Real Coffee with Scott Adams - July 28, 2020


Episode 1073 Scott Adams: I'm Late. Grab Coffee.


Episode Stats

Length

59 minutes

Words per Minute

151.96538

Word Count

9,093

Sentence Count

618

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

16


Summary

A group of doctors who are pro-hydroxychloroquine and a group of other doctors who don't like it. Also, censorship on social media, and the face mask controversy. And a call-in from Scott Adams.


Transcript

00:00:01.000 Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum
00:00:09.000 Hey everybody!
00:00:10.000 You caught me a little bit behind the times.
00:00:14.000 I've got to get my studio in shape here and printing off my notes, closing my blinds,
00:00:21.000 getting into full Coffee with Scott Adams mode.
00:00:25.000 A little late because I wanted to put together a little whiteboard situation here.
00:00:32.000 So I was doing that while you were getting ready to come on live.
00:00:36.000 And is this the best day ever?
00:00:38.000 We don't know yet, but it might be.
00:00:41.000 It might be the best day ever.
00:00:44.000 Good morning.
00:00:46.000 Hey Omar.
00:00:48.000 Thanks for joining me.
00:00:50.000 And wouldn't you like to do a little thing we call the simultaneous.
00:00:53.000 Simultaneous sip?
00:00:54.000 I know you would.
00:00:55.000 And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or
00:00:58.000 a flask or a vessel of any kind.
00:01:01.000 Fill it with your favorite liquid.
00:01:03.000 I like coffee.
00:01:04.000 And join me now for the dopamine hit of the day.
00:01:08.000 The thing that makes everything better.
00:01:10.000 It's called the simultaneous sip.
00:01:11.000 And it happens now.
00:01:13.000 Go.
00:01:14.000 Excuse me while I grab my notes.
00:01:26.000 Thanks for waiting.
00:01:27.000 All right.
00:01:29.000 Well, I would say the biggest story of the day is those doctors.
00:01:35.000 Doctors.
00:01:36.000 I bet you all know what I'm talking about, right?
00:01:40.000 So, there was a, I guess Breitbart filmed a group of doctors who are pro-hydroxychloroquine.
00:01:48.000 And they were giving a little press conference outside somewhere and they were talking about
00:01:54.000 what they believed were the obvious medical benefits of hydroxychloroquine for fighting
00:02:00.000 coronavirus.
00:02:01.000 Now, of course, they are not in the, well, I don't know if they're in the medical majority,
00:02:07.000 but maybe the degree to which they trust the hydroxychloroquine might put them in the minority.
00:02:14.000 I think there are other doctors who would say, well, we don't know, but might be worth a shot.
00:02:19.000 So, let me give you my full analysis of the doctors.
00:02:26.000 Now, what makes the story interesting is that Facebook banned it after it had, I don't know, 14 million views.
00:02:33.000 And then Facebook banned it for giving the wrong information.
00:02:38.000 So, it was bad medical information, according to Facebook.
00:02:42.000 I think today that Twitter has banned it.
00:02:45.000 Am I right about that or not?
00:02:47.000 I might be wrong about that.
00:02:48.000 I know that Twitter was waiting, but I saw a few clips posted this morning that were blank.
00:02:54.000 And I wasn't sure if that's Twitter or where it was being pointed to that blanked it out.
00:03:01.000 But, so we have two stories in one.
00:03:05.000 Story number one is censorship.
00:03:08.000 Is it censorship if a social platform takes incorrect information off its platform?
00:03:18.000 Wait, wait.
00:03:20.000 You're going to say scot, scot, scot, but it wasn't wrong.
00:03:24.000 We're not talking about that yet.
00:03:26.000 So, we'll talk about whether it was right or wrong separately.
00:03:30.000 The real question is, does Facebook get to decide?
00:03:35.000 Why does Facebook get to decide what is correct medical information?
00:03:40.000 Now, I think what they do is that they look at the doctors and the FDA and they look at the World Health Organization and the CDC.
00:03:50.000 And I imagine what they do is say, well, if these people are making claims that are outside of the experts, the experts say they're wrong.
00:03:59.000 Who are we to, you know, argue?
00:04:02.000 But we're in this weird situation in which the experts have been consistently wrong.
00:04:07.000 And in the case of face masks, intentionally lying.
00:04:11.000 Think about that.
00:04:13.000 We're right in the middle of a situation where the experts have even admitted in terms of face masks.
00:04:20.000 They've admitted that they lied to us about a life and death medical situation.
00:04:26.000 Now, they had a good reason.
00:04:28.000 They had a good reason for doing it.
00:04:30.000 They were trying to, you know, maintain the supply so that the health care workers could get it.
00:04:35.000 And frankly, that was a good reason.
00:04:37.000 If they'd given us the good reason, I think maybe I could have acted appropriately and said, ah, I want to get that face mask maybe for myself.
00:04:45.000 But I will, you know, allow the N95s to be more available.
00:04:49.000 But other people might not.
00:04:51.000 So I don't even fault the experts for lying to the public in that case because they had a higher mission involved.
00:05:01.000 And, you know, you could argue it, but that's not something I care about too much.
00:05:05.000 The point is, if we know that your experts can lie to you, we don't have to wonder.
00:05:12.000 They just told us.
00:05:13.000 They said, yeah, we had a good reason, so we lied to you.
00:05:16.000 You don't have to wonder if it's a thing anymore.
00:05:19.000 It's now a thing.
00:05:20.000 They will lie to you for effect because they think there's some greater value there to somebody.
00:05:26.000 So here's my take on the medical part of it.
00:05:33.000 There's no right answer.
00:05:35.000 Because you really can't run a country where you can promote bad information to people the way it's being done.
00:05:43.000 Now, I wouldn't object to Facebook tagging the arguments to it if they just said, this has been tagged as a suspicious or non-confirmed medical opinion.
00:05:57.000 We're going to tag it so that you can't miss it.
00:06:00.000 And here's the counterpoint.
00:06:02.000 I'd be okay with that.
00:06:04.000 Wouldn't you be okay with this is a controversial or unproven medical claim?
00:06:11.000 Here's the counterpoint.
00:06:13.000 That would be okay with me.
00:06:15.000 Now, it would still confuse some people because people would still buy into the less credible view.
00:06:21.000 But the less credible view isn't always wrong.
00:06:24.000 That's the problem.
00:06:25.000 The less credible view just might be the new, what will be the new mainstream understanding later, but it hasn't grown yet.
00:06:33.000 So, it's a real tough one, but I would go with showing both sides.
00:06:38.000 That would be where I'd come out on this thing.
00:06:40.000 Now, let's talk about the credibility of the doctors.
00:06:45.000 I would say none.
00:06:47.000 None.
00:06:48.000 If you thought those doctors were credible, I'll tell you why I think they're not, and then you can make your decision.
00:06:58.000 First of all, how hard is it to get, I don't know, 20 doctors who are against the mainstream thinking?
00:07:06.000 Not hard at all, especially on social media.
