Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1148 Scott Adams： Did CNN Send a Tiny Fly Drone to Distract Pence？ And More About the Debate

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, come on in, come on in. If you're watching this on YouTube you might

00:00:18.720 say to yourself, hey the sound is not so good, it sounds a little like you're in

00:00:23.400 a barrel or something. That's because I was using my AirPods as my microphones

00:00:29.440 but a lot of people don't look out like how they look because it looks like you're a walrus with

00:00:35.500 teeth sticking out of your ears instead of your mouth. I don't want to look like a walrus with

00:00:41.040 with teeth coming out of my ears so I've ordered a new microphone which will be here in a few days

00:00:47.340 so next week you'll have a good sound. I think it sounds pretty good on Periscope in case you

00:00:52.680 care. Now what do we need to have the best day ever? Yeah, you know, you know. All you need is

00:01:01.680 a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any

00:01:06.880 kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid I like, coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure,

00:01:14.820 the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better including the debates.

00:01:19.580 It's called the simultaneous sip and it happens now. Go.

00:01:29.180 Delightful. Well, as everybody's piling in to hear my thoughts on the debate because I know that's

00:01:35.920 why you're here. Did you see there's another video, Andy Ngo has on his Twitter feed, of

00:01:42.580 Black Lives Matter rioting in Wisconsin in Wauwatosa. That's the name of the town. Wauwatosa.

00:01:54.880 That's actually the name of the town. Wauwatosa. Anyway, the Black Lives Matter rioters were

00:02:02.980 smashing the windows of random residential homes. Is that scary? Are you scared yet?

00:02:10.920 It's one thing when retail stores get broken into and destroyed. But when residential homes,

00:02:22.660 which probably there were children at home, think about it. You're at home, your children are there,

00:02:29.440 and a brick comes through your front window and there's an angry mob outside. How do you feel?

00:02:35.680 Pretty scared, right? I think that's the kind of persuasion that wins elections. We shall see.

00:02:43.220 All right, let's talk about the big debate last night. I'm sure you all saw it. And I have many

00:02:49.460 thoughts on that in no particular order. Number one, Pence won. It wasn't even close. In my opinion,

00:02:58.260 Pence dominated. He dominated in terms of personality. He dominated in terms of better points.

00:03:09.340 I've been telling you, how many times have I told you the most underrated public servant is Mike Pence.

00:03:16.220 I don't think pundits and experts fully understand how good that was last night. Because what you notice

00:03:26.540 is mistakes, right? Those are the things that get your attention. You look for moments. You look for

00:03:33.280 knockout punches. You look for mistakes. But that's not Pence's game. Pence is a boxer who's going to win on

00:03:40.840 points every time. You're not going to get a knockout because Pence doesn't give any vulnerabilities. So

00:03:49.540 there's never a knockout. But he will win on points if you hang in there with him. So I think that's what

00:03:58.280 happened. He won easily on points. You all saw CNN's new technology. It was kind of impressive. So CNN now has a

00:04:09.080 drone that's a drone that's so small and shaped like a fly. And they flew it into the debate stage and

00:04:15.860 landed it right on Mike Pence's head to try to distract him. But he's so cool. Didn't even bother

00:04:23.820 him that a CNN fly drone was on his head. Didn't even slow him down for a bit. That's how good Mike Pence

00:04:32.780 is at debating. When you watch him debate, it felt more like a surgeon, didn't it? Because where Trump

00:04:45.240 was sort of like a cannon, if you think about it, it didn't matter what Biden did. It was sort of

00:04:52.740 irrelevant what Biden was doing in the debate. Trump was just a cannon. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

00:04:58.940 Just offense, offense, offense. But watching Pence work, it was like watching a surgeon. It's like,

00:05:07.420 well, here's your claim. Let's look at your claim. Well, let's dissect it. Let's take this part off.

00:05:14.860 He was deadly. And I don't think he made a mistake. Think about the fact that of all the coverage this

00:05:22.920 morning, there is zero, zero commentary on anything that Pence did wrong. Nothing. They're talking about

00:05:36.480 the fly that landed on his head because that's all they have. They're reduced. They're reduced to

00:05:43.640 talking about the insects in the building. That's it. That is winning a debate. You don't win a debate

00:05:51.300 harder than making your critics talk about the insect in the building. That's a win.

00:06:00.040 All right. I wonder who was the staffer who got the job of telling Kamala Harris what she did wrong

00:06:09.820 last night? Because that feels like a tough job. I would like to give you my impression of the staffer

00:06:17.560 who drew the shortest straw to explain to Kamala what her biggest weakness was in the debate last

00:06:23.600 night. And it goes like this. Miss Harris, do you have a moment? I'd just like to talk about some of

00:06:32.020 the things you did right and maybe some things that could have been better in the debate last night,

00:06:37.800 if you have a minute. Why, sure. I'm always open for feedback. Well, what do you think I did right?

00:06:43.600 And if I did anything wrong, I'd like to hear that too. Well, well, on your lies, your lies were

00:06:52.660 excellent. You had lots of good lies and we thought those were good. You really landed those. But, and

00:06:58.660 in general, in terms of your overall presentation, we thought you were excellent from, I'd say the chin

00:07:07.340 down, from the chin down, all good. Really good. From the chin up, there was a little bit of an issue.

00:07:18.260 I, you know, I don't want to make a big thing about it, but there are some facial expressions that are

00:07:26.300 suboptimal in the context of a national debate, televised debate. And Harris says, really? Facial

00:07:37.120 expressions. I don't exactly know what you're talking about. Can you be more specific?

00:07:41.800 Oh, I was hoping you wouldn't ask me to be more specific. Ah, I, sometimes you look maybe a little

00:07:49.980 condescending, a little bit. Maybe your, your smile is a little too big. And Harris says, I'm not really

00:07:59.660 following you. What would a, what would a condescending look look like? And what do you mean I smile too much?

00:08:06.360 What do you mean? Okay. Ah, the only way I'm going to be able to convey this is maybe I'm going to try

00:08:14.240 to do an impression of you and don't take this the wrong way, but this is the sort of facial expression

00:08:21.780 we'd like to see more of, uh, let me demonstrate. See, this would be a comfortable, um, confident smile

00:08:31.340 like this. You want to do more of that and then less of, less of, less of this.

00:08:39.660 Try to do less of that. Okay. And Kamala would say, um, anything else? Yeah. Yeah. The condescending

00:08:56.220 thing. Um, you can sometimes, if the other person is saying something you don't like, here's a good

00:09:03.780 way to go. Just look down and just give your, your head a little shake. Like, gosh, that's, that's not true.

00:09:11.020 Cause that conveys to the audience that you're confident and you're signaling that the other

00:09:16.000 person's statement is not exactly accurate. Just a little bit of a, just a little bit of a side to side

00:09:22.080 like that. So we want to see more of that and less of this. Yeah. Let's see this face. Do, do less of that

00:09:37.340 one and more of this one. Okay. Got it. And then the staffer would be fired. So that's the way I think

00:09:47.180 that went, let me tell you, um, and as long as we're all going to be accused of being sexist,

00:09:54.020 you accept that, right? We're all going to be accused of being sexist. If you say anything at all

00:09:59.740 about Kamala Harris, but it is a fact that, uh, overall impression and the way, even the way you look,

00:10:08.560 your height, your hair, your presentation, it matters because people are influenced by your character

00:10:16.020 as you present it, as much as your policies. And in that, in that totally non-sexist, uh,

00:10:24.520 framing that I'm giving you, it has to be said that she was having a bad hair day.

00:10:30.040 Now this might be somewhat subjective, but I would like to start by saying Kamala Harris usually has

00:10:36.960 very good hair days. In fact, I would say that as a female politician, she has really excellent hair

00:10:44.140 to the point where I would say it's a plus most of the time. And she has a variety of different looks

00:10:50.640 for her hair, which is normal. And most of them, I would say nine out of 10 of her hairstyles, I would

00:10:57.140 say that's pretty good. Pretty good. Whatever she did with her hair last night, I don't know if she was

00:11:04.580 happy with it, but I have this question to the women watching this, this, uh, live stream.

00:11:11.520 So instead of making a statement, I'll put it in the form of a question.

