.
It's such a waste of time.
Like, I could be doing things and whatever.
And I'm like, oh, my God.
I mean, it's so funny because I wish I'm the world's worst sleeper ever.
And I always laugh thinking how Scott was saying it was a waste of time.
And it's just so him to just be like, I got things to do.
I have ideas.
And God bless.
The other thing that I was thinking about, so sorry, just real quick, is that whenever Scott talked about twins, he went on a tangent about how it could be like the perfect crime if you have like a, what is it called?
The like an identical twin.
And it just made me laugh.
Go ahead, Sergeant.
All right.
Owen, on that study, so they say that people that don't sleep enough, they're becoming psychos or what?
Yeah, it's, let me just get back up to it.
It was, they said the personality was measured with the DSM-5, which is the thing that is, you know, basically seeing if you're mentally ill or not.
And it said they focused on negative affectivity, detachment, dishinhibition, and psychoticism.
And said all traits were linked to worse sleep.
Negative affectivity and detachment showed the strongest ties.
So I guess that means it probably just makes you much more negative and detached if you don't get enough sleep.
Yeah, Joseph Scott.
Quick question on that.
Is this a correlation causation on the study?
Like, is the sleep causing the issues or are the issues causing the lack of sleep?
Great question.
That's exactly the backward science that I think Marcella was getting at is that Scott would often say these studies are backwards.
They're measuring the, you know, the wrong thing.
And, you know, like there's often studies that he would talk about about like how people that go do things outside are better, you know, better off.
And then he would say, well, you know, if you are, if you're not healthy, you're not going to be able to go outside.
Like it's got to be a little backwards.
So yeah, I think this definitely could qualify for that.
Maybe someone who's a psycho or is very negative might have trouble sleeping.
So, yeah, you could be right.
That's the best part of those questions like that.
That's the best part of this section of the show with Scott does it because he teaches us all to look at the news from a different angle like that instead of just taking it from the whatever they tell us.
So, this is right.
This is the lesson.
Yeah.
So, getting into the politics, there's certainly a lot more controversy coming with the Minnesota protests and the church storming.
Apparently, there's some news that one of the people that led that storming of the church took home over a million dollars from an anti-poverty nonprofit that she led.
So, clearly, there's some vested interest there.
Looks like the nonprofit gave $700,000 in grants over six years.
She got like $936,000 in salary plus $200,000 in benefits.
So, she took more home than they gave out in grants, which seems like a pattern for a lot of these NGOs that they end up just keeping most of the money.
And I think the next story had to do with that as well, where Noam is saying that there are arrests coming.
I think they may have already happened now, because when the story came out, it said it's going to happen within hours.
But Christy Noam is saying they're going to be arresting these people for disrupting the church.
There has been one arrest so far.
A.G. Bondi has put it out, and Harmeet Dylan has also reposted it.
So, one of the maybe the same person you were talking about, I don't know, but one of the ringleaders, a woman who was instrumental in that, I think the one who was interviewed by Don Lemon outside has been arrested.
Fingers crossed that the Lemon himself will be arrested.
He's guilty.
I don't want him arrested if he's not guilty.
But if the evidence shows that he colluded, then that's on him.
I saw him in the church talking to the pastor.
I don't know how you could say he wasn't disrupting the service.
And he talked about it before even going in.
Like he brought coffee and donuts to these people, I think, and said, we're going somewhere.
I think he spit it out and said it was, I think he said it was a church, but he said, I can't tell you where we're going, but it's going to happen and you're going to see it live.
So he was fully aware.
Yeah, but he's black and gay, so he must be immune.
According to him, at least.
So there's that.
I hate to read that bad news, but the jury, even if it's a federal case, which I don't, I don't, it would be a federal case if Noam is involved, would be a Minnesota jury.
So correct.
It would be a Minnesota jury, but importantly, it would not be from necessarily from Minneapolis.
True.
It's pulled from all corners of the states.
And, you know, Minnesota outside of the outside.
Look, we don't want a stacked jury for our side in much the same way we don't want a stacked jury against us.
We want a fair jury.
So I think that you will see that they will be, you know, they will make sure that it's not just a jury just from Minneapolis proper.
True, true.
They probably would ask for the venue to change because of the prejudice in Minneapolis.
Yeah, it could be.
I mean, it's questionable whether or not they'd allow that.
I know there was the same kind of request with the George Floyd case, which was probably the most clear case of bias where it should have been changed to a different venue and they didn't.
But that was, in my opinion, just a lynching.
So, you know, it was horrible.
But we'll have to see.
Go ahead, Sergio.
Because it's on the same subject, if Don Lemon proves that he did not know that it was a church, like will that get him off?
Because Marcela, you're a lawyer, you know, no?
So if he knew that the lawyer would say it depends on a lot of things.
