Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1265 Scott Adams： The News, Historians, A Virus Test That'll Make You Turn the Other Cheek

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, come on in, come on in. It's time. Yeah, it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams.

00:00:13.980 Best time of the day, every single time. Now I have to warn you that I'm going to miss

00:00:20.600 one morning. I believe it's tomorrow morning. No, it's Thursday morning.

00:00:28.300 Hey Omar, good morning, good morning. Get in here, we've got lots to talk about. But before

00:00:36.480 we do, what do we do before we talk about all the fun things? It's a simultaneous sip, that's

00:00:42.460 right. And all you need is, let's see, all you need is, I'm not cheating, I'm not looking

00:00:50.800 at my cheat sheet, I'm not looking to the left. All you need is a cup of mug, a glass of

00:00:55.820 tango, chalice, or stein, a canteen jug, a plastic vessel of any kind. Fill it with

00:00:59.880 your favorite liquid, I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the

00:01:04.780 dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous

00:01:07.480 up and out. It's now. Go.

00:01:09.440 I'm being reminded that tomorrow is Thursday. Let me tell you, I have completely lost all

00:01:20.760 track of time. I have this weird condition in which calendars confuse me. Lots of things

00:01:28.820 confuse me, but I'm not good with calendars. I'll tell you more about that some other time.

00:01:33.480 So, one of the things that, I'm in Bora Bora now, in French Polynesia, if you didn't know,

00:01:40.260 and one of the remarkable things about this place is the low crime. And I figured out why

00:01:46.780 finally. Why is there such low crime here? There could never really be any kind of underground

00:01:52.680 mafia here, because the water is so clear. If you took a body and you put them in the bottom

00:02:00.200 of the lagoon, people would be walking by the lagoon and they'd say, hey, there's Mark.

00:02:07.360 Oh, oh. Because you would see them so clearly, it's like they're not even underwater. So, it'd

00:02:14.040 be hard to dispose of your bodies out here. That's my take on why the crime is so low.

00:02:21.000 All right. So, it turns out that Biden is describing his vice president, Kamala Harris,

00:02:29.400 as, quote, she's going to be the final opinion he listens to before making his big decisions.

00:02:36.960 So, not only will Kamala Harris not have a portfolio, which is what you do with vice presidents when you 0.79

00:02:44.880 want to keep them as vice presidents, but she's going to be the last person he talks to before he 0.80

00:02:49.920 makes a big decision, which is a lot like she's making the decision, isn't it?

00:02:56.880 Now, he didn't say, I'm going to talk to her last, and then I'm going to ignore her advice.

00:03:05.580 I feel as if he's just moving us a little bit closer every day to her taking over, but he doesn't

00:03:13.300 want to say it directly. This is sort of a version of the cats on the roof. Well, let me break it to

00:03:19.880 you slowly. I'm not going to say she's the real president. I'm just going to say she doesn't have

00:03:26.780 a portfolio she's working on. I'm not going to say she's the real president. I'm just saying I'm a

00:03:35.180 certain age, and I don't think I'd run for a second term. I'm not saying that she's the real president.

00:03:43.220 I'm just saying she's the last person I'll talk to before I make a big decision, which is totally

00:03:50.420 different. Do you see it? Every little move is just a little bit more in that direction.

00:03:56.680 So that's fun to watch them manage us with the propaganda. So an interesting thing happened

00:04:07.420 at the end of Biden's remarks, I guess at a press conference, in which Fox News's Peter Doocy

00:04:14.140 asked him what he talked about when he talked to Putin. So I guess Biden and Putin must have had a

00:04:20.220 phone call. And Biden's answer was, his answer to the question, what did you talk with Putin about?

00:04:27.280 Biden said, you, ha ha ha ha. So he just joked at Peter Doocy and then, you know, left the room.