00:11:16.800 If you were, if you're a woman and you're debating on TV and you feel in your own mind, just your own

00:11:24.760 opinion, that you're having a terrible hair day, what's that do to your performance? Very sexist,

00:11:31.520 right? Now, obviously no two people are alike. You know, some women don't care about their hair,

00:11:37.440 blah, blah, blah. We're all individuals. I get it. But that's why I'm asking the question,

00:11:44.380 women, how would you feel if in your own opinion, not other people's, just your own opinion,

00:11:50.520 you were going on stage and you were having a terrible hair day? Because I feel like maybe

00:11:55.500 that was happening last night. Did anybody else have that impression? That she, she generally has,

00:12:01.500 I would, I would say some of the best hairstyles of any woman politician. Um, but last night,

00:12:10.280 no, there was something, something going on last night with her hair that wasn't good.

00:12:14.860 And it matters. It matters if it affected how she felt about it. It matters if it affected her

00:12:20.500 confidence. And maybe it did. We don't know. Um, now you all know that the big excitement for me,

00:12:27.580 if you saw my tweet especially, is that when I saw Kamala Harris cue up the fine, the fine people

00:12:34.380 hoax, in other words, she was going to claim yet again, that the president had said that neo-Nazis

00:12:41.320 and white supremacists were fine people, which is literally the opposite of what happened. As you know,

00:12:47.900 he said the opposite. He said I, that he called them out by name and said they should be condemned

00:12:52.200 totally. But Biden has made that the centerpiece of his campaign. The, the very, the trigger for

00:12:58.680 his campaign, the, the reason he had to enter the politics when maybe he was, you know, past his prime

00:13:04.680 was that this fine people hoax was sort of the last straw for him. And it never happened. It's just a

00:13:11.360 complete made up hoax. Now, as soon as Kamala cued it up, and, and I believe that Pence had a little

00:13:19.960 bit of a tell where, where he, I think he shook his head, you know, in the way that you should

00:13:24.520 to signal that there's something wrong going on. And, and I jumped off the couch and I tweeted,

00:13:30.420 you know, do it, Pence, do it. Because he looked like a coiled snake, didn't he? He looked like,

00:13:37.900 you could see Kamala, you know, talking about the fine people hoax. And I'm looking at Pence

00:13:43.540 and in my mind, he actually transformed from, you know, this vice president looking guy into a coiled

00:13:51.380 cobra. Like I, you could almost see it like it was visual. He just, he just morphed into,

00:13:57.220 into this coiled cobra. And that's what got me off the couch. I saw that look and I said, okay,

00:14:04.800 that look is a coiled cobra. He's going to go for this. And then he did. Magnificent bastard.

00:14:14.040 He did. He went right after it. He, and he did a really good job. He said, this is why,

00:14:19.920 you know, the press doesn't trust the public, or I'm sorry, the public doesn't trust the press

00:14:25.160 because it's exactly this kind of thing. And then he went on to say how they edited it down to the part

00:14:30.860 where he said explicitly that he condemned the white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

00:14:37.120 And it was perfect. Now, that's not the good part. The good part is what happens next.

00:14:44.200 Because you know that the debates are always fact-checked and any major claim is going to be

00:14:49.800 fact-checked, right? So a major claim like that, where Kamala says this happened and Pence says it

00:14:58.920 didn't happen, that obviously is going to be on the list of fact-checking things on CNN, right?

00:15:06.520 Let me check. Okay, CNN, let's see, where you fact-checked to find people, hoax, not there.

00:15:16.500 They ignored it. MSNBC, let's see, I don't even have to check, do I? I don't have to check.

00:15:23.780 They ignored it. And I haven't checked. So if it turns out I'm wrong, I will be amazed. But I'm

00:15:30.120 making this claim without even looking. Without even looking, I make the following claim. They did

00:15:36.620 not try to fact-check it. However, in another country that we're very fond of, it's called Great

00:15:44.420 Britain. They've got this news organization called the BBC, and they fact-checked it.

00:15:50.720 And they fact-checked it in favor of Pence. And they gave him a full true rating for calling the

00:16:00.760 fine people hoax a hoax. They fact-checked Pence as true. Boom. Now, they're not the only ones. There

00:16:10.480 were some lesser publications that also did it. And of course, Breitbart's been doing it forever.

00:16:16.100 You know, Joel Pollack's been doing it. Steve Cortez has been debunking it with videos and

00:16:22.160 articles for two years. I've been doing it for two years. So the three of us, you know,

00:16:29.380 Joel and Steve and I, who probably worked the hardest on debunking that damn thing,

00:16:34.460 were feeling pretty good last night. Feeling pretty good. Because it felt like vindication.

00:16:38.740 It did, is what it felt like. And I believe that the Trump campaign also has tweeted out

00:16:47.060 some of the fact-checking on that. So, are we done? Here's what's fun.

00:16:56.080 Fun part's coming up. This has opened up a line of attack that, for whatever reason,

00:17:03.420 President Trump had not been taking before. And here's how it goes. Once you've got the fact-checking

00:17:09.740 established, so now that the hoax has been debunked and nobody has done an undebunk. In other words,

00:17:17.360 there's only debunking. There's debunking and there's silence. That's all there was.

00:17:22.120 Nobody was supporting it. Oh, and by the way, if you saw the video

00:17:28.820 of Kamala Harris while Pence was debunking it, watch your face. Because remember,

00:17:38.140 when somebody is saying something in a debate that the other side believes is a false statement,

00:17:43.100 what do they do? If it's not your turn to talk and somebody else is lying, you always do the head

00:17:49.060 shake. You go, wait till it's my turn. Did she do that? When Pence was debunking the main claim

00:17:58.640 of the Biden campaign, the central claim of his campaign, Pence was debunking. And what did Kamala

00:18:05.880 Harris do? She looked down. That's it. She just looked down. She looked like a kid who got caught

00:18:14.660 in the candy jar because she was. And it also signaled to me clearly that she knows it wasn't

00:18:22.680 true. That's the good part. The good part is she signaled so clearly that she knows it's not true

00:18:31.220 because you don't act that way. If somebody debunks the most important thing of your campaign,

00:18:37.280 you don't just look down. You resist. You talk over them. You throw in a little debunk of the debunk

00:18:45.220 when it's your time to talk again. You shake your head. You make a face. You do something. If the

00:18:52.000 central claim of your campaign has been taken out by the other side, you don't just sit there and look

00:18:58.160 down unless you knew it was a lie all along. And that's increasingly obvious. All right.

00:19:05.940 I think the president could take that momentum. And the next time he has a chance, he could just say,

00:19:14.920 look, the central claim of the Biden campaign is the fine people hoax. It was debunked by the BBC.

00:19:21.500 It was debunked by everybody who looked into it. It was debunked by Breitbart. Anybody who looked into

00:19:27.500 it debunked it. There was no counter to that last night. So I think the president could drive that home

00:19:35.420 and it would really matter. The big story, of course, is also the sexism, the misogyny.

00:19:45.260 Was there sexism and misogyny last night? Pence was talking over his time and sometimes talking

00:19:51.860 over Kamala Harris. Was he mansplaining, as some people said? Was he being a big old bully?

00:19:58.900 Was he just being a terrible man? Well, I don't think that complaint is working quite the way

00:20:08.460 the defenders of Kamala Harris wanted it to. Because the only thing that could be worse

00:20:13.980 than losing a debate is losing a debate and thinly claiming that the reason was sexism.

00:20:22.900 Because the whole country looked at that and said, I don't think so. I watched that debate.

00:20:32.900 I know what sexism looks like. And then I watched this. That's not what I saw. And even women

00:20:42.300 Democrats who would support Kamala Harris in general, even they were saying, oh, slow your roll on the

00:20:50.580 sexism thing. That's not what we saw. And the women who, to their credit, were trying to be,

00:20:59.340 let's say, non-political in the sense of being accurate. They said another woman would have been

00:21:06.940 able to handle that situation. True. Fact check. True. Imagine Hillary Clinton in the same situation.

00:21:15.620 Does Hillary Clinton get bulldozed? Nope. Nope. Imagine Margaret Thatcher. Does she get

00:21:24.780 bulldozed? Probably not. Imagine Elizabeth Warren. Does she get bulldozed in that situation?

