Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1129 Scott Adams： I Explain the McConnell Rule to Dale the Democrat, Princeton Confesses Racism, Tiny Dancer RBG

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams. The best part of the day?

00:00:17.220 Every single time. Every now and then you say to yourself, well it can't be the best part of the

00:00:22.520 day again. But it can. It really can. And here it is. And all you need to enjoy the best part

00:00:29.980 of the day is, well, I think you know. It's a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or

00:00:34.360 stein, a canteen drink or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:00:40.540 I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the

00:00:46.320 thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. And it happens now.

00:00:51.920 Oh, that's what I needed. That's what we all needed. So I was just watching a video in

00:01:03.200 Portland of the protesters. And apparently somebody who lived in an apartment above where the protesters

00:01:10.700 were thought it would be funny to throw eggs at the protesters from above. And I thought

00:01:17.980 to myself, how many of those windows open? Because if the protesters are in areas below lots of places

00:01:27.220 that have windows that open, well, I think we found a way to solve this problem. Sounds like if the

00:01:33.680 police won't take care of the protesters, there's nothing that chickens plus residents can't get done 1.00

00:01:39.620 together. It might, you might break a few eggs, as they say. As the saying goes, you got to break a few

00:01:46.900 eggs to stop a protest. I think that's a saying, right? All right, let's talk about the news.

00:01:55.940 The most impressive thing that happened last night is that, of course, you all know the news,

00:02:02.860 Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away last night. And one of her greatest accomplishments in a life

00:02:11.520 full of accomplishments is that in 2020, right before a major contentious election, the most divided we've 0.94

00:02:22.760 ever been in this country, for a period of about one hour, nobody in the country was a dick. 0.96

00:02:31.380 Did you notice? I turned on the TV and I thought, well, how long will it be before people start being 0.84

00:02:38.980 awful? And I thought, oh, it's actually just people saying nice things and caring about her family and

00:02:46.200 respecting her legacy, respectfully saying that maybe they disagreed with her on policy, but

00:02:52.620 she was a great woman. And it kind of felt good, didn't it? I don't know if you sampled it, but

00:03:02.600 obviously if you went to MSNBC or CNN, they would be pro-Ruth Bader Ginsburg and you'd expect it to go

00:03:09.840 that way. But if you went over to Fox, very respectful, very respectful from Hannity all the way

00:03:17.940 through. And I kind of appreciated it. I kind of appreciated it that there was just an hour

00:03:24.800 for the whole year. There was just like this one hour where we were not being dicks to each other. 0.97

00:03:31.420 Felt good. So here's a rule I would like to suggest. You know, generally speaking, that we don't like to 0.90

00:03:42.420 talk business the same day somebody died. You know, you don't want to be talking about, so, you know,

00:03:49.340 who gets the job after this person died, you know, the moment they've died. But I would like to make an

00:03:56.700 exception in this case. Number one, it appears that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is universally respected. So

00:04:06.080 nobody's going to be disrespecting her just because we're talking about what happens

00:04:09.920 in the vacancy. Number two, if somebody's last written statement on their deathbed

00:04:19.140 talks about filling their vacancy, then you can talk about it too. You can talk about it the moment

00:04:27.140 they pass because that was their, it was literally their dying wish. So her dying wish is that we talk

00:04:34.740 about and deal with her replacement. She said it specifically. So I think in this case, it is

00:04:40.980 perfectly respectful to just jump in and talk about the politics of it because that was literally her

00:04:47.580 final wish. And let's talk about all of the things. Number one, did you all see President Trump's

00:04:58.140 masterful reaction when he was told about her death? There was, if you didn't see it, he was

00:05:05.600 leaving his event. Apparently he did not hear about it during his speech because he was on stage when

00:05:10.640 it happened. And it was a long, I don't know, two hours on stage. So there was a long period where

00:05:15.780 everybody in the country, except the president of the United States, knew Ruth Bader Ginsburg had

00:05:21.760 passed. So he gets off the stage and he goes to his plane and the press pool is there. Cameras are

00:05:29.360 on. And it was one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen for a political situation. And here's

00:05:40.280 what was remarkable. Because of the setup, because it was a plane on a tarmac and it was just right after