00:04:36.340 Now that's the second time he's used the same joke on Peter Doocy. So I forget the context of the other

00:04:43.200 one, but I think when he was riding his bicycle, Biden was, and Peter Doocy asked him a question,

00:04:48.560 and he, and Biden looked at him and said, you. So he's basically used the same joke twice,

00:04:53.680 which isn't much of a joke. But here's what I think you ought to look for. It could be that he's

00:05:01.040 just treating Peter Doocy like a, somebody from Fox News. So he's doing the same thing that Trump did

00:05:07.860 to CNN. So it might be nothing but, you know, the way he's treating Fox News, which would be

00:05:13.420 not unexpected. But I'd also look for the fact that he might be covering some memory problems.

00:05:22.780 So look for this pattern going forward. Look for situations in which Biden, asked to recall

00:05:31.240 something from memory, makes a joke instead as a cover up for maybe not having so much memory.

00:05:39.700 Because if Biden is asked what his policy is, then that's probably something he's practiced a lot.

00:05:47.360 What do you think of the Paris Accord? And then he'll say, blah, blah, blah, we have to lead the

00:05:52.880 world, blah, blah, blah, Trump is bad. But when you ask him a memory problem of, you know, what did

00:06:00.440 you do then? He hasn't practiced that. Because why would you? You wouldn't think to practice your

00:06:06.840 memories. You would think to practice something like a policy decision, you know, something to

00:06:12.100 describe. So look for him to have to cover any memory related questions by making a joke. We'll

00:06:20.480 see if that happens. So it's a semi prediction slash pattern to look for. You probably saw the

00:06:28.420 humorous video going around of Jen Psaki, Biden's spokesperson, who apparently has used the phrase

00:06:36.560 I'll have to circle back a lot of times already. She hasn't been on the job long, but a lot of

00:06:45.940 circling back. So when you see all the times that she says that, it puts the lie to the statement

00:06:53.500 that they were going to be the honest and as CNN says, refreshing, refreshing communicator.

00:07:01.920 There's going to be a lot of stuff she's going to circle back on, if you know what I mean.

00:07:07.160 So my favorite CNN demon, propagandist, you know, I realized today that calling people opinion

00:07:16.900 people versus news people isn't really enough detail, right? I don't think anymore you could

00:07:25.840 call everybody who works at CNN an opinion person or a news person. There's another category.

00:07:31.920 Which is propagandist. And I don't think you can call the opinion people opinion people

00:07:38.520 when they go so far into propaganda that it's just ridiculous, right? Now, of course, you could make

00:07:45.320 the same argument about some people on the right. So I'm not saying this is limited to one side.

00:07:51.380 But my favorite propagandist is CNN's John Avalon. And I don't know what makes me so entertained by him.

00:07:58.420 I think it's because he's smiling when he's being evil. And the combination of the smile and the evil

00:08:05.240 makes it look different than if he were just being evil or just smiling. You know, those two things

00:08:10.760 shouldn't be paired. That's demon territory. So he was mocking, in an opinion piece on video,

00:08:18.440 John Avalon was mocking Rand Paul for saying that Biden's speech, calling for unity, was actually

00:08:28.140 thinly veiled suggestion that Republicans are white supremacists. So Rand Paul says that Biden is

00:08:39.380 essentially suggesting that Republicans are really white supremacists. How does John Avalon,

00:08:45.400 the propagandist, the propagandist, treat that? He says, huh, why is Rand Paul worried about this?

00:08:54.880 You see that? Huh, why is Rand Paul worried about being called a white supremacist? He's literally

00:09:02.160 suggesting that Rand Paul is a white supremacist. So in his propaganda piece, in which he's mocking

00:09:09.220 Rand Paul for thinking that Biden is somehow suggesting he's a white supremacist, John Avalon

00:09:16.840 clearly suggests, clearly, I mean, there's no ambiguity there, that Rand Paul is a white supremacist,

00:09:25.040 right on TV. No evidence, no reason for it. He just puts him in the same category as a white supremacist.

00:09:35.940 You don't need reasons, apparently. But it gets better. I'm sorry, John Avalon, and I've seen other

00:09:44.100 people at CNN and in other places use this phrase, the big lie. Do you know what they refer to as the

00:09:52.100 big lie? Well, it turns out they've branded the idea that Trump's claim that the, and other people's

00:09:59.720 claim that the election was rigged. So they're calling that the big lie. What does the big lie

00:10:06.300 remind you of? Is there some thinly veiled suggestion? When you use a phrase like the big lie, where did

00:10:17.580 that come from? Yeah, it's a Nazi phrase. The big lie, correct me if I'm wrong, refers to the Nazi

00:10:29.060 propaganda process. Yeah, I think it was Goebbels. Goebbels, I never know how to pronounce his name.