00:21:34.380 I don't think so. I don't think so. It felt like it was a Kamala Harris situation. It didn't feel like

00:21:41.160 it was a man-woman situation. Even women didn't feel that. So I think she lost terribly, like really

00:21:52.240 badly. And some people tried to say that she looked presidential. I'm going to talk about some of the

00:21:58.140 comments after. But in my mind, she lost some presidential credibility. Because if she couldn't

00:22:07.680 stand up to a vice president who's one of the nicest guys in the world, on the other side of two sheets

00:22:16.280 of plexiglass, if that was too much for her to handle, how is she going to handle Putin? How is she

00:22:23.400 going to handle Xi, etc.? So I think she really hurt herself, especially because people see her as the top

00:22:30.180 of the ticket and she looked unqualified. In my opinion, and I realize that her supporters said

00:22:36.940 the opposite. They said, oh yeah, she's very presidential looking there. I didn't see it.

00:22:42.240 The facial thing and the sort of complaining and sort of the letting him bully her, because she didn't

00:22:49.860 let him. She allowed it to happen. None of that looked good. And none of that looked presidential.

00:22:55.740 And the facial expressions, they looked unusually unpresidential. In fact, I would go so far as to

00:23:05.160 say I'm not aware of anybody who's ever run for president, male or female, who got to a high level,

00:23:13.480 let's say. I can't think of one example of anyone whose, let's say, mannerisms were less presidential

00:23:20.920 than Kamala Harris. I can't think of anybody. Can you? Male or female, think of any personality

00:23:27.220 whose demeanor, her facial expressions, just the way she acts or he acts. Can you think of anybody

00:23:35.060 who didn't look presidential? If you look at it, you think of the entire, you know, slate of characters

00:23:41.600 from, remind me of the name of, who is the woman who is running for Democrat in 20, no, she was

00:23:55.440 running as a Republican, can't remember her name. But anyway, she would be another example

00:24:02.000 of somebody who would not have wilted under pressure. Palin. Yeah, I think, I think Palin,

00:24:11.500 would have done fine, and that's true. Carly Fiorini, thank you. I'm trying to think of

00:24:15.960 Carla Fiorini. Fiorini would not have wilted under pressure, and you know it, right? Because we've

00:24:22.740 seen her under pressure. She didn't wilt. So I think the claim that it was sexism just falls apart

00:24:28.360 and certainly weakens that side of the story. Let me, let me go to the whiteboard here.

00:24:35.560 We'll talk more about people's impressions about the debate, but I want to make this point

00:24:43.400 before we go too far. There's, for those of you who have not studied economics or statistics or

00:24:51.200 business, you may not have heard of something called an expected value calculation. It's one of

00:24:56.940 the ways that you use logic and reason and math to help you sort out what's true and what matters

00:25:04.920 and, you know, what is bigger than something else. And it goes like this. You take the odds of something

00:25:12.260 happening and you multiply it by the cost, and then you can compare it to other choices. So let's say

00:25:19.160 that the odds of Trump getting reelected and destroying the United States, and of course,

00:25:24.580 there are lots of things that could go wrong in any administration, but we'll just keep it simple

00:25:29.380 at the concept level, okay? So just imagine that there's one risk, and it's the risk of the United

00:25:34.960 States being totally destroyed, but it's very small. Even if you were totally anti-Trump, he's got a full

00:25:43.480 term behind him, so you know what you're going to get. You might not like it, but you know what you're

00:25:49.300 going to get, and the country was not destroyed. So let's say there was a 1% chance that he would

00:25:55.140 destroy America. You would multiply that 1% times, if you wanted to look at it financially, you would

00:26:02.420 multiply it by the total value of the United States. You'd say, well, there's a, you know, 1% chance

00:26:08.120 that you're going to have a cost that would cost the entire United States, or a 1% chance

00:26:14.000 that it would kill, you know, all the people in the United States. So 1% of 370 million, or 1% of

00:26:22.780 however many trillions we're worth. Now, we don't have to do the math, because I'm just sticking to

00:26:27.600 the concept. If you were to compare that to the alternative, the alternative is a Biden-Harris

00:26:35.600 administration, which we know would be staffed with, you know, progressive people. You know that AOC

00:26:42.460 would have a bigger role, etc. I would say there's probably a solid 30% chance that going as socialist

00:26:51.360 as the Democrats want to go would destroy America. I'd say about a 30% chance. Now, if you watch Tucker

00:26:59.780 Carlson, it looks like it's closer to 100% chance. But remember that everything in the political season

00:27:06.160 is sort of tripled in magnitude. So everything that seems like it's a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10,

00:27:14.900 it's looking like a 9 at the moment, because everything's ratcheted up. But in reality,

00:27:22.000 let's say Biden gets elected. In reality, literally, what are the odds that the whole United States is

00:27:29.120 going to be destroyed? Well, it's not 100%. It's not 90%. I don't think it's 70%. But when you get down

00:27:39.100 to about 30%, when you look at the actual things that are being presented, you know, fewer police,

00:27:47.280 etc., you start to say to yourself, yeah, financially, that actually wouldn't work.

00:27:52.800 And if you took away the incentive for people, that's going to be bad. If you took away law and

00:27:59.280 order, that's bad. So I think there's a solid 30% chance that America would be destroyed by a Biden

00:28:05.620 administration. Now, you, of course, get to put your own odds on this. So there's a subjective

00:28:13.760 nature of this, right? Nobody knows what's going to happen. So you're just sort of guessing what the

00:28:18.020 odds are. But the main point is this. The total risk of getting four more years of Trump is really

00:28:27.500 small in terms of will the country be destroyed? No, no. It's a very small risk. The odds of socialism

00:28:37.080 in its fuller form, leading to the destruction of the United States and conquest by some other power,

00:28:44.200 it's pretty good. It's pretty good, actually. It's not most likely. But would you take a 30% chance

00:28:51.980 of destroying the country? I think that Trump can do a better job of scaring the country into voting

00:29:01.900 for him. And it would be completely fair. Because I do think that these are roughly the odds. That's my

00:29:09.720 opinion. All right. Here are some comments that people made on CNN about the debate. And I wanted

00:29:20.500 to see them because they were funny. So here's something that Sarah Isger said. So these are all

00:29:27.420 CNN-related pundits. She said that Senator Harris came in with sky-high expectations. Is that true?

00:29:35.760 In your experience, do you think that Kamala Harris had sky-high debate expectations?

00:29:46.540 That never happened, did it? I think everybody thought that she would just be okay. I don't

00:29:52.440 believe anybody thought she had sky-high expectations. But we did have high expectations for Pence

00:29:58.140 because he's always performed well in debates. And he, I would say he exceeded sky-high expectations.

00:30:05.820 In my opinion, you know, Pence will, he will just, he's doomed to never get the full credit

00:30:13.360 for the good things he's done. He will never get credit for how good that debate was. That was one of

00:30:19.580 the best debate performances I've ever seen. I don't, it's good. That's hard to top. But so they started

00:30:27.800 out by trying to convince you that there were sky-high expectations. And therefore, if she didn't

00:30:33.100 meet the sky-high expectations, well, it's not because she did a bad job. It's because your expectations

00:30:39.820 were too wrong. It's your fault. It's not Kamala Harris's fault. You have to take some responsibility

00:30:46.940 for her failure because your expectations for her were too high, way too high. Why do you do that?

00:30:54.500 Why do you hurt Kamala Harris like that by making your expectations sky-high? Okay, that never happened.

00:31:01.380 And then there's Julian Zelizer, also CNN person. And he says, given her immense skill as an orator

00:31:14.000 and in debating. What? That's his first sentence. Given her immense skill as an orator and in debating.

00:31:22.480 I don't think that's an evidence, is it? Does she have immense skill as an orator or as a debater?

00:31:31.380 Because I think if she had any of those things, she might have been the candidate for president.

00:31:37.980 It feels to me that she would have gotten a little bit deeper into the campaign

00:31:43.000 in the primaries if she'd been a skilled orator or good at debating.

00:31:53.140 And then he goes on to say she was incredibly restrained.

00:31:56.560 So turning it into a good thing. Yeah, she's very skilled, but she's restrained.

00:32:02.900 All right, that's a good thing. Even sticking to her time.

00:32:07.920 So she stayed within her timelines, whereas Pence did not.

00:32:11.540 So that's a little bit like a participation trophy, isn't it?

00:32:15.480 It's like, sure, sure, Mike Pence won the debate, but I don't think that's the whole story.