00:07:09.000 I think they said that they had met on social media before getting together.
00:07:13.000 So, having a few dozen doctors who disagree with anything is easy.
00:07:20.000 So, what should you make of the fact that there were a few dozen doctors who have a different point of view?
00:07:26.000 The credibility you should put on that is nothing.
00:07:29.000 Just nothing at all.
00:07:30.000 Because you can get 20 people to say anything.
00:07:32.000 Especially if they're on the internet, so they can find themselves.
00:07:35.000 Because you'd only need what?
00:07:37.000 You'd need one person in every other state in the union to get 25 people.
00:07:44.000 I mean, it's a really low bar to get, you know, a dozen or 20 doctors to say the same thing that's different from the mainstream.
00:07:52.000 So, the fact that they are doctors, and they had doctor coats on, and they have doctor experience, you should count that as nothing.
00:08:00.000 Nothing.
00:08:01.000 So, in your mental calculation, the weight you should give their experience, in this specific case, just nothing.
00:08:09.000 Because you could get somebody to say anything.
00:08:12.000 Secondly, let's look at the quality of their arguments.
00:08:17.000 And I'm just going to say the thing that everybody's thinking.
00:08:22.000 But since it sounds racist, you have to say it carefully, because it's not racist.
00:08:27.000 The woman who was the most featured in that was a doctor who grew up, and I guess she practiced in Nigeria before she came here.
00:08:37.000 And I don't have to tell you that Nigeria is a country that is famous for scams.
00:08:45.000 If you say Nigerian email, what's the first thing you think?
00:08:50.000 It's not racist, because Nigeria just happens to be a country.
00:08:53.000 There's nothing about being black in this story.
00:08:56.000 So, if you're hearing it, you're hearing the wrong thing.
00:08:59.000 It's just a country.
00:09:00.000 But it's a country that's famous by brand for scams.
00:09:05.000 So, when your main doctor says, you know, I practiced in Nigeria, what does your uncritical brain do?
00:09:13.000 It just goes click.
00:09:15.000 Oh, somebody from Nigeria.
00:09:19.000 And again, it has nothing to do with ethnicity.
00:09:21.000 It's the country.
00:09:22.000 The country is simply famous for scams.
00:09:26.000 Now, that doesn't mean that this doctor is, therefore, not credible.
00:09:32.000 It just means that's how it feels, right?
00:09:35.000 So, I'm going to separate the things which are logical and you can count on from the things that you're just going to feel.
00:09:41.000 And that's in the category of things, well, I'm feeling like there's some lack of credibility, but it's not fair,
00:09:49.000 because it's not as if all doctors coming out of Nigeria have something in common.
00:09:53.000 They don't.
00:09:55.000 They don't.
00:09:56.000 But it feels that way.
00:09:58.000 So, that's the first thing that works against them, but it has nothing to do with whether they're right or wrong.
00:10:06.000 Here's the part that really got to me.
00:10:08.000 So, the same woman, the doctor whose name I can't remember, said that she studied, she had treated 350 patients,
00:10:17.000 given them all hydroxychloroquine with or without the other combo, I'm not sure, and claims that none of them have died.
00:10:26.000 So, nobody out of 350 people who came in to her for treatment, none of them, not one person out of 350 died.
00:10:36.000 So, that's credible, right?
00:10:38.000 That's pretty good information.
00:10:39.000 That's somebody who's really living it and doing it and working with real people.
00:10:44.000 And if 350 of them came in with this, and none of them died, that's pretty useful, right?
00:10:49.000 I mean, that tells you something.
00:10:52.000 Does it?
00:10:54.000 No.
00:10:55.000 No.
00:10:56.000 It doesn't tell you anything.
00:10:58.000 You should have learned exactly zero from that information.
00:11:02.000 Number one, is it true?
00:11:05.000 Is it true?
00:11:06.000 You don't know.
00:11:07.000 Do you know that she treated 350 patients with COVID?
00:11:12.000 You don't know that.
00:11:13.000 You might know.
00:11:14.000 You might know that she had 350 patients who came in with some kind of a symptom that she thought,
00:11:21.000 you know, I don't know, the tests take a long time, they're not available, I'll just give you some hydroxychloroquine.
00:11:28.000 And if you don't die, I'm going to count you as one of my cures.
00:11:33.000 Is that what happened?
00:11:34.000 I don't know.
00:11:35.000 You don't either.
00:11:36.000 We have no idea what happened.
00:11:38.000 We don't know if they were correctly identified or not.
00:11:41.000 How about this?
00:11:43.000 And I'm just going to throw this out there.
00:11:45.000 Would she know if 1% of her 350 people had died?
00:11:52.000 Would she know?
00:11:53.000 I don't know.
00:11:54.000 Maybe not.
00:11:55.000 I don't know if she'd know or not.
00:11:57.000 Do doctors track each of their patients so that they could tell you that three weeks later they died under somebody else's care?
00:12:07.000 I don't know.
00:12:08.000 Were these all her own patients or are they people who just needed care and paid for it in cash?
00:12:14.000 Does she really know what happened to her people?
00:12:18.000 I don't know.
00:12:19.000 Next, how unusual would it be if no people died out of 350?
00:12:29.000 Because here's what I'm thinking.
00:12:31.000 If you have severe COVID symptoms, where do you go?
00:12:36.000 Do you go to your general practitioner or do you go to the emergency room?
00:12:40.000 Because if the only people that this doctor sees are the people who had such mild symptoms they weren't even quite sure if they were sick, isn't that the group that gets better anyway?
00:12:52.000 That's the group that just gets better on their own.
00:12:55.000 If all the people who really felt like there was something going on, it was kind of advanced to the point where they couldn't breathe well or they had pretty bad symptoms, they might go to the hospital first.
00:13:07.000 So it's not clear that what she's seeing is a broad sample, but rather the people who have self-selected for mild symptoms.
00:13:16.000 If they have self-selected for mild symptoms and she gives them the mild symptom treatment and every single one of them avoids hospitalization, what have you learned?
00:13:29.000 Nothing.
00:13:30.000 I don't think you've learned anything statistically.
00:13:33.000 You've learned that it's maybe something you could look at.
00:13:36.000 That's definitely enough to say, well, we should study this.
00:13:40.000 If what you took away from it is, oh, we should look into this, it's worth putting some money into a rigorous study, yes.
00:13:46.000 But if you're saying, well, we have the answer now, no.
00:13:50.000 That's not even close to being credible.
00:13:53.000 All right.
00:13:55.000 Let's see.
00:13:59.000 And so there's the main thing.
00:14:02.000 Now, I have to tell you about this conversation that I just had online.
00:14:06.000 There's a doctor that you might be familiar with, Dr. Eric Feigel-Ding, with a, what do you call it, a hyphen?
00:14:16.000 Feigel-Ding is his last name.
00:14:18.000 And he's an epidemiologist and health economist, senior fellow at Harvard, 16 years of public health at Harvard.
00:14:26.000 And he works on the COVID Task Force Steering Committee and the COVID updates and analyses.