00:10:37.400 Goebbels. He was the one who said that a big lie is easier to sell than a small one.

00:10:42.780 So the phrase big lie is associated with Nazis. So again, John Avalon clearly branding Republicans

00:10:53.980 and Trump as a Nazi. And he's doing it right on television like that's an opinion. Now, an opinion

00:11:02.500 with some detail behind it might be one thing, but this is pure propaganda. It is Nazi propaganda,

00:11:09.320 just like it, just like it, in which he's branding a class of people, a class of people who should

00:11:16.040 be, let's say, treated differently by society and not well. And that's what he would like you to think

00:11:23.580 of Republicans. Quite amazing, quite amazing to watch actual Nazi-like propaganda that's being sold as

00:11:34.460 ordinary opinion. It's just an opinion that these people should be treated as second-class citizens.

00:11:45.180 So here's some other shocking things. There's Tom Cotton's writing an opinion piece saying we

00:11:53.980 should remove these 7,000 remaining National Guard that apparently were going to remain in the Capitol.

00:12:00.300 To which I said, am I missing something in this story? Is there some reason we need a standing

00:12:08.060 defensive army in Washington, D.C.? I understand the Capitol was assaulted. I understand there's

00:12:14.560 probably more chatter on the internet. But really? Right now, we need 7,000 people guarding the Capitol?

00:12:21.900 Well, we don't have enough police to take care of whatever might happen? Because you get a lot of

00:12:28.140 warning if a lot of people are going to show up, don't you? I feel as though, I feel as though that

00:12:33.940 whole, what was it, Stop the Steal movement that became the, at least some members of them, or at least

00:12:41.780 some people who attended the larger event, you know, got into the Capitol building, and nobody's in favor of

00:12:47.840 that. Or at least I'm not. You can, you can judge it yourself, but I hope you're not in favor of that

00:12:55.280 either. So why do we have troops? I think I've got to agree with Tom Cotton here. It's time to get rid

00:13:04.160 of the troops and thank them, thank them for their work, and not put them in parking garages. I forget

00:13:12.160 if I told you this yesterday, in some publication called the College Fix. It reports that researchers

00:13:18.120 plan to revise a study on YouTube echo chambers that labeled the Dilbert cartoonist as far right.

00:13:26.500 I still laugh at that. I bet it's, we live in a world in which people can't even conceive 1.00

00:13:33.860 that you might be able to criticize both sides for different things. It's like it's not even a thing

00:13:40.080 that you would imagine that maybe just because I am in favor of some things or opposed to some

00:13:46.340 things that, that you could just, you know, label me as far right. I label myself as Lefta Bernie.

00:13:53.000 So there you go. There's a story about a literary agent who was fired by the, the agency that employed

00:14:00.520 him. And here's, here's the reason he was fired. Because he has an account on Gab and Parler.

00:14:07.500 That's it. He got fired for that. He got fired for using social media companies that lots of people

00:14:16.920 use. But more people associated with the right use them. And so just the fact that he was using

00:14:23.800 those two platforms, independent of whatever he was doing on there, that's it. He got fired for it.

00:14:30.880 And he got fired because somebody called the, called the downs. Somebody, you know, on social media

00:14:36.420 said, hey, do you know that one of your employees or agents, one of your agents has these social

00:14:41.280 media accounts? And he actually got fired. Wow. Now, I hope what happens is that anybody who does

00:14:52.360 that sort of thing, the firing, I mean, ends up taking a hit. Now, of course, it's a public story.