00:32:23.180 Because you have to look at the fact that she stayed to her time limits.

00:32:28.240 If that's what you have, she stayed to her time limits, and she didn't have a fly on her forehead?

00:32:35.020 That's losing a debate. All right.

00:32:43.640 And then there's Frida Gietas, also CNN, who said that Harris won because she had so much more material to work with.

00:32:52.920 All she had to do was cite the facts, blah, blah, blah, about the catastrophic handling of the coronavirus.

00:32:58.220 So Frida, she's decided that the debate can be decided not on anything that you do in the debate.

00:33:08.400 It's just the facts that existed independent of what you said about them.

00:33:14.460 Now, these are so weak, the defenses of Kabul Harris, that they're hilarious.

00:33:19.760 How about Van Jones?

00:33:20.760 So Van Jones, trying to make a lemonade out of a turd, said Vice President Pence was masterful at one thing, normalizing conservatism.

00:33:34.300 He can take right-wing conspiracy theories and President Trump's grievances and make them sound mellow and unthreatening.

00:33:41.200 Okay.

00:33:42.160 Was it Pence who was making that stuff sound unthreatening?

00:33:48.100 Was that his magic trick?

00:33:49.640 Or is it that that stuff is unthreatening and the only person who can make it sound threatening is Trump, right?

00:34:00.300 Trump's magic trick is he makes everything seem bigger, more important, sets your hair on fire, right?

00:34:07.400 So the real story is that Trump can make ordinary things sound dangerous and provocative.

00:34:14.440 Pence can simply describe ordinary things as ordinary things.

00:34:19.000 So is that like Pence's great skill, that he can take these extraordinary things and describe them as ordinary?

00:34:28.420 No, that's not what was happening.

00:34:31.440 Pence was describing completely safe and ordinary things, like law enforcement, etc., in ordinary terms.

00:34:41.400 Pence, it wasn't magic.

00:34:42.400 It wasn't magic.

00:34:43.080 He just described stuff.

00:34:45.740 That's it.

00:34:47.840 But so then Van Jones went on to say that Harris made history tonight as a black woman.

00:34:58.320 Okay.

00:34:59.120 So made history.

00:35:00.500 Again, I would like to think that we're at least on the verge, if not already there, where it's more sexist and more racist to call it out as special than it is to ignore it.

00:35:17.840 All right.

00:35:18.140 Is there anybody here who thinks it's special that a woman is running for the highest office?

00:35:25.040 I hope not.

00:35:26.520 I hope not.

00:35:27.120 Is there anybody here who thinks that's weird or special or crazy?

00:35:31.020 Because, you know, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.

00:35:35.860 So we shouldn't be talking about her being a woman anymore.

00:35:38.700 That feels like a nothing.

00:35:40.920 You know, we should be over that.

00:35:42.640 How about talking about her because she's a person of color?

00:35:45.960 Aren't we over that?

00:35:47.400 We had eight years of Obama.

00:35:51.020 Did his color matter?

00:35:52.800 No.

00:35:53.120 No, except maybe it's a positive.

00:35:56.920 And just the fact that we still have to call that out as like a, it's a remarkable time for women who are, who have a background from India and from, you know, Jamaica or wherever.

00:36:12.640 We just got to stop talking about that.

00:36:14.840 All right.

00:36:16.780 And then he says, after 90 minutes of the debate, no one is saying she could not serve as president of the United States.

00:36:23.120 That, you know, he says they'll quibble over her answers, but now everybody can see her as a president.

00:36:31.280 Is that true?

00:36:33.640 Because I had the opposite feeling from the debate.

00:36:37.180 Before the debate, I could see her as president.

00:36:39.740 After the debate, less.

00:36:41.200 After the debate, less.

00:36:44.040 Because that facial thing, it looks like she can't control that.

00:36:48.600 And it's pretty bad.

00:36:50.160 It's not a good look.

00:36:52.020 The fact is that we do pick presidents like we pick ornaments.

00:36:57.940 We do pick presidents for a look, a demeanor, a presentation.

00:37:04.600 They become the brand and the logo of the country.

00:37:07.820 So they don't have to be beautiful.

00:37:09.980 You know, it's not about attractiveness per se.

00:37:12.700 But you need a certain look of gravitas.

00:37:16.600 Did Kamala Harris convey gravitas?

00:37:20.640 Like, did she convey weight?

00:37:23.460 I would say no.

00:37:24.660 I think she went in the other direction.

00:37:27.980 I believe that she looked non-confident and that she couldn't handle a mild bully.

00:37:34.680 Because, you know, Pence was, obviously by strategy, he was taking extra time.

00:37:41.720 But all he was doing was taking the shelf space that he could get away with.

00:37:46.680 That's part of the game.

00:37:48.400 Part of the game is if you can use up most of the shelf space, you know, use up the time, that's an advantage.

00:37:54.980 So when Pence could see that he kept talking and he wasn't being stopped, they tried.

00:38:02.080 You know, the host tried to stop him.

00:38:05.840 But there was no penalty.

00:38:07.460 So he just kept going.

00:38:08.520 That didn't look like a mistake to me.

00:38:12.520 That looked like good strategy, which was obviously decided in advance.

00:38:17.820 And he implemented it.

00:38:19.140 And it worked.

00:38:21.220 So in my opinion, she looked less presidential last night than at any point during the campaign season.

00:38:28.760 That's just my take.

00:38:29.640 S.E. Cupp said that, quote, what I saw was a man who talked over not just his female opponent, we're going full sexist here, but also the female moderator.

00:38:43.740 Oh, double misogyny.

00:38:46.020 Double misogyny.

00:38:48.160 That mean old Mike Pence.

00:38:50.080 Not only did he talk over a woman who was running for vice president, but he talked over a woman who was a moderator.

00:38:59.140 Double misogyny.

00:39:01.360 But none of that is what happened.

00:39:03.760 And other women who are being fair and honest about this are saying the same thing.

00:39:09.880 Other women who have succeeded based on their talent and hard work and skill are looking at Kamala Harris and saying,

00:39:17.400 You know, the right amount of talent and hard work and skill would have been better.

00:39:25.600 She could have been better.

00:39:28.820 Paul Begala, who is sort of the golem of CNN.

00:39:34.920 If CNN were sort of a hobbit movie, Paul Begala would be the golem.

00:39:41.840 And he's he's so far away from being anybody you should take seriously.

00:39:48.080 He's probably the person I take least seriously.

00:39:52.460 All right.

00:39:54.180 He says,

00:39:55.320 A hair showed the world why Joe Biden's first presidential decision was a masterstroke.

00:40:01.580 So, OK.

00:40:03.000 She indicted the Trumpers in with a relentless, remorseless command of the facts.

00:40:09.120 She was cunning, yet charming.

00:40:11.340 Righteously indignant, yet likable.

00:40:13.940 It was that last word that caught my attention.

00:40:19.120 Would you have used the word likable for Kamala Harris last night?

00:40:23.540 And again, watch out your sexism, because if you say that a woman is not likable, you're sort of automatically suspected of being a sexist, right?

00:40:35.580 Well, would you have said that about a man?

00:40:38.620 Let me be as clear as I can about this in my own opinion.

00:40:42.820 Would I say that a man was not likable if he made the same faces that Kamala Harris did?

00:40:50.560 Yeah.

00:40:51.040 Yeah, I would.

00:40:53.600 I would say that anybody who made those faces would be unlikable.

00:40:59.780 Likewise, anybody who spread the fine people hoax is automatically unlikable, in my opinion.

00:41:06.200 Megyn Kelly made some news by saying in a tweet, she said,

00:41:10.860 Take it like a woman, don't make faces.

00:41:13.300 So she was tweeting at Harris during the debate.

00:41:16.360 Take it like a woman, don't make faces.

00:41:18.180 So what happened to, you know, what happened with Megyn Kelly when she did this tweet, take it like a woman?

00:41:25.500 Well, obviously, people decided to make that sexual.

00:41:29.580 Do you think that Megyn Kelly intended that statement, take it like a woman, don't make faces?

00:41:36.280 Do you think she was thinking of that as a sexual comment?

00:41:40.220 No.

00:41:40.820 No, no, that was not a sexual comment.

00:41:45.560 It was a comment about look tougher.

00:41:48.680 Look tougher.