00:14:32.000 So it's somebody who, with a Harvard degree, lots of experience, and he works in this field.
00:14:39.000 So that's credible, wouldn't you say?
00:14:41.000 A very credible guy.
00:14:43.000 But I tweeted at him, and then we had some exchanges.
00:14:46.000 I won't go into the details.
00:14:48.000 But I gave him some advice.
00:14:53.000 And the advice is not medical advice, obviously.
00:14:56.000 Rather, I gave him communication advice.
00:15:00.000 And it took an interesting turn.
00:15:03.000 And here was my point.
00:15:05.000 That the people who believe hydroxychloroquine has potential, they generally believe that its potential is limited to early use, as opposed to, I'm already in the hospital and I'm in bad shape.
00:15:18.000 And there's a reason for that, a very specific reason, which is that by the time you get in the hospital, your medical condition has changed to this cyclotene storm or whatever.
00:15:28.000 I don't know what I'm talking about.
00:15:29.000 But the point of it is that the COVID progression is two different phases.
00:15:34.000 The first one where the virus is growing, which is where people think the hydroxychloroquine with the other two drugs might be useful.
00:15:42.000 And then there's the part where it turns into a monster of a problem that's almost a different problem.
00:15:49.000 People do not believe, largely, that it works in that situation where you're near death.
00:15:57.000 That has been tested and tested a number of times now in trials that look like they would pick it up if it did work.
00:16:05.000 And they show that it didn't.
00:16:07.000 So not only did they use too much of a dose on the people who were hospitalized, a dose that we would know would have some side effects or expect.
00:16:17.000 But it was too late.
00:16:18.000 It was the wrong use and the wrong situation.
00:16:20.000 And in some cases, they didn't use the three drugs.
00:16:23.000 So I pointed out to Dr. Eric Feigelding that when he responds to people saying that hydroxychloroquine might be useful, that when he responds to them with showing studies of the wrong thing, it makes him look less credible, not more credible.
00:16:43.000 In other words, it looks like somebody who's trying to scam you as opposed to someone who's trying to help you.
00:16:49.000 And let me be very careful in my wording here.
00:16:52.000 I'm not making an accusation that this doctor or any doctor is trying to scam you.
00:16:58.000 It's a communication point.
00:17:00.000 If I say to you, I think hydroxychloroquine works for an outpatient and you as the doctor professional say, no, it doesn't because we tested it on a completely different set of patients with a different situation who were near death and had a different medical problem and it didn't work for them.
00:17:20.000 Does your credibility go up or does it go down?
00:17:24.000 Well, it goes down, right?
00:17:26.000 Because what I hear is, how come you're not talking about the thing I'm talking about?
00:17:31.000 Why are you giving me studies about the wrong thing?
00:17:35.000 So I mentioned this to the doctor and he accused me of cherry picking, which was essentially correct, his accusation, because I did cherry pick out of a number of studies that he had in his thread.
00:17:48.000 So I had picked one to point out, why do we keep looking at the wrong thing?
00:17:53.000 And he said, but you're also not looking at the other ones I showed that were outpatient.
00:17:58.000 One of them was an 800 person outpatient study.
00:18:02.000 And then it goes to this.
00:18:05.000 Bring it in the whiteboard.
00:18:07.000 Kind of turns into this.
00:18:10.000 Why are you looking at only the hospitalized patients?
00:18:14.000 Oh, OK.
00:18:15.000 If that doesn't tell you the right thing, we don't have to look at them anymore.
00:18:19.000 But look at my studies of outpatient.
00:18:21.000 That's what you wanted, right?
00:18:22.000 You wanted to see some outpatient stuff, not hospitalist stuff.
00:18:26.000 So look at my study of hydroxychloroquine being used alone, to which I say, no, that's not it either.
00:18:37.000 I want to see.
00:18:38.000 And then and then the next thing goes to is hydroxychloroquine with one of the two things, either zinc or azithromycin.
00:18:46.000 You've seen the doctors say that they think it's one or the other or both that might be the key ingredient.
00:18:51.000 So I don't care about a study that only has one.
00:18:55.000 So what happened when I pointed out to the doctor, Eric Feigolding, I pointed out to him that the only three things that would tell us whether hydroxychloroquine in combination works for outpatient would be a study that studied it.
00:19:13.000 There's no study studying the only thing that people wonder about, right?
00:19:19.000 The people who think hydroxychloroquine might work.
00:19:22.000 And I haven't given you my opinion on this yet.
00:19:26.000 So hold on for that.
00:19:27.000 But the people who think it might work are very specific.
00:19:30.000 No, we didn't say it would work on the near death people.
00:19:34.000 No, we didn't say it would work alone.
00:19:36.000 No, we didn't say that we know which one of the two things is the magic.
00:19:40.000 Some people do, but they shouldn't.
00:19:43.000 We said the three of them together, given early.
00:19:47.000 Can you tell us if that works?
00:19:49.000 And you know what the answer is?
00:19:51.000 You can't.
00:19:53.000 So this is the Dr. Feigolding's response was when I pointed out that the very study that we would like to either debunk or confirm this assumption doesn't exist.
00:20:06.000 He didn't say it does exist because it doesn't.
00:20:10.000 Rather, he pointed out how difficult it is to do studies.
00:20:13.000 And he pointed out that this would be an exceptionally hard study because there would be three drugs involved and you'd have to follow them for a while.
00:20:22.000 They're expensive.
00:20:24.000 He mentioned there was something like $50,000 per person studied.
00:20:30.000 You would need thousands of them.
00:20:32.000 You'd want to do it fast.
00:20:33.000 It's really hard.
00:20:36.000 And then he mentioned that I don't quite understand the field, which is true, of course.
00:20:43.000 Now, what does this make you feel like?
00:20:48.000 If your proposition is this, that hydroxychloroquine with these two drugs might be good for outpatient only, what happens when somebody shows you the wrong study and you say that's the wrong study?
00:21:00.000 And they show you another wrong study and they show you another wrong study and you say that's the wrong study because this isn't really hard to understand.
00:21:11.000 Give me the three things for outpatient only.
00:21:14.000 That's it.
00:21:15.000 That's all I want.
00:21:17.000 And then once these three types of studies, which are the wrong study, have been debunked as being useful in this conversation, it turns into it's hard to study things.
00:21:28.000 Well, isn't that a reason to use it?
00:21:31.000 It's hard to study is the reason to prescribe it because it's hard to study.
00:21:38.000 And the upside benefit would be, if it worked, and I'm not saying it does, if it worked, it would be incredible.
00:21:48.000 It would be incredible.