00:05:47.240 an event. Most important person in the world, the president of the United States, most important

00:05:52.740 event. The lighting and the set were perfect for this. It looked just like a movie set, just perfectly

00:06:02.460 lit. In the background, quite easily heard, was Elton John's Tiny Dancer. Tiny Dancer? Are you

00:06:13.760 kidding me? Ruth Bader Ginsburg is about, what was she, five feet tall or something? Very small. I 0.98

00:06:21.100 mean, when you think of her, you think of her as tiny. Tiny and female. And Tiny Dancer is playing in

00:06:28.720 the background. When the president comes up and is told, you know, he says, he says, what? And then he

00:06:36.200 gave what I would say would be very, I would say, an empathy-filled response that looked genuine. And

00:06:47.860 he looked like just a real human being who was just expressing his sadness. He said he felt sad. And

00:06:55.200 that she was an amazing, amazing woman. And he said she had an amazing life, etc. Now, you don't expect

00:07:03.540 the president to be empathetic, to show real concern, and to be respectful. You know, you kind of, you

00:07:14.940 think he's in rally mode and campaign mode and RBG was on the other side politically. So you'd think

00:07:23.080 that maybe he wouldn't give a perfect response, but he kind of did. And I think that, I saw at least

00:07:30.460 one hardcore anti-Trumper even say, okay, got to admit, got to admit, that was very presidential.

00:07:40.960 So let me add the fun part of this. You ready? Do you believe that the president walked all the way

00:07:50.240 from the stage to the airplane without anybody telling him that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died?

00:08:00.460 Really? Do you really think? Somebody says she was 4'6". Is that true? Do you really think he made it

00:08:10.960 all the way from the stage? Now, the stage was really near the airplane. So you can see the stage

00:08:17.180 and the airplane, it's on the tarmac, literally on the tarmac. So you only have to get down and walk,

00:08:23.300 I don't know, maybe, maybe a few plane lengths to get to the plane. But do you don't think anybody

00:08:31.040 talked to him when he got off the stage? Nobody shouted it out? You know, the first person he talked

00:08:39.200 to didn't say, I just want to give you a heads up, RGB passed away. Because you know, everybody else knew

00:08:45.040 it. There was nobody else, nobody there didn't know it by the time he got off the stage. So you have

00:08:51.620 two possibilities, and they're both awesome. Okay? There are only two possibilities. And one is just

00:08:59.620 more awesome than the other. You almost can't tell which is more awesome. One is that what you saw is

00:09:06.020 exactly what happened. He was surprised. He gave you a genuine reaction that was very human.

00:09:12.340 And I would say he acquitted himself quite well, presidentially. That would be awesome.

00:09:22.640 I think we could hope that that happened. The other possibility is that he knew it was coming.

00:09:29.920 And therefore, he gave the best answer you could give because he had a little heads up.

00:09:35.520 If that happened, and he pulled it off, it's also pretty awesome. Now, you could argue and say,

00:09:44.460 well, but that's not fair, because, you know, he's misleading us by acting as if he's just hearing

00:09:49.520 it. It's a political campaign. He's in the middle of a political campaign. Nobody is telling the truth

00:09:57.380 about anything from now, who knows, until election day at least. But you don't really expect the same

00:10:03.700 standard. At least I don't in an election. You expect that everything is political. Our system is

00:10:11.960 designed that way. It's fine. Everything can be political for a while. You know, that doesn't kill

00:10:16.940 anybody. You can be political during a political season. There could be maybe a little smoke and

00:10:23.120 mirrors. Could be a little bit of shading reality a little bit to get the best picture. So here's my

00:10:30.520 take on it. Whether that was a little bit planned or completely spontaneous, it was still damn good. 0.89

00:10:40.220 Right? Because, first of all, even if it was a little bit planned, even if he had a heads up,

00:10:48.060 that doesn't mean his reaction wasn't real. You know, his reaction might have been the actual

00:10:53.100 genuine feeling. He just waited to give it. So no matter what it was, real or a little bit

00:11:01.200 planned, it was still awesome. It was a really good job because we just expect our president to act a

00:11:08.980 certain way, and I think he did it. I would like to explain to you the so-called McConnell rule.