00:41:50.260 All right.

00:41:50.760 So take it like a woman was like, take it like a man, except, you know, more appropriate version.

00:41:56.940 It was just saying, don't make that face.

00:42:00.480 That's all it was.

00:42:02.120 And she got dumped on on social media.

00:42:06.520 Now, will any of this matter?

00:42:10.640 It will matter if the campaign takes advantage of it.

00:42:15.640 So there is an advantage to take.

00:42:18.500 The advantage is, first of all, you can paint Kamala Harris as the real top of the ticket so that you can attack her like she's the top of the ticket.

00:42:27.140 And that sounds fair because people expect that at the very least she'd be the candidate for a second term if Biden got elected.

00:42:36.000 So you can certainly attack her as the top of the ticket in waiting.

00:42:40.000 And you could attack her on the fine people hoax now, now that it's been fact-checked by credible news organizations.

00:42:50.940 You could just say, you could do a campaign ad where you say the Biden campaign was based on the biggest lie in American history.

00:43:01.680 Now, calling the fine people hoax the biggest lie in American history is technique.

00:43:07.040 If you've heard me say it or tweet it, it's technique.

00:43:11.580 The technique is this.

00:43:13.340 You say to yourself, I'm not sure that's the biggest lie in American history.

00:43:17.240 Let's look at some other ones and see how big they are.

00:43:20.040 Let's compare them.

00:43:21.340 That's what I want you to do.

00:43:22.920 It doesn't matter if it's literally the biggest lie in American history.

00:43:26.460 If I can put it in that category and make you argue about whether there might have been,

00:43:31.500 there might have been some other lie that was bigger,

00:43:33.640 than I've already sold my point, that it's among the biggest lies and that it's a lie.

00:43:39.520 That's the point.

00:43:41.020 So when you say it's the biggest lie in American history or the most divisive lie in American history,

00:43:46.240 that might be true, that it's the most divisive lie.

00:43:50.800 You're trying to over-claim because that's strong technique.

00:43:54.800 So if you said Biden keeps telling this bulging vein thing and then you show the video clip,

00:44:02.000 oh, I came out of the weeds with those bulging veins,

00:44:06.220 and then you show the debunk, show that it's not true,

00:44:10.760 and then you end the campaign commercial with noting that Richard Spencer,

00:44:15.360 the organizer of the Charlottesville march, has endorsed Biden.

00:44:22.980 You just end it with, and the organizer of the Charlottesville event endorsed Joe Biden,

00:44:29.900 which is true.

00:44:31.240 And people will go to fact check that.

00:44:33.600 They're like, that can't be true.

00:44:35.740 Oh, that actually happened.

00:44:38.100 And that's real, by the way.

00:44:39.400 So while the vice presidential debate is not by itself something that will change the election too much,

00:44:48.140 it did expose a line of attack that could change the election.

00:44:53.220 So it did make possible a dismantling of their campaign.

00:44:59.620 So the other big news is that Trump has refused to take part in the next debate

00:45:04.580 if it's going to be a virtual one, and that's what they wanted to do.

00:45:08.060 So they decided they want the next one to be virtual, which makes sense,

00:45:11.920 because the president and others have been tested positive for coronavirus.

00:45:19.740 You don't know how long that stuff lasts.

00:45:22.080 You don't know who else traveling with him might be exposed.

00:45:25.820 So maybe you want to go virtual.

00:45:27.480 It's not a mistake.

00:45:29.120 But do you agree with President Trump refusing to do the debate?

00:45:34.980 Remember, he's behind in the polls.

00:45:39.280 Generally speaking, when you're behind in the polls, you do the debate, right?

00:45:43.980 Have you ever seen an exception to that?

00:45:46.460 Has there ever been an exception where the person who's behind in the polling didn't want to do a debate?

00:45:53.360 Because that's the only way they have to make up ground for the most part.

00:45:57.300 I'm watching your comments.

00:46:03.120 I won't be able to read my notes and also call out the super chats, but I do look at them.

00:46:10.660 So for most of them I'm seeing, in case you're wondering, but I can't read them out loud and look at my notes at the same time.

00:46:17.700 So I apologize for that.

00:46:19.140 So here's what is good about Trump refusing to do it.

00:46:26.900 I believe that the second part of this, which has been unstated, but you know it was coming.

00:46:33.340 If Trump had agreed to a virtual debate where they're in different places and it's just being broadcast, what is the predictable next thing that would happen?

00:46:42.420 You know what it is.

00:46:44.180 Because the next thing that would happen is they would change the debate rules to turn off the mic so that Trump could not be heard at all.

00:46:53.920 Now, if he was on the same stage with Biden and they turned off his mic, he could still talk over him, right?

00:47:01.140 And the camera might pick up the two of them and might see the Trump talking.

00:47:05.200 Maybe you could even hear it on the other microphones.

00:47:07.180 So the idea of putting him in a remote location, I think, is probably 80% about turning off his microphone.

00:47:18.020 Don't you think that that was the real play?

00:47:20.500 It's about the microphone.

00:47:22.220 And they'll use the excuse of coronavirus, and that's a good excuse.

00:47:26.240 It's a really good excuse.

00:47:27.900 But it's about the microphone.

00:47:30.420 Now, the president, being behind, says, I'm not going to do it.

00:47:35.540 Now, it might be a negotiating ploy.

00:47:37.700 Remember, the president is always negotiating, especially when he leaves the negotiation.

00:47:44.040 Leaving the negotiation is just part of his negotiating.

00:47:47.100 He says that.

00:47:48.640 So we know that to be true.

00:47:49.800 And so maybe they'll still have some kind of a debate.

00:47:54.320 But think about the fact that he could do this after Pence beat Kamala Harris in the debate.

00:48:03.140 I think that Pence's solid win made it possible for Trump to cancel the other debates, or at least made it easier.

00:48:12.820 Because at least Pence goes out with a solid victory.

00:48:16.320 You know, I know some crazy people will say that he didn't win.

00:48:20.380 But CNN's running fake polls showing that Kamala Harris totally won, like by a lot.

00:48:29.140 I don't think so.

00:48:30.740 That's not the debate I watched.

00:48:32.680 But the bottom line is that you can't win a debate as a vice president.

00:48:39.900 You can't win any harder than having the top of the ticket and say, you know, we don't even need any more debates.

00:48:45.360 We just won this one so badly.

00:48:48.660 And Kamala is really the head of the ticket.

00:48:51.060 So we just beat my number two, Pence, my number two guy, just demolished your number one candidate.

00:49:00.640 Because their number one candidate is sort of Kamala Harris.

00:49:04.060 That's not a bad, that's not a bad time to leave.

00:49:07.700 If you're going to pull out of the rest of the debates, you couldn't pick a better time than that.

00:49:12.320 So I think Trump is good at recognizing a moment.

00:49:17.000 And this was exactly the right moment for that play.

00:49:20.880 It gets the news cycle, gets you talking about the debates, so you're talking less about the coronavirus.

00:49:27.040 All good.

00:49:27.580 Lauren Kenton said something funny on CNN that was funny enough that I just wanted to repeat it.

00:49:37.740 She said, COVID-19, thanks for the bad hair year.

00:49:41.460 It's not a bad hair day.

00:49:45.760 It's a bad hair year.

00:49:48.920 I don't know.

00:49:49.640 I thought that was funny.

00:49:51.020 Did you see the video of Trump talking about Regeneron?

00:49:55.600 And he was doing a proof of life thing where he's not on camera as much.

00:50:00.520 So he's doing these videos so you can see he's still Trump and he's still healthy.

00:50:04.580 And I had a few impressions about that.

00:50:09.000 Number one, I can't tell if it was just the lighting.

00:50:12.600 And it might be just the lighting.

00:50:14.100 But it looks like there's no orange left in his hair.

00:50:17.980 And it looks like there's no orange tone to his TV makeup.

00:50:23.260 Now, there could be a reason for this.

00:50:25.380 And I'm just going to speculate now.

00:50:26.920 Now, I'm guessing that because of his age, that his hair color is colored, right?

00:50:34.260 Doesn't he add something, some highlights to give it that non-gray color?

00:50:40.520 I think.

00:50:41.340 I would assume he's gray.

00:50:43.400 I would assume if he didn't do anything to his hair, it would be gray.