00:14:59.500 And who would do business if you were on the right? Who would do business with this person

00:15:05.860 who just fired somebody for having a social media account she doesn't like? Who would do 0.99

00:15:10.680 business with them if you were a Republican? I wouldn't. I mean, that would be, that would

00:15:16.960 be a hard no, right? It wouldn't matter. As long as there's some competition, why in the world

00:15:24.360 would you deal with somebody like that? There's an interesting story that China has developed

00:15:31.700 some kind of an, this is not a joke, by the way, what follows is not a joke. China has developed

00:15:38.800 an anal coronavirus test. Now, I don't know the details of it, because I didn't want to delve

00:15:46.620 into it, if you know what I mean. But it is sort of a turn the other cheek situation, as

00:15:52.940 opposed to the cheek swabs that you were doing in your mouth. Apparently, your other cheeks

00:15:58.600 will get involved now. And I'm just putting that out there, that there's an anal coronavirus 0.98

00:16:05.680 test. Well, I'll use that as a segue for some other stories about things that China is trying

00:16:15.240 to shove up your ass. So, the coronavirus test is the first thing that China is trying 0.99

00:16:20.860 to shove up your asses. The second thing is a story about the World Health Organization. 0.98

00:16:27.880 Top officials said that in a recent press conference that it is, quote, definitely too early to conclude

00:16:34.720 that the coronavirus originated in China. Okay, it's way too early, people. Do not assume

00:16:44.540 that the coronavirus originated in China. But there's a trick to this one. That's sort

00:16:50.380 of the headline. So, what I told you was the headline. When you hear that the World Health

00:16:55.000 Organization is saying, we're not sure where this started, you know, be open-minded about

00:16:59.900 it, it doesn't sound good, does it? But then the rest of the story kind of clarifies, which

00:17:06.620 is that the World Health Organization is backing some scientists who are going to study the origins

00:17:13.660 of the virus. So, in the context of your organization backing a study about the origin of the virus,

00:17:24.060 should you say in advance what the origin of the virus is? No. No. You should act as though

00:17:31.860 you're open-minded, even if you're not. So, under this specific situation, the World Health Organization

00:17:39.120 executive is perfectly correct in saying, let's be open-minded and see where the data goes.

00:17:46.480 If he had been speaking as just a citizen, he probably would have said the same thing that

00:17:50.660 you would say, which is, I'm pretty sure it's China. Pretty sure it's China. But because he's

00:17:57.480 associated with some research that just began into looking about the origin, then he should say,

00:18:03.380 let's be open-minded. Otherwise, what's the point? You know, why are they doing the study if he

00:18:09.040 already knows the answer? So, I think that was the right political answer. Who knows what he really

00:18:14.760 believes? Here's an interesting question. So, I guess the Olympics coming up will be in China.

00:18:23.100 Yeah. But the United States, or at least Pompeo, designated China, what did they say? That

00:18:32.540 they're committing genocide in Xinjiang? No. Yes. Yeah. So, the idea is that if the United States

00:18:42.960 has labeled China as committing genocide against the Uyghurs, somebody says Japan.

00:18:49.440 That's not right, is it? Why is there a major story? Why is there a major story about the Olympics

00:19:05.540 in China if all of you think the Olympics are in Japan? What's happening right now? So, I guess it's

00:19:13.600 the difference between the 2022 Winter Games versus whatever Japan is doing.

00:19:22.980 Summer Olympics are in Japan. The next Winter Olympics, I'm just reading the comments now,

00:19:28.620 the next Winter Olympics will be in China? Okay. So, I think we cleared it up. Japan will be the next

00:19:37.700 Summer Olympics. Next Winter will be China. And can we really send our Olympic athletes to a country

00:19:46.900 we've designated as being involved with genocide? Can we? I feel as if the Olympics have run their

00:19:56.520 course. I don't think the Olympics are useful anymore. In pre-internet days, I think the Olympics

00:20:03.320 were really, really good because it got all the countries competing in a friendly way instead of

00:20:08.500 an unfriendly way. But with the internet and, you know, our connectivity and the way we trade with

00:20:15.120 each other in the modern times, do you need an Olympics? Because I don't care about the Olympics.