00:11:17.400 You'll be hearing a lot about this. It has to do with the circumstances in which you would delay

00:11:24.960 a nomination or a confirmation of a Supreme Court justice. And it's based on history. And since it's

00:11:35.220 been done once before, McConnell delayed Obama's nomination. And I want to explain it to you,

00:11:43.380 but I'd like to explain it to Dale the Democrat. Have you met Dale? Dale? Dale, can you come over

00:11:50.500 here? Here I am. What can I do for you? Dale, I'd like to explain to you the McConnell rule. Have

00:11:59.100 you heard of it? It's about when you do or do not replace the Supreme Court justice. Let me just show

00:12:06.100 you this, Dale, on the whiteboard. So there are two important elements of the McConnell rule.

00:12:16.340 Rule number one, and these are things that would cause you to delay a nomination that normally you

00:12:25.220 wouldn't delay. So delaying is unusual. But on these two conditions, McConnell says you could or should.

00:12:32.140 It's an election year like now. This is an election year. So that that fits, right? The first thing

00:12:39.940 fits. It's an election year. And this is important, Dale. Dale, are you listening to this? This is

00:12:45.380 important. And not or, not or, and both of these have to be true, that the president and the senate are

00:12:54.680 opposite parties. Now, the reason for that is if the senate and the president are opposite parties,

00:13:00.760 you don't quite know what you're going to get. There's a little more uncertainty. But if they

00:13:06.520 were the same party, well, you know, just go ahead, because you're going to get what you want anyway.

00:13:13.080 So, Dale, do you understand this? It's two requirements. They both have to be met. And

00:13:19.520 because the president and the senate at the moment are the same party, that the second one is not met.

00:13:26.400 So the McConnell rule, one of the things applies, it's an election year, but the other important part

00:13:34.160 doesn't apply. Do you understand that, Dale? Absolutely. You're being a hypocrite.

00:13:41.960 Okay, I'm not sure what that means. Why am I being a hypocrite? Because McConnell delayed the 0.99

00:13:49.400 confirmation for Obama, but he's not going to do it for Trump. That is hypocrites. 1.00

00:13:56.400 Okay, well, but there's a rule here. You see, there's a rule, and there are two things, 0.91

00:14:05.020 and they're not satisfied. That's why it's different, Dale. You see that it's different,

00:14:09.940 right? It's an election year. Okay, election year. Election year would be one, one of the two things.

00:14:19.840 You see, there are two things here. That would be one of them. I'm going to burn down everything.

00:14:24.840 If they nominate somebody, and they approve it, we're going to burn down the whole country, 0.98

00:14:31.540 whole left-hand country. Burn it down. Okay, but why are you doing that? I'm confused. Is it because 0.97

00:14:40.200 you don't like the McConnell rule, or you're just going to ignore the McConnell rule? No,

00:14:46.860 I'm using the McConnell rule. I'm using it just like you did. Same thing. It's an election year.

00:14:53.640 Bottom egg. Okay, but do you see this? This part's here. Do you see this, Dale? It's going to burn

00:15:03.860 down the whole country. It's going to burn it down. All right, Dale.

00:15:08.320 Dale. Dale, could you come over here? We just need to talk. Would you give me a minute? I need

00:15:18.120 to talk to Dale. Dale, could you come over here? Present. Dale.

00:15:37.340 Dale. Dale. All right, so that is how you explain the McConnell rule to a Democrat. I'd like to think

00:15:50.760 there's another way to do it, where you just explain it, and then they understand it, and then they act

00:15:56.940 as though they understand it. But that doesn't seem to be an option in an election year. So here's the

00:16:04.260 question. Will McConnell go ahead? And he said he'd have the vote. But does he have the votes? Do we

00:16:11.940 know that yet? I don't think we know if he has the votes, right? So if he doesn't have the votes,

00:16:17.500 maybe not. I also don't know if Trump would have an advantage if he nominated somebody, or would he have

00:16:27.620 more of an advantage if he didn't? It's hard to score this one, right? Imagine, if you will, just a thought

00:16:38.720 experiment. Suppose several senators say, because I think Lindsey Graham has said he's on record as

00:16:45.800 saying that he wouldn't nominate somebody in this situation, because Lindsey Graham is also looking at

00:16:51.760 just the election year. He's on video saying that at least two different times, he has promised that he

00:17:00.600 would not be part of nominating somebody in an election year. So we'll see if he sticks with that.