00:50:46.760 So if you go into the hospital, and in particular, if your problem is one that people can't be around you,

00:50:54.700 is somebody else the one who colors his hair?

00:50:58.820 I'm just going to speculate that he has some assistant who normally once a week or whatever adds a little tone to his hair to keep it that color.

00:51:07.960 If you go into the hospital, the nurses and the doctors are not going to perform that function.

00:51:13.300 And there's nobody else you can ask because you're infected with the coronavirus.

00:51:16.800 So it could be that like other people who go into the hospital, you just can't keep up your, you know, your hairstyle while you're in the hospital.

00:51:25.720 So he may have let it revert.

00:51:28.260 Now, it could have been just the lighting.

00:51:30.020 I may be completely off here.

00:51:31.780 So we'll have to see him again.

00:51:33.200 But if he let it revert, he emerged as Gandalf the Gray.

00:51:38.120 Do you know Gandalf?

00:51:42.540 He was actually Gandalf the Gray at first and turned it to Gandalf the White when something happened and he transformed.

00:51:49.640 I don't want to call him Trump the White because that turns into a whole different thing.

00:51:54.540 So it's like he emerged as Gandalf the Gray.

00:51:57.780 Like he came out of the coronavirus a different person or a different leader.

00:52:01.800 And I got to say, I like it.

00:52:03.480 But if the Gray is real and if he's going to keep it, and I don't know either of those to be true, it works.

00:52:13.160 And I think also there might be an issue with how he does TV makeup.

00:52:17.840 Because how does a makeup artist put makeup on somebody who's got coronavirus?

00:52:23.560 So he may not be getting TV makeup.

00:52:26.840 Maybe a family member, maybe Melania, probably Melania because Melania already has the virus.

00:52:33.500 So maybe he says, Melania, can you put on some TV makeup?

00:52:36.800 And maybe she does it better.

00:52:38.740 Maybe she just gives him a more natural look.

00:52:41.340 Maybe it's because his hair is not as orange, so they have to tone down the face makeup as well.

00:52:47.680 Whatever it is, it works.

00:52:49.860 So I'm just going to say, I like it.

00:52:52.200 It's a good look.

00:52:53.540 So if he keeps it, I think that would be a pretty good decision.

00:52:57.280 But let's talk about what he said, which wasn't so good.

00:53:02.460 The part about him talking, not as good, not as good.

00:53:07.540 And he has one mistake that he seems to want to make over and over again, which is saying medical stuff that non-medical people just shouldn't say.

00:53:17.460 Now, of course, you all know he got in trouble with hydroxychloroquine because he's not a doctor, not a scientist, and was a little enthusiastic about that.

00:53:27.760 And that didn't work out for him politically.

00:53:31.700 But then he has this Regeneron and several other drugs, remdesivir and I don't know what else, vitamin D, etc.

00:53:41.260 And he gives this video and he says that it was the Regeneron that made all the difference.

00:53:47.840 And when he said that, I just said, oh, don't say that.

00:53:52.880 I know why he's saying it.

00:53:55.400 It makes perfect sense to say it.

00:53:58.320 But he's again falling into the trap of making a medical claim that presidents should not make.

00:54:07.720 You know, if a medical person made this claim, you could at least take it seriously.

00:54:13.060 But I just don't like to see the president say, I took six drugs, but this is the one that made the difference.

00:54:20.720 Because I don't think you could know that.

00:54:23.340 I don't think you could know which of the drugs made you feel the way you feel.

00:54:28.140 And on top of that, he's taking that other drug that's got a long name that's a steroid.

00:54:34.580 The steroid, I believe, makes you feel better, even if you're not better.

00:54:41.980 Somebody needs to fact check me on that.

00:54:44.560 Any doctors want to fact check me on that?

00:54:47.500 Would not the steroid, just by itself, wouldn't that make him feel better, even if underlying problem wasn't that much better?

00:54:55.760 So when he says, I felt immediately better after the Regeneron, I got to ask myself, what else were you taking about the same time?

00:55:06.120 So his credibility on medical claims could not be lower.

00:55:10.540 And so I think it was a mistake for him to promote this.

00:55:14.680 But I have to say, I didn't see that much pushback.

00:55:17.440 Maybe because there's other news that's more interesting, but he might have gotten away with it.

00:55:23.940 I think they'll double back on that later.

00:55:26.700 But here's the thing.

00:55:27.960 He's trying to present a story in which the therapeutics are the savior and the vaccines will be great and the vaccines will finish it off.

00:55:37.860 But the therapeutic, especially Regeneron, if it's real and if it's working, is here now.

00:55:44.840 And it's a big difference.

00:55:46.420 So he wants people to feel safer about the odds of catching it.

00:55:51.100 So that's good.

00:55:52.200 So he's dealing with the fear.

00:55:54.680 How is he doing?

00:55:56.200 Let me ask you this.

00:55:58.040 When you saw President Trump go into Walter Reed, how much fear did you have about coronavirus?

00:56:05.420 Probably a lot.

00:56:06.400 You started with a healthy dose of fear for somebody in their 70s.

00:56:11.460 Maybe you weren't afraid for yourself, but you were certainly concerned about anybody in their 70s.

00:56:17.200 And when he went in the hospital, you were really concerned, probably, if you were a supporter.

00:56:23.360 And when it turns out that this drug, if this is true, and it could be true, the Regeneron made him feel instantly better.

00:56:32.160 If that's true, that makes you feel a lot safer, doesn't it?

00:56:37.120 And again, not safer necessarily for yourself, but safer on behalf of the exposed, vulnerable population.

00:56:44.400 So I think that part's probably good, to the extent that he's sold the story, that there's a therapeutic that can really make a difference.

00:56:55.640 Big Pharma pushes new meds, even at Walter Reed.

00:56:59.380 Yeah, so Big Pharma was using this as a marketing opportunity, that's true, and successfully.

00:57:07.500 Now, I hope we will not find that the president has any financial tie to Regeneron.

00:57:13.380 I believe he used to have some stock in that company, but doesn't anymore, if that reporting is correct.

00:57:20.060 I need a fact check on that.

00:57:23.620 So I love the fact that he's selling the story that the therapeutics are already here,

00:57:30.540 and they will keep you alive in almost every case.

00:57:34.580 That's a pretty good story, and it is compatible with reopening the country.

00:57:41.800 In related news, in an unprecedented move, it's been called,

00:57:47.520 the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine have publicly condemned the Trump administration for their COVID pandemic response,

00:57:56.420 and calling for the current U.S. leadership to be voted out of office.

00:58:00.640 That's pretty unprecedented, because it's a medical organization,

00:58:05.360 and they don't usually, maybe never, have gotten involved in politics.

00:58:09.600 But in their opinion, the treatment of the medical part of his job, if you will,

00:58:16.020 the pandemic, that according to them, he's botched it so badly,

00:58:19.640 he should be voted out of office, and they should break their longstanding tradition to make that case.

00:58:26.260 Here's what I get out of this.

00:58:27.720 This is exactly why you shouldn't listen to doctors on big political decisions.

00:58:41.480 Now, should you listen to your doctor about a medical decision?

00:58:45.120 Sure.

00:58:46.060 Of course.

00:58:47.200 Of course you listen to your doctor on a medical decision.

00:58:50.300 Is the pandemic handling a medical decision?

00:58:54.880 Nope.

00:58:56.280 Nope.

00:58:56.980 It's a very big decision.

00:58:58.840 It's a national decision.

00:59:00.640 It's a national defense decision.

00:59:02.820 It's an economic decision.

00:59:04.740 It's a mental health.

00:59:06.060 It's a physical health.

00:59:07.360 It's a medical decision.

00:59:09.260 It's a lot of things.

00:59:11.380 It's not a medical decision.

00:59:12.740 This demonstrates the stupidity of doctors as well as just about anything could.

00:59:20.640 They have ignored the economic part of the equation.

00:59:26.460 That is stupid.

00:59:29.180 Because they're at least smart enough to know they don't know that.

00:59:33.240 It'd be one thing if you didn't know what you don't know.

00:59:36.620 But doctors are smart in general.

00:59:39.600 They're smart people.

00:59:40.900 They're people with high IQs.

00:59:43.800 They know they don't know economics.

00:59:46.840 And they know that that's the other part of the decision.

00:59:49.780 And they have consciously decided to just ignore it.