00:21:51.000 So, given that the risks at the very small dosage that these doctors on this banned video were talking about, they're talking about a pill or two every week, something like that.
00:22:02.000 I mean, a really low dosage as a prophylactic.
00:22:05.000 And, again, it hasn't been studied as a prophylactic in a way that shows it works.
00:22:11.000 So, I have to ask you, what is your impression of somebody who would take you through the argument in this direction by only misdirection?
00:22:24.000 So, my conversation with doctors who are anti-hydroxychloroquine and others always follows the misdirection path.
00:22:33.000 You can't really get them to talk about the thing that you need to talk about.
00:22:37.000 They want to talk about other stuff.
00:22:39.000 Why is that?
00:22:41.000 Now, here's how I left my conversation with Dr. Feigolding.
00:22:49.000 I said that, obviously, I agree that it would be hard to do the studies.
00:22:54.000 I'm just pointing out that they don't exist, and therefore we can't make a conclusion about something that hasn't been studied.
00:23:01.000 Somebody says, there's a lot of rumors about Dr. Fauci having once been in favor of hydroxychloroquine for coronaviruses in general.
00:23:11.000 But I haven't looked into that to know if that's true or not.
00:23:15.000 And then some people are asking whether Fauci himself is on hydroxychloroquine, which would be a real interesting question.
00:23:22.000 We'll never find that out, I don't think.
00:23:25.000 But it is an interesting question.
00:23:28.000 Here's what I would settle for if we can't have a study.
00:23:33.000 And I want you to see how much trouble this will get me into, okay?
00:23:36.000 So I'm going to say something very unscientific, and all of you should be smart enough to know what's wrong with it, all right?
00:23:43.000 If you can't tell what's wrong with it, you haven't been paying attention.
00:23:46.000 Here is what would make me happy.
00:23:49.000 Tell me how many people have gotten the three drugs, not just hydroxychloroquine, but all three, the zinc and the azithromycin 2,
00:23:58.000 how many people got them as outpatients and then later died?
00:24:04.000 Because I'll bet we could find that out.
00:24:07.000 Could we find that anybody has ever died taking these three drugs early?
00:24:13.000 Like ever.
00:24:15.000 Has anybody ever died?
00:24:16.000 Do you know the answer to that?
00:24:18.000 I don't.
00:24:19.000 Because these doctors yesterday in this banned video were claiming that it's, they even used the word cure, which is I think why they got banned.
00:24:28.000 But don't you think that we could, without doing a formal study, could we not at least know that one piece of data?
00:24:39.000 Is that discoverable without resort to, you know, a formal study?
00:24:47.000 If we have the death certificate, do we also know how soon before the death, which would tell us if they got it early enough,
00:24:55.000 do we know how soon before the death they had all three drugs in their system?
00:25:00.000 You know, would it be on the records?
00:25:03.000 Because if you told me, Scott, we've looked and we haven't found anybody who's ever died,
00:25:09.000 if they got this prior to hospitalization and they took all three, what if it's zero?
00:25:17.000 Right?
00:25:18.000 Right?
00:25:19.000 Now, if you had to make me bet, I would bet it's not zero.
00:25:24.000 I would bet, you know, at least people who had comorbidities would die.
00:25:29.000 Maybe there are plenty.
00:25:30.000 There could be hundreds of thousands.
00:25:33.000 I don't know.
00:25:34.000 But wouldn't you like to know if hundreds of thousands of people who took the three drugs in combination early as outpatient,
00:25:43.000 wouldn't you like to know if even one of them died?
00:25:46.000 Even one?
00:25:47.000 You don't know that, do you?
00:25:50.000 Tell me how many died and let me decide if that matters to me.
00:25:55.000 So let's say, for example, that we could find that information
00:25:58.000 or we could find it at least statistically from, let's say, one hospital.
00:26:02.000 Somebody says, yes, FDA did a study.
00:26:06.000 No, they didn't.
00:26:08.000 No, they didn't.
00:26:11.000 But here's the thing.
00:26:13.000 Maybe just one's hospital.
00:26:15.000 If they could study just their patients, if there were enough of them,
00:26:18.000 and that tell us, did even one die with these three drugs in them?
00:26:24.000 And if so, was there anything comorbidity-wise that we should know about that person?
00:26:29.000 But here's my bottom line.
00:26:32.000 It is obvious that there's, either by intention or by mistake, we are being misled on how to look at this,
00:26:43.000 which is different from me saying, oh, this is a great drug, you should all be taking it.
00:26:47.000 How the hell would I know?
00:26:49.000 I'm not a doctor.
00:26:50.000 Don't take my medical advice.
00:26:52.000 It's just saying that the way this is being presented to us is as a fraud would present it.
00:26:58.000 Which is not to say that the people involved are frauds.
00:27:01.000 It's just saying that the way it's being presented is the way you would present it if you were trying to defraud somebody.
00:27:07.000 It would look exactly like this.
00:27:09.000 So if you're in a situation that looks exactly like a fraud, it doesn't mean it is this time.
00:27:15.000 It could be that everybody's telling you the truth.
00:27:18.000 It just doesn't feel like it.
00:27:20.000 If I'm being honest, it doesn't feel like it.
00:27:23.000 All right.
00:27:24.000 I spent most of my time looking at that thing, so here are some other things going on in the world.
00:27:35.000 I told you that the biggest factor in Trump's reelection would be something completely outside his control,
00:27:43.000 which is what happens to other countries who got a handle on coronavirus early.
00:27:48.000 My assumption has been that since there is no, there's no workable vaccine yet,
00:27:55.000 and nobody's really that close to herd immunity, I doubt, anyway.
00:27:58.000 I don't know that, but I don't think herd immunity is too close.
00:28:02.000 My assumption was that between now and election day,
00:28:05.000 the countries that had done such a good job, because they're so smarter,
00:28:09.000 and their leaders are so better, and they're way better than mean old orange man bad,
00:28:14.000 that they would, instead of them doing a good job and then just taking it to the finish line,
00:28:20.000 it seemed almost guaranteed, from what we know about the virus,
00:28:25.000 it seems almost guaranteed that the other countries are going to have the same experience we did,
00:28:31.000 which is you get a handle on it, then you try to loosen up,
00:28:34.000 then you have to get a handle on it again, then you try to loosen up.
00:28:37.000 So, we're already seeing the first headline of this in CNN.
00:28:41.000 Quote from CNN this morning.
00:28:43.000 Even countries that got coronavirus under control are now struggling.
00:28:48.000 That's deeply concerning for the rest of the world.
00:28:51.000 That sentence says Trump gets reelected 100%.
00:28:57.000 I'll read it again.
00:28:58.000 Just listen to the sentence, and then even try to imagine that Trump would not get reelected.
00:29:05.000 Here's the sentence, even countries that got coronavirus under control are now struggling.
00:29:10.000 That's the election.
00:29:12.000 That's it.