00:20:21.600 And by the way, I think the Olympics are terrible for athletes. Just terrible. Because for every person

00:20:28.100 who makes it to the Olympics, you have, what, thousands of people who dedicated their entire

00:20:32.960 youth to trying to get in the Olympics and failed. What a waste. What a waste. The Olympics, I believe,

00:20:41.220 are not a positive force in the world. They don't add enough, but they definitely subtract

00:20:47.620 for all the thousands of athletes who wasted their youth trying to train for something that didn't

00:20:53.520 happen for them. Just so a few can win some skiing and shooting and lifting contests that you don't

00:20:59.900 care about. I mean, why does any of this matter? It's ridiculous. So I don't think we should send our

00:21:07.040 athletes to the Olympics in China. I think that China has not met what I would call a minimum requirement

00:21:16.960 to host something that is meant for, you know, peace, right? The point of the Olympics is everybody

00:21:24.480 gets along. I don't think China met the basic criteria for that. Now, this would be, of course, 0.97

00:21:31.240 a tragedy for the athletes who have trained and qualified for the Olympics, but let them join the

00:21:38.200 other people who didn't make the Olympics, right? If there are thousands of other people who trained all

00:21:43.380 other, you know, they trained and trained and didn't make the Olympics, if you throw a few

00:21:48.380 hundred more into the mix who also trained and don't get to go to that Olympics, it isn't that

00:21:54.240 different. But it would be sending a signal that we're kind of okay and normalize the genocide

00:22:03.560 against the Uyghurs. Let me put it this way. If we attend the Olympics, we have normalized 1.00

00:22:09.100 genocide. We would have normalized genocide. Don't think, I don't think we can send our

00:22:17.720 Olympic athletes there, but I think we will, unfortunately. Maggie Heberman is reporting

00:22:24.060 that Trump has a list of Republicans he wants to punish. Governor of Georgia, Liz Cheney,

00:22:31.300 somebody else is on the list. And I told you before that one of Trump's superpowers is that

00:22:37.400 he makes the biggest difference between how he treats you if you're good to him and you help him

00:22:42.740 versus how he treats you if you're not good to him and you're on his bad side. That's one of the

00:22:48.260 tricks of power, is that you want to make the biggest difference between being on your side and

00:22:53.080 not being on your side. Because then when people make choices, they say, I don't want to get that guy

00:22:58.760 mad. Or I do want to make that guy happy, guy or gal. So on one hand, you could certainly see it as a

00:23:09.880 flaw that he's out of office and looking for revenge. It's hard to defend being out of office

00:23:19.000 and looking for revenge. Like, I'm not going to defend that. But I will tell you that somebody who

00:23:25.300 has that characteristic is going to go far in this world whether you like it or not, because that's

00:23:31.100 the maximum distance between being on their good side and being on their bad side. And when you

00:23:36.320 establish that as your brand, which Trump has quite successfully, gives people a reason to want to be

00:23:43.840 on your side. Or at least not to sell you out if you've been on that side.

00:23:49.380 So as I mentioned yesterday, I tweeted cheekily that, you know, given that Trump is being impeached

00:23:58.000 after he's left office, I said, is it too late to impeach George Washington for owning slaves? I don't

00:24:03.480 see how we can let that slide. How do you think Democrats responded to my tweet saying, why not

00:24:11.780 impeach George Washington for slavery? Well, if you think that I tricked Democrats into supporting

00:24:21.480 slavery, you'd be correct. I actually had a bunch of Democrats coming in to support slavery. 0.96

00:24:30.260 Now, the way they did it was they said, Scott, you have to understand that in their opinion,

00:24:36.660 what Trump did is probably insurrection and against the law. That's like breaking a law.

00:24:43.140 But Scott, you don't understand that in the time of George Washington, it wasn't illegal.

00:24:49.020 It wasn't illegal to own slaves. And so the Democrats tell me that George Washington owning slaves,

00:24:57.000 Scott, that's not impeachable. It's not even a crime, if you looked at it in a historical context.

00:25:03.840 That's right. No joke. I actually tricked. I didn't do it intentionally. It was so I won't

00:25:11.380 call it a trick. I trapped accidentally Democrats into defending slavery as not really that bad 0.69

00:25:19.660 because it wasn't technically illegal at the time. Now, if you've wondered how bad is TDS?