00:59:54.340 They know that freedom is a thing and that people want it.

00:59:57.020 And that people will willingly take a risk of dying to get it.

01:00:00.720 Did they talk about freedom?

01:00:02.700 Nope.

01:00:03.660 Wasn't part of the conversation.

01:00:06.040 So doctors having a limited talent stack,

01:00:08.680 meaning they could have all the talent in the world at doctoring,

01:00:12.280 they know they don't have those other things.

01:00:15.380 They know they don't speak for freedom.

01:00:17.540 They don't speak for your soul.

01:00:19.540 They don't speak for your quality of life.

01:00:23.240 They don't speak for the economy.

01:00:24.660 They don't speak for national defense.

01:00:26.580 But the president does.

01:00:28.900 And the president took all of those things into consideration

01:00:32.420 and made the decisions that he did.

01:00:34.980 I believe he followed the medical decisions in every case.

01:00:38.780 But I looked for a specific example.

01:00:41.460 Because obviously, if doctors are going to make such an unprecedented move,

01:00:47.100 they're going to have to give their reasons.

01:00:49.200 Right?

01:00:49.340 So here are the reasons.

01:00:52.840 For example, they say in their statement,

01:00:55.920 for example, masks work.

01:00:59.040 What?

01:01:00.800 Was there a point when the president said masks don't work?

01:01:05.820 The only point that happened is when the doctors told him to say that.

01:01:10.660 That's the only time.

01:01:11.740 The only time Trump said masks don't work

01:01:15.200 is when doctors told him to say it.

01:01:18.900 That's it.

01:01:19.820 As soon as the doctors reversed,

01:01:22.160 Fauci and the Surgeon General, etc.

01:01:26.680 As soon as they reversed,

01:01:28.760 Trump reversed too.

01:01:30.860 Now, he of course doesn't want to overdo the masks,

01:01:33.600 but he always said they worked.

01:01:35.400 He's always promoted them.

01:01:36.460 He carries one in his pocket.

01:01:38.000 So the first part is just not true.

01:01:40.100 And then they say social distancing works.

01:01:44.160 Was there ever a point where Trump said that doesn't work?

01:01:48.260 No.

01:01:49.480 These are just lies.

01:01:51.100 They quarantine and isolation work.

01:01:53.240 Right?

01:01:54.980 Again, there's nobody, including the president,

01:01:58.120 who's ever said these things don't work.

01:02:01.780 No, that's not true.

01:02:02.560 There are citizens who say they don't work,

01:02:05.040 but certainly not Trump.

01:02:06.580 And this is amazing.

01:02:12.020 All right.

01:02:13.140 I would like to frame Trump's handling of the coronavirus this way.

01:02:18.280 When you have a leader,

01:02:20.640 leaders have two roles.

01:02:23.360 I held up three fingers there when I said two,

01:02:26.280 but you know this one doesn't count.

01:02:28.540 Two.

01:02:28.860 Two roles.

01:02:31.420 One is to lead the public where they don't know they want to go.

01:02:38.180 That's really where leaders get the most credit.

01:02:41.520 If a leader can tell the public,

01:02:43.420 all right, it's going to be tough.

01:02:45.300 We've got to go to war, for example.

01:02:47.540 It's going to be horrible, but we got to do it anyway.

01:02:50.900 That's leadership.

01:02:52.180 Getting the public to do something they didn't think they wanted to do,

01:02:56.100 but it's good for them.

01:02:56.980 So the other kind of leadership is giving the public what they want

01:03:01.040 because it's legitimate, right?

01:03:05.000 So the public wants, let me give you an example.

01:03:07.180 The public wants freedom of speech.

01:03:10.020 If the president simply didn't put his own opinion on it

01:03:13.460 and just said, all right, everybody wants freedom of speech.

01:03:16.060 I'm your leader.

01:03:17.320 I'm going to go get you some freedom of speech.

01:03:19.100 That's not really leadership in the other way

01:03:22.700 where you're giving them something they don't want

01:03:24.580 or don't know they want.

01:03:25.840 You're giving them what they want.

01:03:28.060 What was the coronavirus?

01:03:30.320 Was the coronavirus the first kind of leadership

01:03:33.400 where the president was leading people to do something they don't want?

01:03:38.340 Or was it more the follower kind of leadership

01:03:40.700 where you say, all right, everybody's on the same page.

01:03:43.500 This is what you want.

01:03:44.320 I will simply deliver it to you.

01:03:47.140 I think it was more the second part.

01:03:49.440 There was a little bit of the first part.

01:03:51.040 You know, you got to social distance

01:03:52.800 and we're going to close the economy.

01:03:54.380 So there were parts of that.

01:03:56.700 But here's the part that I think nobody has talked about.

01:04:01.220 And it goes like this.

01:04:03.320 The public had a vote.

01:04:05.420 Look, it was never the president's decision.

01:04:09.120 The president never had the power,

01:04:11.680 never had the ability, probably never had the desire

01:04:14.280 to override the citizens on this question.

01:04:19.200 Because I think the citizens had enough information

01:04:21.740 to make their own decisions.

01:04:23.900 And the citizens said, in effect,

01:04:27.400 they didn't say it explicitly,

01:04:28.600 but in effect, yeah, we're willing to risk a few hundred thousand lives

01:04:34.460 to run the country a little bit more closer to a normal situation.

01:04:41.400 Keep the economy strong.

01:04:42.980 Keep our national defense strong.

01:04:45.160 Protect the poor, especially.

01:04:47.940 Do what we can with the vulnerable people, especially.

01:04:51.080 But the citizens decided.

01:04:53.700 The president didn't have a choice.

01:04:55.700 If you think the president could have made the citizens

01:04:59.140 respond much differently,

01:05:02.040 I would say that's a very unsupported assumption

01:05:04.520 and doesn't track.

01:05:07.260 Imagine, if you will, a President Obama.

01:05:10.520 All right?

01:05:11.080 That's a fair, that's a completely fair mental experiment.

01:05:16.260 Imagine a President Obama,

01:05:18.300 and he told the country,

01:05:19.520 you've all got to wear your masks.

01:05:21.940 What do the conservatives do?

01:05:23.440 Do the conservatives say,

01:05:25.700 oh, President Obama says we have to wear masks.

01:05:28.520 I'm in.

01:05:29.460 Because the way he said it was very credible,

01:05:32.000 and he's a man of science.

01:05:34.240 He respects science.

01:05:35.960 So if President Obama says,

01:05:38.040 we conservatives and Republicans should wear masks,

01:05:41.320 I'm in.

01:05:41.900 I'm wearing a mask.

01:05:43.460 No.

01:05:44.500 In your wildest imagination,

01:05:47.220 you can't see,

01:05:48.360 you can't see President Obama getting more compliance from the public.

01:05:54.780 Do you know why?

01:05:56.340 Not his decision.

01:05:58.200 It's not.

01:06:00.060 Watch this.

01:06:01.780 This is me not wearing a mask.

01:06:03.900 If I want to,

01:06:05.460 I can walk out of doors,

01:06:07.220 and I can walk into a store without my mask.

01:06:10.160 I'll get kicked down,

01:06:11.040 but I can do it.

01:06:13.260 I have the power.

01:06:14.880 President Obama can't,

01:06:16.320 you know,

01:06:16.640 he couldn't have made me wear a mask if I didn't want to.

01:06:19.460 He couldn't make me not meet with my friends if I want to.

01:06:24.220 President Trump doesn't have that power either.

01:06:26.660 So as soon as you imagine that the President was leading in that first way,

01:06:31.960 which is getting,

01:06:32.860 you know,

01:06:33.180 getting the public to do something that maybe they didn't want to do,

01:06:35.900 you end up with the wrong answer.

01:06:38.820 Because if he had been trying to do that,

01:06:41.540 he failed.

01:06:43.280 I would agree with that.

01:06:45.120 If he had been trying to make everybody wear a mask,

01:06:48.120 and trying to make everybody socially distance the way he was telling you,

01:06:52.360 or the experts,

01:06:53.480 yeah,

01:06:53.700 that didn't happen.

01:06:55.220 Was it ever possible?

01:06:57.700 Was it?

01:06:58.840 No.

01:06:59.760 Because he didn't have the only vote.

01:07:02.160 This was a situation where every one of you had a vote.