00:29:13.000 That's the whole election right there.
00:29:15.000 Because if the other countries, with all of their wisdom,
00:29:18.000 and not burdened by an orange man bad,
00:29:21.000 if they have some kind of average experience,
00:29:24.000 and we're somewhere in the average,
00:29:26.000 all it's going to show you is that leadership didn't matter.
00:29:29.000 That's all it's going to show you.
00:29:31.000 Leadership didn't really matter.
00:29:32.000 And I think that's where we're going to be.
00:29:36.000 Now, here's another thing that was predictable yet funny.
00:29:39.000 The black people in Portland who are protesting are feeling there's a little lack of clarity about what the protests are about these days.
00:29:51.000 Because apparently the white people who have completely taken over the Black Lives Matter protests.
00:29:58.000 You know, I swear, I can say this because I'm a white person.
00:30:01.000 Do white people ruin everything?
00:30:03.000 Like, is there any exception?
00:30:05.000 If black people get anything going that's good, isn't there going to be some white person that comes in and just freaking ruins it?
00:30:12.000 I gotta say, if there's one complaint that black people make all the time that I just, you know, I just nod my head and go,
00:30:20.000 Yep, you're right on that one.
00:30:22.000 I might argue about some other stuff.
00:30:24.000 Now, anytime black people do something good, white people will come in and ruin it.
00:30:29.000 It's so consistent.
00:30:31.000 And it looks like that's what's happening with the protests.
00:30:36.000 I think if the protests had stayed with, you know, the George Floyd thing, stayed a black people trying to make the world better, white people helping them out, you know, supportively, that could have been a good thing.
00:30:49.000 But it looks like Antifa just hollowed them out and is using them as a, you know, a disguise for whatever they're trying to do to take over the country, I guess.
00:30:59.000 So, I believe that we could, we could predict at this point that the white and black protesters who believe they were on the same side are soon discovering they are not so much on the same side anymore.
00:31:14.000 Somebody, somebody's asking me in the comments, will you take the vaccine?
00:31:19.000 Well, there's not the vaccine.
00:31:22.000 There are vaccines.
00:31:24.000 I saw a clip in which Bill Gates was being asked about, I guess, one of the first vaccines.
00:31:31.000 I figure which one.
00:31:32.000 Maybe Moderna.
00:31:33.000 But that it has pretty, pretty hard side effects because the dosage is pretty high.
00:31:40.000 Now, if the first vaccine that's available has known side effects, meaning you're definitely going to get a side effect, and it's ugly, I might wait.
00:31:51.000 I might wait.
00:31:52.000 So, I don't have an answer to your question.
00:31:55.000 I would need to know a little bit more about the first one that's available.
00:31:59.000 I wouldn't rule out taking it.
00:32:02.000 I wouldn't rule it out.
00:32:04.000 But I'm not 100% there yet.
00:32:07.000 I'd need to know a little bit more if it's knowable.
00:32:10.000 Now, the other thing that's going on with the protest slash looting slash violence is the question of whether it's violent or nonviolent.
00:32:25.000 Now, you've seen probably by now the videos of Jerry Nadler being asked if the protests are violent, and he says they're not.
00:32:36.000 And then they've cleverly put the scenes of all the fires and the protest stuff in the background.
00:32:42.000 Now, I don't know that it's useful to argue about whether they're violent or nonviolent because it's clearly mostly nonviolent people with a core of violent people, and everybody agrees with that.
00:32:53.000 So, whether you want to call that nonviolent or call it violent is really just the word you're putting on it.
00:33:00.000 It's not really helping anybody's understanding.
00:33:02.000 But clearly, there are people trying to overthrow the country, and they say that directly.
00:33:07.000 I don't think there are many of them, and I'm not terribly worried that they will succeed in overthrowing the country.
00:33:14.000 I do think that some of these cities have very weak mayors and that they just don't have a solution for what do you do about the federal courthouse, etc.
00:33:23.000 But the most amazing thing that's happening about all this, if we could maybe take a moment to show appreciation for how unviolent the police and DHS have been.
00:33:41.000 Because I don't know if I would have the same level of restraint as the police that we're seeing.
00:33:49.000 They are really, really restrained.
00:33:51.000 Of course, you're going to see the video of somebody you think went a little too far.
00:33:55.000 But as a rule, the law enforcement in every forum that's handling these things, they're doing a really good job, like an A-plus job, in my opinion.
00:34:07.000 Now, of course, you'll have individual incidents that are imperfect.
00:34:12.000 But overall, am I wrong?
00:34:15.000 Overall, I would say that the law enforcement, including DHS, are not just doing a good job.
00:34:24.000 I mean, it looks like they're doing a really good job.
00:34:28.000 Like, really good job.
00:34:30.000 One of the best jobs you've ever seen anybody do a job.
00:34:34.000 And here's why I say that.
00:34:36.000 They have limited the damage now to certain blocks.
00:34:40.000 So that's good.
00:34:42.000 It's not growing.
00:34:43.000 It's now constrained.
00:34:46.000 They did it without causing a revolution.
00:34:49.000 In other words, it would have been easy to overreact.
00:34:52.000 A number of them are being blinded, intentionally blinded by lasers.
00:34:57.000 If somebody intentionally blinds you, or let's say somebody intentionally blinds your partner right next to you, and you see where it came from, in my opinion, you should be able to shoot to kill.
00:35:12.000 Because a laser attack on somebody's eyes, maybe not legally, is a lethal force.
00:35:20.000 I don't know how you define that, but trying to blind somebody, I can get where you say it's not technically lethal, but in my opinion it should be the death sentence.
00:35:31.000 Blinding somebody with lasers should be the death sentence, if you did it intentionally.
00:35:37.000 So the restraint of all these people is just incredible.
00:35:40.000 They're being hit in the heads with objects.
00:35:42.000 Have you seen the amount of solid objects that are flying toward them?
00:35:47.000 And they just are taking it.
00:35:49.000 It's amazing.
00:35:51.000 Amazing.
00:35:52.000 And, you know, you don't take a moment to kind of put yourself in the heads of these other people and say, how hard was this?
00:35:59.000 Remember, in Portland, it's been 60 days of this.
00:36:02.000 How many of those police officers have been out there for much of that entire 60-day period, having stuff thrown at them?
00:36:10.000 Do you know how much PTSD you would have if you went out every night and solid objects were whizzing past your head?
00:36:17.000 And you're watching your co-workers go down, blinded, you know, concussions.
00:36:22.000 And every day, you go out there and do that again.
00:36:25.000 And nobody's asking you to fight back.
00:36:27.000 They're asking you to take it.
00:36:29.000 Incredible.
00:36:31.000 Incredible.
00:36:32.000 So, a little applause for the law enforcement people.