So, I mean, even if he knew it was a church, he could have said he didn't intentionally threaten anyone because I think you have to have the threat.
I'm not familiar with the FACE Act and the KKA Act, KKK Act, but I think there has to be more than just interrupting something.
So it would have to be, there would have to be subpoena different collected different documents like his phone and his information in the computer and what they were planning and who was behind it.
So it could lead to different type of charges once you investigate, but there is probable cause for arrest and for possibly more issues coming.
I'm laughing because V8G 360 on local said if Don Lemon is arrested, he will believe he is MLK Jr.
Yes, he will.
And also, I heard once they were asked to leave and they didn't, then that also turned into trespassing.
Board Peace Initiative 00:15:47
So I'm not a lawyer.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, there is another victory on this front as well.
The Beels Court apparently handed Trump, the Trump administration, a victory in terms of the force restrictions.
So there was a lawsuit saying that they were trying to stop ICE from being able to use force against protesters.
And there was an injunction against that.
And this was overturned.
So the appeals court overturned that.
And, you know, so the liberal judge that tried to handcuff ICE has now been struck down.
This is just a temporary victory.
I think they're still, you know, moving forward with the case, but at this point, they're allowed to use force and they can continue doing what they're doing.
All right.
So, I mean, I think to me that the theme today, though, should be just Trump winning because he seems to be winning so hard.
I want to turn our attention to what's going on in Davos.
And he has this framework that he agreed to for Greenland.
Apparently, it's not even just Greenland, it's like the whole Arctic cap or that whole region of the world.
And so, you know, he went in there with a pretty strong card to play that he said he was going to ramp up the tariffs.
And it looks like Europe and NATO back down.
I don't know that it necessarily means he's going to literally acquire Greenland, but it does seem like he's going to get some kind of national defense thing going there to protect that region against Russia and against China.
And so Rubio and Wickoff and Vance, who are the usual people to lead most of the most important negotiations, have been leading the talks there.
So I think that's still ongoing, but it looks like they have agreed to a framework and they at least got far enough with it that Trump said, I'm not going to go forward with the tariffs.
He did mention that he's not going to use force to take Greenland, which seemed like a big sigh of relief for everybody.
I don't know that anyone, well, I certainly never thought he was going to go invade Greenland with military force, but apparently he is saying that he's not going to do that.
But at the same time, there's a quote from him saying, you know, we probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, but I won't do that.
So he certainly is acknowledging that he could easily do that, but apparently he's taken that off the table.
But that's huge, a huge win that he'd be able to get, you know, better protection over Greenland and that area of the world.
Because as most of you are probably aware by now, it is a vulnerable spot in terms of both missiles and other attacks that might be coming from Russia or from China, especially when the region is a little more navigable.
You know, submarines can come through there and there isn't much else protecting us against that.
So that's like the most direct route from there to the United States.
And so, you know, any kind of increased national security there, I think, will be a huge win.
I love when he kept saying Iceland.
Sorry.
And then somebody said, do you think Iceland's like, oh my God, what did we do?
And he accidentally said Iceland.
Please, please make Iceland part of America.
I think one of the most important things, though, to look at that, the impending framework coming out of Greenland and the reports about it are the very significant clause that's in there is that sovereignty will be granted to the United States in small pockets of Greenland.
And that means it's not just the right for us to have a base.
It means that that piece of land will actually be America.
And that's important because if any of those pieces are on a coastline, we will have territorial rights to the ocean extending outwards to whatever the limit is from that point.
And that enables us to have more control over the navigation and shipping lanes that may be going by that land at the time.
So it's not just like an agreement to get bases done.
You know, these are going to be real outposts of America on the top of the world that we are going to employ for our safety.
And, you know, looking at Trump's negotiation strategy, it's pure Trump.
It's classic Trump.
Ask for much more than you need.
You know, apply some screws of public pressure and then get back to what you really actually wanted, which was the ability to make bases up there, have some mineral rights, control some of the sea lanes, and just take it back from there.
And if it eventually, you know, if a couple decades from now, it leads to the Greenlanders embracing us and voting to join America.
I mean, where are all these people, all these leftists in America who want to decolonize?
They're always talking about decolonization.
And yet here they are still ostensibly supporters of European colonialism in North America.
They should want Greenlanders to be able to choose where they would like to make their affiliation.
And that could still happen somewhere in the future.
One thing that's Gabriel said is how Trump created assets out of the air, right?
He didn't come with a basket of money, right?
He came with an idea that they could be guns around, right?
He also came up with the idea that, hey, Tadis might come down.
That's the offer.
There's nothing, he's not giving anything.
It costed us zero dollars to get this deal.
So that's the best part.
And when I saw him talking yesterday, he's saying I'm president of the planet now.
He's not, that's it.
That's what happened.
Everybody, just sit down.