00:25:27.320 Could you get somebody to defend slavery just so they can be anti-Trump? And the answer is,

00:25:36.180 you don't have to wonder anymore. I did it right in front of you. I didn't do it intentionally,

00:25:42.280 but I created an accidental test in the wild, not a randomized controlled test, but still an

00:25:49.140 interesting one. Let me give you my most interesting example. So in response to my tweet

00:25:58.280 about impeaching George Washington, Larry Charles, you may know him as writer, director. He was one of

00:26:05.640 the original Seinfeld writers, and he was also the executive producer on the Dilbert animated TV show

00:26:14.540 for a while, so I know him well from working with him there. And he also went on to direct Borat,

00:26:20.000 and he was a showrunner on Mad About You. Very successful guy, right? And very smart, very talented,

00:26:28.320 and, but he's very anti-Trump. So he and I sort of went different directions on the Trump thing,

00:26:35.900 but I've known him well since he worked on, I mean, at least I knew him well during the time that

00:26:40.640 we're working on the show. So here's what he said to my tweet. He said it would be good if at least

00:26:47.000 some of the people who make this fallacious argument, talking about my impeach Washington stuff,

00:26:55.140 fallacious argument, admit that owning another human being is barbaric.

00:27:00.660 What? Let me read this again. Larry Charles says, it would be good if at least some of the people

00:27:07.000 who make this fallacious argument admit that owning another human being is barbaric.

00:27:13.360 What? What? Was there somebody who was pro-slavery? Somebody thought owning another person in the year

00:27:25.540 2021, somebody thought that maybe that was just okay? What are you imagining, Larry? Now, here's what's

00:27:34.000 interesting about this. You're all used to seeing people make crazy, TDS, you know, Trump derangement

00:27:40.760 syndrome comments on the internet. But usually, it's people you don't know personally, right? It's

00:27:49.100 usually just some rando, and you say to yourself, oh, I know the problem here. The problem is the person

00:27:56.220 making the comment is stupid, or they're uninformed, or they're intentionally lying, or so you have a 1.00

00:28:03.460 theory about why that person is acting the way they are. Except what happens when you know the person 1.00

00:28:10.020 personally? Larry Charles is really, really smart, which is why he's also really successful. And here's

00:28:19.160 the funniest part. You know how I always mock people online for not understanding a joke?

00:28:27.540 Larry Charles writes jokes for a living. He's written jokes with me. He and I have written jokes

00:28:33.980 together. And somehow, he's not quite seeing that I'm joking. The point of my tweet of why don't we

00:28:44.980 impeach George Washington is not that it's the same situation. I'm not saying George Washington and

00:28:53.120 Trump are the same guy who did the same offense. I'm not saying that. How would you interpret it that

00:28:59.300 way? That would be kind of a weird way to interpret it. Let me tell you how you should interpret my

00:29:05.280 tweet. Impeaching George Washington would be a waste of time, right? Likewise,

00:29:14.980 impeaching Trump after he's left office would be a complete waste of time. That's the point.

00:29:21.800 The point is not that Trump and Washington are the same guy doing the same things.

00:29:27.760 The point is that they're both wastes of time. Now, Democrats will argue they're not wastes of time

00:29:34.740 because it might prevent Trump from running in the future. To which I say, that's not going to happen.

00:29:44.040 In what world do you think Trump could successfully, and the successfully part is the part that

00:29:50.660 matters, in what world do you think he could successfully run for president again? I mean,

00:29:56.080 he could run, but successfully? That door is really closed. Would he run for, you know,

00:30:03.520 some people are just for fun or speculating he would run for the Senate in Florida. He's not going to

00:30:09.860 run for the Senate after being president. Nobody does that, right? And certainly he's not going to

00:30:16.380 do that. So any notion, somebody says, don't count him out. Let me acknowledge this.