00:36:42.000 Now, of course, as you know, the bad protesters are trying to get some violence going because that will work for their cause.
00:36:50.000 But the longer the law enforcement people can hold the line, the longer that doesn't work.
00:36:57.000 And, you know, you can maybe decrease their energy over time.
00:37:02.000 It hasn't happened as quickly as I hoped, but I think it's happening.
00:37:08.000 All right.
00:37:09.000 Somebody says serious bodily injury is typically enough for lethal self-defense.
00:37:14.000 But, you know, that's generally true.
00:37:17.000 But serious bodily injury is usually in the context of it could have killed you.
00:37:23.000 All right.
00:37:24.000 If somebody stabs you and you didn't die, you know, obviously that would be the case where you could shoot them if they were trying to stab you or already had.
00:37:34.000 But that's a case where you could have died.
00:37:38.000 In the case of the laser, there really isn't any chance you could die.
00:37:42.000 It is just grievous bodily injury.
00:37:44.000 So it's weird in that sense.
00:37:46.000 You know, you wouldn't bleed out per se.
00:37:49.000 So I don't know what the law would say about that.
00:37:53.000 No reports on daytime troop relief.
00:37:55.000 Yeah, we don't know too much about how often they're being relieved.
00:37:59.000 But I don't think you could assume that any of them are going to be mentally the same after this is over.
00:38:05.000 How many days could you be outdoors at night with people throwing hard objects at you and you only have to be looking in the wrong direction to be basically have your brain scrambled?
00:38:16.000 It's pretty bad.
00:38:18.000 All right.
00:38:19.000 Let's brainstorm about what it would take for Trump to get reelected.
00:38:28.000 You ready?
00:38:29.000 What would it take for Trump to get reelected?
00:38:32.000 Well, I think the economy probably is not going to be a full V because if things don't reopen, there won't be enough new jobs.
00:38:41.000 So I think you're going to see the economy improved but stalled in terms of jobs.
00:38:48.000 I think you're going to see the Republicans being a little cheap on the relief package for people.
00:38:53.000 I think that will hurt them.
00:38:55.000 But maybe not with the people who are necessarily going to vote.
00:38:59.000 So it might not hurt them that much.
00:39:02.000 Oh, the AG bar hearing is starting pretty soon and that's going to be amazing.
00:39:08.000 So here's what I think Trump should do to improve his chances.
00:39:13.000 Number one, avoid an obvious mistake.
00:39:16.000 All right.
00:39:17.000 Because at the moment, I think he's on a glide path to victory.
00:39:21.000 Because until until Joe Biden has a vice president, there isn't going to be much of a target there.
00:39:29.000 And whoever he picks as vice president will probably hurt him.
00:39:33.000 That's the funny part about it.
00:39:35.000 No matter who he picks, it's going to hurt him because it's going to be a new person who has a new set of targets.
00:39:41.000 Like it's somebody who did something wrong, something that even Democrats don't like.
00:39:46.000 It'll be there.
00:39:47.000 Trust me, whoever he picks.
00:39:48.000 So going after Biden is kind of a hard challenge for Trump because Biden does not seem up to the task.
00:39:57.000 And it feels like you're beating a baby harp seal.
00:40:00.000 It doesn't feel like a fair fight.
00:40:02.000 There's something about it that just doesn't feel right because Biden is so degraded.
00:40:05.000 If that changes, then maybe Trump could go harder at him.
00:40:10.000 But as long as he's looking feeble and hiding in his basement, Trump can't do what Trump does best, which is go hard against somebody you hate.
00:40:19.000 One of the best things that Trump had going for him when he ran against Hillary Clinton was Hillary Clinton.
00:40:26.000 Because no matter how excited you were about voting for Trump, weren't you also a little bit excited about voting against Hillary?
00:40:35.000 That was a twofer.
00:40:36.000 That was a twofer.
00:40:37.000 You could get Trump, but you could also hurt Hillary if he didn't like Hillary.
00:40:42.000 But there are any, I don't think I've heard, I can honestly say I've heard zero people searching my memory.
00:40:50.000 I've heard zero Republicans say that they want to vote against Biden, meaning that there's something wrong with him in particular.
00:40:58.000 Now, of course, some people don't want his mental situation in the job and some people don't want a Democrat, but you don't hear the talk like you heard about Hillary.
00:41:07.000 Hillary. Hillary Clinton was hated, hated individually.
00:41:12.000 Now, some are going to say it's because she was a woman and I don't think so.
00:41:15.000 I don't think that's why.
00:41:16.000 I think there are some personalities that attract hate.
00:41:19.000 The way that Trump attracts hate from the left, it's just the same thing.
00:41:23.000 It's not a gender thing.
00:41:26.000 But Biden doesn't do that.
00:41:28.000 Biden does not make us hate him.
00:41:30.000 I actually kind of like Biden.
00:41:32.000 Could I hang out with Biden and have a good time?
00:41:36.000 Probably, probably.
00:41:38.000 Even people on the other side say this all the time.
00:41:41.000 They say he's a good man.
00:41:43.000 So that really takes the biggest club away from Trump, which is he would love to be just pounding on Biden every day and having his audience love it.
00:41:54.000 Because it's like, ah, did you see what he did to Biden today?
00:41:58.000 But it doesn't feel as good as when he would go after Hillary.
00:42:04.000 When you heard crooked Hillary, it made you happy because you knew it made her sad.
00:42:09.000 Right?
00:42:10.000 There was a little bit of schadenfreude in there.
00:42:11.000 If you hear the president say something that would be devastating for Biden to hear, let's say something about his mental decline.
00:42:18.000 That's gotta hurt.
00:42:19.000 That's gotta hurt.
00:42:21.000 It doesn't feel as good, does it?
00:42:23.000 So he needs a vice president so there's a stronger target and it will give Trump something to work with.
00:42:30.000 So maybe that'll make a difference.
00:42:32.000 I think, as I said, this coronavirus, if it gets out of control in other countries, it will make Trump look better.
00:42:40.000 And that will matter a lot.
00:42:42.000 And then, you know, there are all these wild cards.
00:42:45.000 What if it turned out that hydroxychloroquine actually works?
00:42:49.000 What if it does?
00:42:51.000 You know, I'll give you my current estimate.
00:42:53.000 Based on what we know at the moment, 50% chance.
00:42:58.000 Sort of a 50-50 that it would make some difference.
00:43:02.000 Because as I say, the studies are not conclusive, but neither are they dismissive.
00:43:09.000 So, I think Trump also has the opportunity to do a bunch of things that are, let's say, counterfactual to the rumors about him.
00:43:22.000 So here are some things, and these are really important, and they're in the category of the dog not barking.
00:43:28.000 So these are the things he's not doing that are important and the ones that he is doing.
00:43:34.000 One of the things he's doing that's important is that he can do things like the executive orders for lowering drug costs.