00:17:08.000 But if you're President Trump, would you be better off getting the nomination through,

00:17:14.680 or would you be better off not getting it through? It's hard to know, isn't it? Because if you were

00:17:23.060 trying to get people to show up to the voting booth, what would get them there more? Let's say

00:17:29.340 you're a Republican, and you're on the fence about voting. You're like, ah, I'm busy that day. It's just

00:17:36.460 one vote, and I don't need to vote. And you have two situations. One, one is that, that Ginsburg has been

00:17:45.780 replaced, and that there's somebody in the job, and now there's a commanding conservative majority in the

00:17:53.000 court. Do you need to vote if you have a commanding conservative majority, and that's what you cared about?

00:18:00.220 Well, you might say, well, maybe I'll get another, another judge if, if Trump gets elected. But you

00:18:08.300 might say to yourself, you might, you know, to judge advantage. You know, you got a little, got a little

00:18:20.120 advantage there. So yeah, that's good enough. So I don't know how, how voters will react if

00:18:27.580 they'll be more or less motivated based on whether there is or is not somebody filling that, that

00:18:32.740 position. I would think if I were President Trump, this is what I would prefer. This is just a

00:18:39.480 preliminary thought. I think there are smarter people like, you know, if, if an hour from now you

00:18:45.380 see Karl Rove disagree with me, you should probably just take Karl Rove's opinion. Because I'm a little

00:18:53.480 bit out of my depth here, just a little bit. And here's the thought. We have a million topics that

00:19:01.960 people will be thinking about from the coronavirus to the economy to foreign relations and everything

00:19:07.360 else. But if there's an open Supreme Court seat, and, and it's being held open for the next president,

00:19:17.380 under that condition, that's the only thing that matters. Coronavirus, it's not going to matter much

00:19:24.440 if there's an open Supreme Court seat. All you're going to care about is that seat. Every conservative

00:19:30.140 who might have been, you know, angry at the president for whatever coronavirus stuff is going to say,

00:19:36.120 okay, I didn't like that coronavirus stuff, but I really care about this Supreme Court seat.

00:19:41.440 So what it would do if he left it open, if Trump left it open intentionally, number one,

00:19:48.720 he'd look like a good guy. He wouldn't look like a dictator. But I don't think it's his personality to

00:19:56.240 wait. You know, my guess is that Trump's personality is that if something's available, he's going to take

00:20:02.920 it. And so if there's any chance he can get this through, I think he'd push it. But if he didn't,

00:20:10.900 and he just completely fooled everybody and said, hey, let's, imagine if he said, let's honor,

00:20:18.460 let's honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg by leaving it open. Well, it would just blow your head off,

00:20:25.280 wouldn't it? Because number one, you wouldn't feel like a dictator. Number two, it would seem so fair

00:20:31.300 that you would be confused. Like, who is this? But it would also take every other topic off the table,

00:20:39.480 and it would only be the Supreme Court effectively. And does the president have an advantage if the

00:20:46.740 only thing you're talking about is the Supreme Court? Maybe. I'd have to see the polling on this.

00:20:53.440 I don't know how you'd really be able to suss that out. But my feeling is that conservatives quite care

00:20:59.100 more about the Supreme Court than the Democrats do. So I think he'd actually get an advantage,

00:21:06.700 but it'd be a risky play. I know. And it's going to set a precedent either way. Here's a question for

00:21:16.160 you. It seems that the whole country has this idea in their head that Ruth Bader Ginsburg should be

00:21:25.180 replaced with a woman. To which I say, if that standard becomes something that, although it's not a law,

00:21:34.340 it's not a constitutional requirement, but if it becomes sort of hardened into a standard,

00:21:41.660 is it constitutional? It feels completely unconstitutional to decide that one of the seats

00:21:51.280 seats or any of the seats on the Supreme Court have to go to a certain gender or a certain ethnicity.