I am in charge now.
It's a mess what you guys have been doing for the last five years here.
I'm going to fix it now.
So I think that's what it looks like to me.
From a persuasion point, that's the message I get.
What do you think, Gobin?
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, I think everything I'm hearing is that he's following what Scott has said Trump does, which is to always take the strongest position on every issue.
And he's been very direct, telling Europe that they need to follow America's example.
And, You know, he talked a lot about the migration problem in Europe, which is worse than it is here, frankly, and how it's kind of ruining the country, and they really need to turn that around.
And it really seems like a lot of the European leaders are really looking up to Trump at this point.
There are some that have come out to defend his point of view, and nobody really is opposing him very strongly.
And it's really bothering Gavin Newsom to the point where he was having a meltdown and saying, you know, he thought he should bring knee pads for the world leaders because they're, you know, sucking up to Trump so much.
And so it really seems like a huge victory in terms of just how Trump is being perceived by all the world leaders.
That he's clearly, you know, the big man on that stage.
And, you know, everyone's looking up to what he's doing.
And I think they're acknowledging all of his victories.
So it seems like he's just winning left and right.
And the other issue I would add to this at this point is the board of peace that he's putting together.
It's focused on Gaza, but it seems like he's trying to turn it into something even bigger than that, where I think he mentioned it might even replace NATO, this board of peace.
And that may just be another provocative statement on his part, but the persuasion around that I think is just incredible.
He invited Putin to join this Board of Peace, and apparently Putin accepted.
And he's even talking about paying the billion-dollar fee that Trump is asking for to be a permanent member of it.
And he's saying maybe he'll use some of those frozen funds that he can't use for anything else anyway.
So he may get that billion dollars from Putin.
And then Trump also invited the Pope to join.
And the Vatican said they're considering it.
And I just find that incredible.
Like, how could you say no to joining the Board of Peace as the Pope?
And, you know, we all know that the Pope is not very politically aligned with Trump, but how could he not say, I'm going to be part of this Board of Peace?
That's genius.
I didn't know about the Pope.
And he got the middle.
He got the medal already.
He's got a Nobel Prize, a peace prize already.
So he can call himself a medalist, you know.
Someone on locals named Rushdie has a few points to make, but he indicates that the Board of Peace itself is a kill shot linguistically because it drives you.
If you go against it, it's like an 80-20 subject where if you're going to not join, then that automatically puts you against peace.
So it's a high-ground maneuver, as he said, and as Scott would say.
So it's very interesting that he named it Board of Peace.
And it's also very catchy and repetitive.
So it drives them insane over in Europe.
I love it.
And I don't know.
I was telling Owen, and I think Erica and Sergio, that the European leaders just look like children compared to Trump.
They don't know what to do and how to even deal with the weapon-grade persuasion that he's using on them.
That's right.
Nikki on locals.
Thanks, Nikki.
She said that he launched the Board of Peace and 20 countries have signed on, including Egypt and Israel.
He's describing it as the most prestigious board ever formed and emphasizing a potential for Gaza reconstruction.
Okay.
Ellen?
Yeah, no, that I mean, I just think it's incredible that, you know, he's shaken the box again, and he's bringing, I mean, again, to me, like the most the most surprising thing is he actually invited Putin to join and he accepted because that to me extends this well beyond Gaza, right?
Like it, that has to be tied to what's going on in Ukraine.
Someone just put that France reject that Trump's offer of the Board of Peace from a neutral whales.
I mean, it's not surprising to me that some of the more less friendly European leaders might bow out, but they may end up changing their mind because they might realize they're being left out now.
And if the Board of Peace becomes something that's maybe as significant as the UN or NATO, they're going to want to be part of it.
And, you know, it's one of these things where once you get enough countries on board, everybody else wants a seat at the table.
So thanks for reminding us.
Gunner the Cat also reminds us that Scott often said Russia and the U.S. are natural allies.
And it's so true.
And I have no issue.
What do I know again?
But I have no issue with bringing Russia on board.
I'd rather work together.
You know, we're two countries that love our country and want to protect our countries and, you know, not join like a global initiative.
So I'm down with that.
I like it.
Yeah.
Rick Sue, what do you think?
Am I surprised that France has surrendered yet again?
No.
You know, certainly they were our greatest allies.
We are celebrating our 250th anniversary.
And you can make the argument, and you'd probably be correct that we would not be a country without the intervention and the assistance of France in the American Revolution.
So it has not always been the case that they've been this spineless, but I think certainly we can look at the present leadership and their most recent leadership, you know, at the top level, not Maureen Le Pen, because I think she's a great example of a populist nationalist leader that we're seeing in a lot of countries.
But Macron is not, you know, why is he wearing glasses?
Why is he wearing sunglasses again?
Did Brigitte give him one of those getting off the plane slaps one more time, like put the hand up in his face?