00:43:41.000 So Trump can go into elections saying, I just did these executive orders, and I lowered your drug costs.
00:43:48.000 Now, let's say he succeeds. I don't know if he will, but it looks like it's a good shot.
00:43:52.000 If he succeeds, he's going to be going into the election with healthcare success.
00:43:57.000 He should claim also the telehealth across state lines, and he should take some accomplishments.
00:44:04.000 Now, Biden, of course, will be fighting with his own team who says, anything short of universal healthcare, single payer is not good enough.
00:44:13.000 So Biden won't even have an argument that his own side completely likes.
00:44:18.000 At the same time that Trump is going to say, well, you guys keep arguing. I just lowered your drug costs.
00:44:24.000 It's going to be a pretty strong argument.
00:44:26.000 So he should look good on healthcare.
00:44:28.000 He's going to look good on immigration because people are thinking about it differently now in coronavirus times.
00:44:34.000 I think that the George Floyd stuff has discredited very much, I think it discredited the people trying to discredit President Trump.
00:44:45.000 Meaning that the Black Lives Matter people by teaming up with Marxists, by teaming up with Antifa, have discredited that whole thing.
00:44:55.000 And as we watch the cities on fire, at least small parts of things on fire.
00:45:01.000 It just doesn't feel good, doesn't look right, and it makes Trump look stronger.
00:45:06.000 So every day that there's a new protest, Trump gets stronger in the public because they like law and order.
00:45:13.000 Now, Trump has been weak with the law and order, I'm sorry, he's been weak with the, I guess, the suburban moms.
00:45:21.000 What is it that suburban moms like more than law and order?
00:45:26.000 Not many things.
00:45:28.000 So the group that will be most concerned about this lack of law and order should be the very group that he wants to attract.
00:45:36.000 I would be surprised if the president doesn't take advantage of packaging up all the hoaxes and trying to convince Democrats that their view of the world is hoax determined.
00:45:50.000 In other words, he talks about the Russia collusion hoax a lot, but I think it's powerful when you put them together.
00:45:58.000 So he could say, look, you believe the Russia collusion hoax, you believe, it's hard for him to say this because it would cause more trouble, but I can say it.
00:46:06.000 You believe the fine people hoax.
00:46:08.000 You believe the ingesting disinfectants hoax, and you can go right down the line of all the hoaxes.
00:46:18.000 And I think that the more it's pointed out how many hoaxes have defined the Democrat point of view, that you can at least give them some uncertainty about their news sources, which might help a little bit.
00:46:30.000 So I think he'll be good enough on the economy compared to Biden, good enough on health care compared to Biden, who won't have a good coherent plan that everybody likes.
00:46:41.000 I think he'll be good enough on race, weirdly, because I think all this, the race riot stuff backfired.
00:46:51.000 And I think that whenever Biden gets a vice president, he will be weakened by it, because there'll be somebody who doesn't like that vice president on his own team.
00:47:01.500 So, and everybody will think the vice president is going to be the president anyway, so that won't matter.
00:47:12.120 Your comments are all over the board.
00:47:15.120 A bong is a stoner's best friend.
00:47:17.180 Okay, that totally goes into our topic.
00:47:21.000 I don't bet on it.
00:47:27.640 I'm just looking at your comments.
00:47:31.060 The hydrochloroquine hoax will bust this baby wide open.
00:47:37.480 I don't think that we're going to know if hydroxychloroquine works or doesn't by Election Day.
00:47:42.800 Do you?
00:47:43.180 I think the president might do something shocking on immigration, maybe more shocking than he's done.
00:47:59.180 Just to get his base fired up, that might happen.
00:48:01.940 Yeah, you can actually hear my dog snoring, can't you?
00:48:03.980 The red pill about the media.
00:48:08.380 I don't know if people are ready to understand that the thing they thought was the news is not the news.
00:48:14.900 I've had this conversation with one of my smartest and most well-informed friends who buys into completely the New York Times, CNN, NPR view of the world.
00:48:25.660 And I tried to explain to him that he's living in the past, a past when those news sources could be trusted to give you something closer to an objective view of the world.
00:48:39.260 But he doesn't understand that we don't live in that world anymore, and that the news is literally just propaganda at this point.
00:48:48.700 And he's believing the propaganda just the way he believed the news back when it was something like news.
00:48:56.200 Somebody says, my liberal boyfriend is coming around to the hoaxes.
00:49:00.120 You know, the hoaxes are the most, I think the hoaxes are the most brittle part of the left's bubble.
00:49:12.880 Once you point out how many hoaxes have informed their entire worldview, it's got to start to chip away a little bit, just a little bit.
00:49:24.460 Oh, this can't be true.
00:49:26.020 Somebody is saying in the comments that Nadler was in a car accident, and so the bar hearing is delayed.
00:49:32.820 Is that true?
00:49:33.920 Can somebody confirm that?
00:49:35.660 Because that would be the weirdest thing in the world.
00:49:40.960 Set up the border catapults.
00:49:42.980 Be nice.
00:49:45.000 All right.
00:49:45.820 The hearing is delayed.
00:49:47.020 Nadler's involved in a car accident.
00:49:48.420 Well, I guess we'll have to find out about that.
00:49:52.060 Tariffs against China for climate justice.
00:49:54.340 Well, you know, I think the China situation is also incredibly good for Trump right now, because I can't think of a better contrast.
00:50:04.800 If you looked at, you've got Joe Biden, who you think is a little too close to China, right?
00:50:10.620 At the same time that China has gone from a friendly adversary, if I could say that, a frenemy, if you will, somebody that we want to do business with, to somebody that we can't trust whatsoever and are going to try to do less business with and are intentionally entering a Cold War with.
00:50:29.920 I think the country's mood either is or will be so anti-China, partly because of the coronavirus, so anti-China that the anti-China candidate is going to look like the right choice.
00:50:44.600 That's Trump.
00:50:45.880 Now, when I say anti-China, it's the best possible situation because Trump was so pro-Xi and pro-Trade Deal.
00:50:57.540 So, in a sense, Trump became Nixon goes to China, if you will, sort of the reverse of that.
00:51:05.180 So, Nixon, you know the famous Nixon went to China story?
00:51:08.820 He was the hardest voice against China, so if he could go and be their friends, that meant it was okay, because he was the hardest voice against them.
00:51:17.580 So, his team would say, all right, all right, if you're okay with them, I guess we can at least talk to them.
00:51:24.640 Trump did the opposite.
00:51:26.220 Trump went in with the, I'll be your friend, I'll show you full respect, we can both get rich, this will be great, let's work together, hand in hand.
00:51:36.020 And then, it didn't work.