01:07:04.840 And you voted.

01:07:06.620 You voted with your actions.

01:07:09.340 And if you look around,

01:07:10.560 you see a lot of people who said,

01:07:12.000 you know,

01:07:12.680 I know that a few hundred thousand people are going to die if I act this way,

01:07:16.740 and other people act this way.

01:07:23.760 Yeah.

01:07:24.920 I was just reading your comments.

01:07:26.180 That's why I was pausing there for a moment.

01:07:29.220 So,

01:07:30.500 whoever the President was,

01:07:32.000 they were going to get the same response from the public.

01:07:34.840 The public was going to vote.

01:07:36.880 Americans have voted.

01:07:38.500 Americans have chosen freedom and growth and prosperity over absolute safety.

01:07:46.140 Do you know why we chose that?

01:07:48.460 Because we're Americans.

01:07:49.540 Americans.

01:07:51.200 There's nothing more American than that.

01:07:53.360 If you say to an American,

01:07:54.920 here's your deal.

01:07:57.120 The only way you can keep the economy going is a few hundred thousand people are going to die.

01:08:02.140 We don't know their names,

01:08:03.860 but we know it's going to happen.

01:08:05.580 But it's the only way to keep this engine working.

01:08:08.120 And this engine is what has made the world as good as it is.

01:08:11.720 Do you want to break the thing that made everything work?

01:08:15.900 I mean,

01:08:16.100 basically the whole rest of the world benefits from a strong United States.

01:08:20.100 I feel that's a safe thing to say.

01:08:23.520 So,

01:08:24.180 that's my take.

01:08:26.780 The public voted.

01:08:28.320 The president basically agreed with the public.

01:08:32.840 And we got exactly what we bought.

01:08:35.320 If you go into a store and you say,

01:08:37.160 I'm going to buy a loaf of bread.

01:08:38.820 I've got my whatever bread costs.

01:08:41.220 I don't know.

01:08:41.720 Four dollars.

01:08:42.420 What does bread cost?

01:08:43.240 I have no idea.

01:08:44.320 I don't buy bread.

01:08:45.280 But you give them four dollars for your loaf of bread and they give you a loaf of bread.

01:08:50.980 What do you say?

01:08:52.080 Do you say that was a failure?

01:08:54.840 No.

01:08:55.680 No.

01:08:56.540 You had money.

01:08:57.440 You wanted bread.

01:08:58.320 You gave them money.

01:08:59.120 They give you bread.

01:08:59.960 It's what you wanted.

01:09:00.720 It's what they wanted.

01:09:01.460 Everybody got what they wanted.

01:09:02.960 Nobody failed.

01:09:05.000 If the public of the United States said,

01:09:07.100 yeah,

01:09:07.440 I know it's going to cost us a couple hundred thousand lives and more.

01:09:11.460 And I'm still going to go get that loaf of bread.

01:09:13.920 Because you know what?

01:09:15.280 I know what a loaf of bread costs.

01:09:17.540 I know it's not free.

01:09:19.260 I'm not asking for free bread.

01:09:21.620 I'm American.

01:09:23.420 All right?

01:09:24.300 Americans don't ask for free bread.

01:09:27.880 You know,

01:09:28.400 we know it costs something.

01:09:29.580 We're going to pay it.

01:09:31.460 So Americans paid it.

01:09:32.740 The president allowed the transaction.

01:09:35.520 Let me say that that way.

01:09:38.280 All right.

01:09:38.880 That's all I got for now.

01:09:40.200 I will talk to you tomorrow.

01:09:46.280 All right.

01:09:47.240 Periscope is off.

01:09:48.780 YouTube is still on.

01:09:51.160 I like to hang around and just take some extra questions on YouTube.

01:09:56.580 Somebody said Harris had less time than,

01:09:59.080 or Pence had less time than Harris.

01:10:00.920 I saw that,

01:10:02.120 but it's funny how it didn't seem like that,

01:10:03.860 right?

01:10:04.040 The impression of it was different than the actual math of it,

01:10:09.200 I think.

01:10:11.920 Somebody says social media ruined politics.

01:10:15.260 Yes.

01:10:15.780 I would say that the artificial intelligence ruined social media,

01:10:21.020 which ruined politics.

01:10:23.540 Because the AI determines what we see,

01:10:27.260 and it's decided we'll only see things that make our hair catch on fire.

01:10:33.180 What did I think of the Lincoln lie?

01:10:36.000 I don't know which one you're talking about.

01:10:38.900 Do masks work?

01:10:40.160 Let me give you the answer I've given before.

01:10:43.200 I'll give you the short version.

01:10:45.420 If you believe that masks definitely don't work,

01:10:49.260 or you believe that masks definitely work,

01:10:52.400 you are not smart.

01:10:54.100 Sorry.

01:10:55.600 Sorry.

01:10:56.420 Because there are smart people who are arguing they work,

01:11:00.180 and there are smart people also looking at the data.

01:11:03.360 In all cases, everybody's looking at the data,

01:11:06.120 and smart people will say they do work.

01:11:07.920 So what can you conclude as a citizen who is not an expert

01:11:12.480 when there are smart people who say they work,

01:11:15.800 smart people say they don't work?

01:11:17.540 What should you do?

01:11:18.380 What's the right decision?

01:11:20.880 The right decision is you wear a mask,

01:11:23.000 because it might work.

01:11:24.480 If the stakes are really high, it's this.

01:11:28.580 It's a version of the expected value thing.

01:11:32.100 The cost of wearing a mask,

01:11:34.540 there is some cost,

01:11:35.540 especially if you've got an underlying health condition or something.

01:11:38.580 There is a cost.

01:11:40.840 And it's a pretty big cost.

01:11:43.260 But the alternative of potentially millions of deaths is bigger.

01:11:49.200 So if you don't know that they work,

01:11:51.560 and you don't know that they don't work,

01:11:54.260 the right play in terms of risk management is to wear a mask.

01:11:58.200 So when you ask me, do they work or do they not,

01:12:01.280 I don't need to answer that.

01:12:02.700 I only need to tell you that smart experts have looked at the data,

01:12:06.420 and they disagree.

01:12:08.100 That's it.

01:12:08.680 That's the whole, that's all the data you need to know to wear a mask.

01:12:14.440 All right.

01:12:15.060 Somebody says that Kamala had nothing to promote or to tout.

01:12:23.260 That's true.

01:12:24.280 I saw one expert pundit say she only needed to show up and, you know,

01:12:29.180 not lose, and it would be fine,

01:12:30.860 because the ticket's already ahead.

01:12:32.660 I think there's something to that.

01:12:34.020 She didn't have to take a chance.

01:12:36.040 So she didn't take a chance,

01:12:37.900 and she didn't have to take a chance.

01:12:40.360 Maybe that was enough.

01:12:41.360 What's the dumbest?

01:12:46.020 The comments are going by so quickly,

01:12:48.060 a lot of them I can't read.

01:12:51.920 Can you speak to the answers to the last question?

01:12:55.120 Remind me, what was the last question?

01:12:59.060 I don't remember.

01:13:03.280 Who was more positive and upbeat?

01:13:05.900 I would say Pence.

01:13:07.260 Pence was the more positive message.

01:13:09.680 Did I watch the Frank Luntz focus group?

01:13:14.600 I did not.

01:13:16.720 I once shared a car with Frank Luntz years ago.

01:13:21.480 We both gave a talk at the same place,

01:13:24.180 and we shared a car back to the airport.

01:13:27.440 So in a weird, small-world way,

01:13:31.780 I spent some time in a car with him.

01:13:33.580 All right.

01:13:36.820 That's all for now,

01:13:38.220 and I will talk to you all.

01:13:39.960 Thanks for changing.

01:13:45.000 Great.

01:13:45.740 Thank you.

01:13:49.340 Thank you.

01:13:49.760 We'll talk about the missing go.

01:13:52.380 How do you do?

01:13:54.580 We'll talk to you next time,

01:13:55.360 and we'll talk about the film estado,

01:13:57.880 and then we'll talk to you next time.

01:13:59.540 We'll talk about some time in the movie see chimney,

01:14:01.880 leave us.

01:14:02.880 You see the art.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - October 08, 2020

Episode 1148 Scott Adams： Did CNN Send a Tiny Fly Drone to Distract Pence？ And More About the Debate

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