00:21:57.620 Isn't that the opposite of what the Supreme Court should be helping us do? Shouldn't they be the one

00:22:03.400 place where they just don't look at that? Now, I happen to be completely in favor of diversity in

00:22:10.500 the Supreme Court. So if you gave me a choice, of course, I would rather have diversity and get a good

00:22:17.400 mix of male, female, get some other ethnicities in there. I think that'd be great because it gives

00:22:24.820 you more credibility for your decisions. But even though I would like that outcome, and even though

00:22:32.340 there's a historical precedent for holding a seat open for a certain gender in particular, 0.99

00:22:39.560 isn't it completely against the Constitution to do that? You know, if somebody went into

00:22:48.320 for a job interview at a corporation, and the corporation said, you know, you're very qualified,

00:22:55.520 but you're a man, and we're just not picking men. Would that be illegal? If somebody went in for a job

00:23:05.420 working for the court, let's say they wanted a job clerking for one of the Supreme Court justices,

00:23:12.620 and they go in for the interview, and whoever's doing the interviewing says,

00:23:16.640 you know, we really want a woman for this job. Would that be illegal? It wouldn't, would it? 0.99

00:23:26.540 So it seems to me that having a gender requirement for the Supreme Court is the most unconstitutional 0.95

00:23:35.480 thing you could possibly come up with, even though, as I say, I think, you know, we'd be better off with

00:23:42.380 a diverse court. It's just, it's kind of creepy that the only way you can get there is by violating

00:23:47.800 the Constitution. You know, no, no better way to do that. All right. Already, there are crazy people,

00:23:55.820 and by that, I mean people on the left, who are talking about burning down the country, 0.65

00:24:01.240 if that seat gets filled. What would happen if you just took all their energy out of them and just

00:24:07.240 said, you know what, why don't we just wait? All these people who think they're going to

00:24:12.300 burn down the country and take to the streets and all that, what if you just said, yeah, you know,

00:24:17.260 you've got a good point. We'll just wait. It would take all the energy out. It would be interesting.

00:24:24.960 All right. Remember I told you that it would be theoretically possible to do a gigantic prank

00:24:33.260 on the protesters in whatever city you are protesting, because they're loosely organized. 0.55

00:24:39.440 And I said, all you'd have to do is get a charismatic young black woman, because that would 1.00

00:24:46.220 be the highest credibility within the, within the protester community. A young black woman would 0.97

00:24:52.540 just automatically be sort of the, the, the top of the ranks. And if that, if that person was a

00:24:59.320 prankster, hypothetically, had a megaphone, they could just walk into the protest and start getting the 0.95

00:25:05.540 protesters to say or do anything they wanted, no matter how ridiculous. And yesterday I saw a video 0.86

00:25:14.300 of a young black woman with a megaphone who was leading a bunch of protesters. I forget which city

00:25:20.900 might've been, I don't know, probably Portland or something. And here's what she was getting them to

00:25:28.420 chant. So the woman with the megaphone was telling them to chant behind her. And they were, and the

00:25:36.340 chant was this, who do we protect? And then the, then the callback was black criminals. Who do we 0.99

00:25:43.560 protect? Black criminals. Now, is that real? Now people came in and said, Scott, Scott, Scott, 1.00

00:25:52.800 you think that was a prank, but there's other video of other times when this is actually one of

00:25:58.980 their standard, this is an actual thing that they say. It's not a joke. They actually say,

00:26:06.000 who do we protect? Black criminals. And it's both white and black people who are marching 1.00

00:26:11.180 and they're all black criminals. Now, do you think that's real? Now here's, here's the best part. 1.00

00:26:20.780 It could be real. It could be, but it is identical. It is identical to a joke. The, you know, I've

00:26:34.620 talked about the parody crossover where reality and parody, you know, merge and you just can't tell

00:26:40.320 them apart. Can you tell this apart? You tell me the truth. If you saw this out of context and you

00:26:47.940 saw the, you know, them, uh, doing this chant, would you think that was serious? Cause I don't

00:26:54.360 think you would. Trump tweeted, uh, Trump tweeted what? Did he tweet that, uh, very, that very clip?