00:51:38.480 So, Trump has showed us that the Nixon goes to China doesn't work.
00:51:44.700 He proved it.
00:51:45.540 He proved it by giving them every benefit of the doubt, working with them legitimately, seriously, trying to really make something work, and then finding out it doesn't.
00:51:56.040 And that they were wildly stealing our intellectual property, even right now.
00:52:01.000 That's why the Houston consulate got closed, the Chinese consulate, because they had stolen so much intellectual property, allegedly.
00:52:08.720 So, Trump is just 100% right on China, it looks like it.
00:52:15.500 He was right to try it the way he did, and he was right to find out for sure if that could work or not, and he does now.
00:52:24.440 Now he found out.
00:52:25.500 We would not have gotten that with Biden.
00:52:27.520 So, he's better on China.
00:52:29.720 I think he's, basically, he's better on everything except climate change, and he has a kill shot for climate change if he uses it.
00:52:37.020 Do you know what the kill shot for climate change is?
00:52:40.100 That even Biden is in favor of nuclear energy.
00:52:44.260 That's pretty much the whole argument.
00:52:46.720 Trump will be running against a candidate who is also in favor of nuclear energy.
00:52:52.080 That's it.
00:52:53.380 That's the whole argument right there.
00:52:54.900 You could take climate change right off the table.
00:52:57.940 Somebody says, it's easier to accept a lie than to accept you were lied to.
00:53:09.280 Yeah, that's another way to explain cognitive dissonance, I suppose.
00:53:14.280 Somebody says in the comments, no one can say that Trump did not give Xi every opportunity to salvage the situation.
00:53:23.540 That's exactly right, and he did that really, really well.
00:53:27.760 He really gave China every opportunity to be a credible, good player, and they did not take it.
00:53:36.300 At least that's the version we hear in America.
00:53:39.620 Who knows if that's accurate?
00:53:45.280 I also am wondering...
00:53:48.300 Here's somebody in the comments I have to block here.
00:53:53.120 So, Cynthia in the comments says, Scott has had three months of reporting that hydroxychloroquine works, and today is backpedaling on it.
00:54:02.340 Now, I'm going to block you, because I block anybody who misrepresents my opinion in public.
00:54:08.140 So, I have only ever said that there is a percentage chance that hydroxychloroquine is a game-changer.
00:54:16.080 And I've raised that from 30 to 50 to 70, depending on the news, as it trickled out.
00:54:23.180 So, my view is that I don't know, but I know it's not been studied.
00:54:28.140 So, that's my view.
00:54:29.780 And if it's not been studied, then you could use your risk management judgment, which doctors are, to prescribe it or not.
00:54:37.860 So, you have grossly mischaracterized my opinion of saying that I've reported that it works, because I've never once done that.
00:54:46.080 And now you are consigned to the blockbid of history.
00:54:53.760 Somebody says, legalize cannabis, and I'll vote for Trump.
00:54:57.160 Well, of course, legalizing it at the federal level would not be enough.
00:55:01.020 But, if I were Trump, I would release every person on a federal marijuana charge.
00:55:08.120 I would just do that between now and Election Day.
00:55:10.920 Because there's no way that's wrong.
00:55:13.280 It just isn't.
00:55:13.840 Now, a lot of those marijuana charges might be things that were pled down from more serious charges.
00:55:20.480 So, that might be a little sticking point there.
00:55:23.780 But, I don't even understand why Trump is not active in taking marijuana off the debate.
00:55:31.640 Because it's just free money.
00:55:33.280 If he doesn't do it, probably the Democrats will, or have.
00:55:36.580 I think that's in their platform.
00:55:40.080 Yeah, there's a weird story about seeds being sent from China with no packaging.
00:55:45.720 As if, maybe if we planted those seeds, something bad would happen.
00:55:49.440 I don't know if we know what those seeds are yet.
00:55:53.880 Somebody says, will I be blocked for not caring about your opinion?
00:55:56.960 I mean, sure.
00:55:59.480 I'll block you for not caring about my opinion.
00:56:05.460 Sometimes you can get your way that easily.
00:56:09.700 You always said 50 or less, pretty consistently.
00:56:13.060 Yeah.
00:56:14.520 How many debates will actually be held?
00:56:16.340 I would say zero.
00:56:17.420 I don't think there will be any debates.
00:56:18.860 Why did China not take the opportunity?
00:56:24.800 I believe, but I'm not an expert.
00:56:27.340 My understanding is that China doesn't see the world as a win-win scenario.
00:56:32.980 Meaning that in a deal, you know, the typical Western idea of a good deal is where you both win.
00:56:40.240 I win and you win.
00:56:41.620 What I'm told, and I'm not an expert here, so don't take it from me,
00:56:45.880 is that the current Chinese government point of view is that the Chinese have to eventually dominate the world.
00:56:53.140 And that is sort of more of a Hitlerian kind of situation.
00:56:57.740 So why didn't Hitler make a good deal with Neville Chamberlain?
00:57:01.860 Because it was never the point.
00:57:04.740 Any deal that Hitler made was only just a military technique to put your guard down.
00:57:12.380 It appears, and that's what's being reported,
00:57:15.160 I'm not in anybody's head, and I'm not an expert on China,
00:57:18.420 so you shouldn't take my word for any of this.
00:57:20.860 But the reporting is that China wants to dominate,
00:57:24.640 sees its future that way,
00:57:26.700 and doesn't have any interest in a deal that isn't just good for them and bad for us.
00:57:32.400 So that's the proposition.
00:57:37.180 What's my guess on the seeds?
00:57:38.880 My guess on the seeds is it's some kind of a crazy person situation or marketing.
00:57:43.580 I think the odds of the seeds being some kind of a terrorist attack are low,
00:57:50.280 but not zero.
00:57:55.120 What excuse to cancel the debates?
00:57:57.460 The usual.
00:57:58.500 Just no crowds.
00:58:00.560 I think that Trump would have been really weakened
00:58:02.900 if he had gone ahead and held his convention.
00:58:06.420 Holding the convention would have been a huge mistake under the current uptick.
00:58:10.440 Yeah, zero-sum is the phrase I should have used for China's opinion.
00:58:18.240 They think that for somebody to win, somebody has to lose.
00:58:22.520 Yes, my nose operation is still scheduled for tomorrow,
00:58:26.700 so with any luck, you will not hear my whistling sinuses and bad conditions,
00:58:32.540 but we'll see.
00:58:33.000 So I should tell you that I don't know.
00:58:36.700 I might do a periscope before I head off for surgery.
00:58:40.460 I haven't decided yet.
00:58:49.600 Your comments are funny.
00:58:51.140 Those of you who are listening to this on podcast, I'm sorry.
00:58:53.620 All right, thank you, and I will see you tomorrow maybe and the day after.
00:59:02.300 Well, I don't know about the day after.
00:59:04.160 I may not be able to wake up.
00:59:05.620 If you don't see me on a periscope for two days, it might be longer.
00:59:11.780 I'll at least tweet out my status, but you should assume that I'm doing well.
00:59:16.360 Okay?
00:59:17.460 Good.
00:59:18.520 And I'll talk to you as soon as I can.
00:59:20.180 Thank you.