Did he get the stiff arm one last time?
I don't know.
He's just not a strong leader.
He doesn't project that.
And it doesn't surprise me that he doesn't have the vision of President Trump.
He's on his way out, right?
Trump doesn't want to invite him anywhere because he has no future right now.
Yeah, well, I know the polls are terrible for Macron.
Like it's just one of the lowest ever in history for a world leader.
I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but I know we've covered that in the past where the polls are just incredibly low.
It's like less than even the 25% that Scott talks about.
Like it's really bad.
So I don't think Macron has much of a future in his own country.
I think his wife might win more than him, you know?
If she's not still stuck in all the lawsuits against Candace Owens and everyone else.
All right.
Well, let me maybe we can end with a story that's on border border control.
So there's a record surge in DHS self-deportation app usage.
DHS is saying that the website traffic has surged 68% as thousands of people are using the app for voluntary departure.
Fox News is reporting on this.
And they're saying there's 102 million views, 67 million visitors versus 40 million prior.
And so, you know, this is part of the app offers a thousand dollar stipend and travel aid for people who want to self-deport.
And so far, we've had nearly 3 million illegals that have left the country.
2.2 million of those are self-deport and 675,000 have been deported.
So we've had the lowest U.S. border patrol apprehensions ever.
Fentanyl is down 50%.
And I think they're saying this has basically saved us probably $13.2 billion.
So huge victory.
A lot of lives, you know, with the fentanyl development, right?
Yeah, and that was a very important issue for some of the people.
Some of us are down.
You know, I think what you're talking about on the self-deportation, let's recognize this fact.
When Biden opened the borders, so many benefits were being extended to illegal aliens that for economic reasons, they decided to come to the United States.
It made sense.
There were a lot of carrots out for them to do that.
And, you know, I don't like that they came here, but I understand their reasoning.
But now it's a totally different inverted scenario.
The benefits are going away.
And now they are economic actors.
I think that they will begin to leave because not only do they get the assistance when they leave, which may have been ramped up recently.
People Doubting Voluntarily Leaving 00:01:37
I know it was at 2000.
I saw a story that may be even higher now.
But if they stay, you know, they risk everything.
They're not going to be able to sell off their possessions that they have here in the United States before they leave the country.
If they leave the country voluntarily, they have a chance of being able to come back in the future.
If they get caught, that chance is gone.
And so, you know, there's very strong economic incentives for these people to leave.
And, you know, I think people have been doubting.
People have been doubting that these deportations would be successful overall.
People have been doubting a lot of things.
And I'll just kind of a segue here.
I've seen, you know, with regards to people being arrested in Minnesota, I saw a lot of black pillars, a lot of people saying that nothing would ever happen.
I don't think it's any, for this audience, I think we all know the difference here.
If you stake out a position that nothing is going to happen, you're locked into that ideologically.
So instead of saying nothing's going to happen, just move a little bit over and say something could happen.
You don't know what the chances are that something could happen, but something good could happen in terms of what you want the eventual outcome, your best case scenario.
Something Already Happened 00:02:29
Don't lock yourself in here at the end of where nothing can happen.
Move yourself closer this way, saying something could happen.
And then adjust your feelings later about the eventuality of that when certain events happen.
Like today, there actually are arrests for that church invasion that happened just last weekend.
So did it happen the next day like we all, like many people wanted from, you know, one of these crime dramas on TV?
And a lot of people saying nothing's ever going to happen.
Well, something already happened.
So adjust.
Again, this is not necessarily for this audience, but it may be a way that you can explain it to people who you know who are in that black bill camp of nothing will ever happen.
Help nudge them over to something could happen.
And that's what we would call a great reframe, Brick Suit.
Thank you.
You guys, I'm going to wrap it up.
Shelly's going to say something.
The only things I wanted to let you know, first of all, Brick Suit, amazing.
Thank you so much.
Everybody wants you to come back.
So we hope you will join us again.
It was such a treat having you here.
Owen, Marcella, and Sergio.
I love you guys.
You're the bomb.
Sergio wants to say something.
I can't hear you.
Go ahead.
Can you guys hear Sergio?
I can't.
No.
Okay.
Okay.
So tomorrow is going to be a little bit of a shorter show, but we're going to be here.
All right.
And we have some guests lined up for next week, also.
And we're reading your comments on YouTube and locals and trying to check you guys out.
And thank you for the amazing feedback.
So we're going to turn it over to Shelly and we'll see you guys in the morning.
Yes.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you, Brixuit.
I just want to remind everybody that there will be a live stream honoring Scott's legacy.
It'll take place Sunday, this Sunday, January 25th, roughly around 11 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.
So I hope that you can all join in, as that's what Scott's wishes were.
So thank you, and we will see you tomorrow.
Export Selection