00:27:06.920 Anyway, um, whether or not that's real, I tweeted it like it was not real. Cause I think it's funnier

00:27:12.720 to treat it like it's not real. Um, if black lives matter wanted to completely discredit

00:27:19.660 themselves. Yeah. And the, the woman with the megaphone who is leading the chant was laughing, 0.96

00:27:26.140 but that alone doesn't mean it's not real. All right. Um, there's an even funnier story. This is

00:27:36.040 the, this is the best story of 2020. Are you ready? Pretty big claim, right? 2020 is a wild, wild

00:27:44.440 year. I, this is my claim. The following story that I'm going to tell you that is in the news

00:27:51.120 is the best story of 2020 because it captures 2020 the best. You ready? This, this is a winner.

00:27:59.440 You're going to be happy about this. The, uh, education department, you know, the, the government's,

00:28:06.720 uh, department of education, they opened a, an investigation into Princeton university.

00:28:12.920 Now, do you know why they opened an investigation into Princeton university? It was because the

00:28:20.600 president wrote a document, some kind of public document in which he, he said that Princeton,

00:28:27.960 um, has racism embedded in the school. So the president of Princeton declared that his own

00:28:34.880 school had systemic racism. Now, what's the first thing you say about that? It's like, well,

00:28:39.180 that's nothing, right? Doesn't every left leaning person believe that every major institution has

00:28:47.160 systemic racism? And the answer is, yeah, probably every left leaning person does believe exactly

00:28:52.400 that. So would it be a surprise that the president of Princeton believes that Princeton still has some

00:28:58.320 systemic racism that it needs to deal with? And the answer is that's not surprising. Here's the

00:29:04.140 surprising part. Uh, this couldn't have made me happier. Um, that the, uh, the department of the,

00:29:14.980 the education department, uh, is launching an investigation because the, because they're under

00:29:21.700 suspicion that they're racist. That's because the government, uh, the government can't give, uh,

00:29:30.820 federal money to a college unless that college is non-racist, but Princeton just labeled itself

00:29:38.700 racist and therefore made them ineligible for federal funds. And the funny part is that the

00:29:46.120 federal government acted on it. That's the funny part, right? You'd expect them just to say, just to

00:29:51.640 shake their heads and say, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the, everybody in the left thinks everything's

00:29:55.860 racist. That just doesn't mean anything, but the, but the department of education decided to treat

00:30:02.920 it like it was serious because they treated it seriously. If, if the president of Princeton is

00:30:09.840 going to say publicly and seriously, and no joke about it, Princeton is a racist organization,

00:30:16.640 uh, then the federal government is required to stop funding them. Uh, so there's your Ivy League

00:30:28.580 of education. Uh, that's just the best story. Now, you know, I don't have a preference about how

00:30:35.340 that turns out, but just the mere fact that that even happened is great. Uh, uh, Andres, uh,

00:30:42.380 back house, uh, pointed out that Spain is about to, uh, according to the latest statistics on

00:30:48.480 coronavirus, Spain is about to surpass the United States again, in terms of confirmed COVID-19 deaths

00:30:55.660 per million population on a seven day rolling average. So we're going to see countries, you know,

00:31:03.760 uh, having more infections and trading places and stuff. So I keep reminding you, wait, wait until the,

00:31:11.720 uh, the, uh, the end of the, the end of this coronavirus to know who did a good job and who

00:31:17.380 didn't. Um, there was, oh, there's also, uh, there was a comparison of countries that in our world

00:31:31.560 and data countries with the lowest infections also had the best economies. So there was a tweet that

00:31:38.400 pointed out to that, you know, everybody thought there was going to be a trade-off between how many

00:31:43.720 people get infected and how well the economy does, right? That was the basic understanding

00:31:49.180 that you could either have a good economy or you could be good on infections, but you couldn't be

00:31:55.980 good on both. And what they found with their data is that the countries who had the lowest infections

00:32:02.400 also had the best economies. So therefore, if the ones with the lowest infections also had the best

00:32:10.520 economies or the least damage to their economy, wouldn't it be true that the best thing you can

00:32:16.820 do for your economy is to reduce the number of infections, right? Common sense, just logically.

00:32:24.480 If, if, if all the ones with low infections also have the best economies, then managing your

00:32:31.920 infections is the way to keep your economy strong, right? No, no, doesn't make any sense at all. Here's

00:32:40.680 what's wrong with it. You can't compare different countries because the countries that didn't have

00:32:49.240 many infections, did they need to close their economy? No. If you didn't have many infections,

00:32:57.020 you didn't need to close your economy. So doesn't it make sense that countries that did it either by

00:33:02.980 luck or by skill had low infections? Of course they had a good economy, but the real proper, the proper

00:33:10.820 comparison would be country to itself, which you can't do. What you'd want to see is the United States

00:33:18.000 with a shutdown versus the United States without a shutdown, and you can't study that. It can't be

00:33:24.980 studied because you only did one of them. You didn't do both. You only did one of those things. So you

00:33:31.640 don't know what would the economy have been if we shut down more aggressively. You don't know. So this

00:33:38.740 is another example of data that looks like it would be useful, but if you go just a little bit, a little bit

00:33:47.140 down into the detail, you see it's just completely meaningless. It is virtually random data. So it means

00:33:55.360 nothing. Let's see. There's a story that didn't get a lot of plague, a little plague yesterday, that the post office

00:34:06.860 was getting ready to mail out, because there was a government plan, to mail out five masks to each

00:34:13.600 address in April so that everybody would have five masks reusable. And that got canceled. The reason

00:34:23.500 given for why it was canceled is that the government didn't want to panic people by sending them masks

00:34:31.480 because they might panic. Do you believe that? You shouldn't. You should not believe this story.

00:34:40.320 If you've ever smelled fake news, smell that. That post office story has fake news written all over it.

00:34:51.220 And here's your cue. How do you know it's fake news? Well, if somebody said,

00:34:58.200 the president told me we don't want to panic people, and that's why we're not going to mail them

00:35:04.100 out, that might be real, especially if you had two sources that heard it. If you had one anonymous

00:35:10.680 source, then you wouldn't trust that. But suppose you don't even have an anonymous source who's saying

00:35:18.240 that somebody told them to do it. Suppose it's just an anonymous source who simply speculates that the

00:35:25.460 reason was they didn't want anybody to panic. Who said it? Where did that come from? Who came up

00:35:32.600 with the idea that the reason to stop it was to stop the panic? That's not an evidence. This is

00:35:40.600 clearly fake news. Now, could it become real news? Yes, it could. It could become real news if we found

00:35:49.380 an actual source. Maybe somebody went on camera and said, yeah, you know, I was standing right there.

00:35:54.740 The president said, write to me personally, cancel this because we don't want to panic anybody.

00:36:00.880 And two people heard it. That would be news. But somebody in the post office speculating about why

00:36:08.600 something happened, that's not news. That is fake news. Now, what would be any other reason that the

00:36:17.700 post office would plan to mail five masks to everybody and then change their mind? Can you

00:36:24.220 think of any reason that that might have happened? I can. How about the fact that nobody had a problem

00:36:31.840 getting a mask on their own? Have you seen any situation even once where somebody said, I want to

00:36:39.920 wear a mask, but I can't get one? No, because it was permissive. You could put a, you know, bandana

00:36:46.720 on you or whatever. And, you know, mask costs practically nothing and lots of businesses hand

00:36:52.240 them out. So the more, the more likely reason that they canceled it. Yeah, it was, it was expensive

00:36:58.260 and it didn't buy them much because everybody had no problems getting a mask. So somebody says,

00:37:06.900 what about knowing about sizes? Oh, I think you could do a universal size. You know, the, the, the,

00:37:13.320 the kind that I use would fit pretty much anybody. All right. So I'd call that fake news. Uh, of

00:37:19.300 course, my, my smart Democrat friend sent this article to me and said, well, you can't doubt this

00:37:25.580 one here. Here's a caught, caught that Trump red handed this time. I haven't responded to him yet, but

00:37:33.440 no, he did not catch anybody red handed. It's just fake news.

00:37:38.080 Um, all right. Yeah. Toilet paper would have been appreciated as somebody says in the comments

00:37:46.460 there. Um, all right. Sarah Carter is, Sarah, Sarah Carter is reporting that there is a Senate

00:37:56.660 Homeland Security Committee is going to release a report like in about a week about, uh, Joe

00:38:02.280 Biden's son, um, and Ukraine and Burisma, I guess. So that might be a bombshell. What do

00:38:11.600 you think? Do you think that a report about, um, Joe Biden's son and Burisma, do you think

00:38:20.100 that that will be a bombshell report or not a bombshell report? This will be a test to see

00:38:26.520 how well you have been following the news. The answer is it will be a bombshell report.

00:38:35.160 Even if, even if there's nothing in it because that's how we do it now. So today, the fact that

00:38:45.680 a report exists makes it a bombshell and the people who want it to be a bombshell will simply go on

00:38:53.120 television and they'll tweet and they'll say, my God, what a bombshell. It's a smoking gun. It

00:38:58.760 shows that bad things happened with the Bidens in Ukraine. Right. And that, that will happen 0.99

00:39:06.520 no matter what's in the report. The report could say, you know, we started to do a report, but we

00:39:12.900 got bored and it didn't seem important. So we're just going to write one page that says we didn't do

00:39:17.300 anything. And that's the whole report. What would, what would, uh, half of the country report

00:39:24.940 about the report? They'd say it's a bombshell. It's a bombshell. Yeah. We, we didn't see this

00:39:31.640 coming, but it's so bad in Ukraine. They couldn't even find it all. So they had to give up and they 0.98

00:39:37.700 will just mischaracterize it. So it doesn't matter who does it. It doesn't matter which side creates

00:39:43.520 the bombshell report. The, the side that wants to interpret it as a bombshell is just going to go

00:39:49.980 ahead and do it. It doesn't matter what's in it. It's completely irrelevant. What is in the report?

00:39:55.960 It will just be a bombshell. And will the Democrats then react to this bombshell and say, oh, you got us

00:40:04.780 now. You know, we didn't believe this Burisma stuff, but now we've got this bombshell report. Well,

00:40:10.940 that changes everything. And Joe Biden, you're going to have to step down. Do you think that'll

00:40:15.020 happen? No, that won't happen. Even if there is a bombshell, that report could say that, uh, Joe

00:40:22.740 Biden himself was taking a bribe and it's on camera, it's on video. It wouldn't matter no matter what it

00:40:30.860 is. The entire left of the country is going to say that didn't happen. And then you'll say, uh,

00:40:37.520 it's right here on video and there's this whole report and you know, there's a whole task force

00:40:42.260 and you know, yeah, it happened. We got lots of witnesses and video. And then the left will say,

00:40:48.660 no, it didn't. And that's it. We we've reached a point where, where one side can simply say,

00:40:55.880 no, that didn't happen. What can you do? Because once you don't have a functioning news in your

00:41:04.820 country, that we don't have like a credible news entity, you can make any claim because the news

00:41:13.500 that agrees with you will back you up. Oh yeah, no, there was nothing in there. We read it all day

00:41:18.480 long. There was nothing in there. And the other side will make up their version and they'll report

00:41:23.820 it like it's true. All right. Um, just looking at your comments, the Biden Burisma bombshell,

00:41:34.820 the three B's build back better. Um, and I would say that Joe Biden did relatively well reading his

00:41:45.140 statement about, uh, Ginsburg when he got off the plane, because you do wonder, can Biden spontaneously

00:41:52.720 respond to questions? That's, it's a question, right? If he's not prepared, but it looked like

00:41:58.420 somebody wrote him a prepared speech and he stood in front of people and he read it.

00:42:03.700 So it wasn't a very high level of difficulty. All right. Um, yeah, they said that about the

00:42:11.320 Strauss test text messages. They said about everything.

00:42:13.840 Tesla. Tesla. What about Tesla? That seems like a question, but I don't know what it is. All

00:42:23.340 right. That's all I got for now. I'll talk to you later. Bye.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - September 19, 2020

Episode 1129 Scott Adams： I Explain the McConnell Rule to Dale the Democrat, Princeton Confesses Racism, Tiny Dancer RBG

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