00:30:23.600 He does have a way of coming from behind, et cetera. So he's definitely a comeback kind of

00:30:32.780 personality. And so if you say, don't count him out, I get what you're saying. You know, I get it

00:30:38.720 as a concept. But there are way too many people who supported him before who would say, I think he's

00:30:46.440 aged out. You know, I think the way things ended, the coronavirus situation, for example,

00:30:53.740 just makes it impractical for him to run again. So given the impracticality of it, it's just a

00:31:00.620 waste of time to impeach him. It's nothing but revenge and trying to basically paint all Republicans

00:31:08.900 as insurrectionists. So I see the impeachment trial as a way to impeach citizens. I don't think

00:31:17.740 it has much to do with Trump. It's a way to impeach Republicans for having supported him. That's what

00:31:23.420 it feels like to me. So in a sense, the Senate is impeaching me and impeaching anybody who may have

00:31:35.060 ever supported Trump about anything. So I feel like I'm getting impeached quite seriously.

00:31:43.120 All right. So just wrapping up on the Larry Charles thing. Larry Charles is one of the greatest guys in

00:31:49.640 the world. Let me just say that as clearly as possible. When I talk to anybody who's ever worked

00:31:55.200 with him, they freaking love this guy. And so did I. I mean, I do. I mean, I just love the guy. He's just

00:32:01.660 a really good person, in my opinion. But he doesn't like Trump. And I think that may distort his

00:32:06.900 perceptions in an interesting way. But he's a great guy. Rand Paul gave a terrific speech in the

00:32:16.000 Senate, in the Senate trial. And I saw some real leadership there that I liked a lot. And the point

00:32:25.240 he made, if I could just summarize it, is that no Democrats were asking if Bernie Sanders said

00:32:32.800 something that incited violence. And he gave examples. And nobody said that, well, I guess

00:32:41.660 Bernie Sanders says things that you could interpret as inciting the person who shot Steve Scalise.

00:32:49.240 Luckily, he survived. And then he went on saying, no Democrat will ask whether Maxine Waters incited

00:32:57.000 violence when she literally told her supporters to confront Trump officials in public. I mean, that's

00:33:02.000 pretty direct. That's pretty direct. And so he goes through the, you know, the complete hypocrisy. And

00:33:11.900 when he was done, I thought that was really good. I really liked the way he took it. Because his point

00:33:18.700 was not that we should impeach these Democrats. The point is that we should treat it the same and

00:33:25.280 live in a world with free speech. And if you don't live in a world with free speech, you're in big

00:33:30.540 trouble. So the bigger, the bigger principle is not to punish each other, but to live in a world with

00:33:37.380 free speech. I love the way he presented it. His presentation was strong. Lots of leadership said

00:33:45.980 the right thing. But have I ever told you that the hypocrisy argument is not persuasive?

00:33:55.020 I say it a lot. The hypocrisy argument has no persuasive power. It's just an observation.

00:34:03.220 You should definitely make it. You should definitely make the, you know, point it out when somebody is

00:34:09.100 being hypocritical. It's part of the mix. But nobody ever changed their mind because hypocrisy had been

00:34:15.280 pointed out. He needed some little extra juice on that to put it over the line. Because as I

00:34:23.200 understand that, five Republicans joined the Democrats to kill his point of order that would

00:34:29.300 have stopped the process. So the people who objected, the ones you would imagine, Susan Collins,

00:34:34.480 Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey. So people who are known to be mildly Republican

00:34:41.280 went to the other side. So it didn't work out. But I thought it was some of the best leadership I've

00:34:49.860 seen. And it's too early to back somebody for president for 2024. But he's on the short list.

00:34:57.880 I think Rand Paul is, I've said it before, one of my favorite reasonable politicians. And unfortunately,

00:35:06.720 he might be too rational to be president, meaning that the public won't understand a person who's

00:35:14.200 trying to follow the data and speak logically and speak to principle. I don't know if the public can

00:35:21.140 even appreciate that anymore. It's like it doesn't exist as a path to the presidency. It's almost as if

00:35:27.660 you have to lie to the public and you have to be irrational to get anything done. And, you know,

00:35:33.700 of course, I've argued that forever. I've seen a number of people suggest a ticket of Rand Paul and

00:35:41.040 let's see, let me just look at who said this. And as user fartstorm just said, of course, I had to

00:35:50.820 look up your name and it happened to be fartstorm. But it's with a PH, fart. But Tulsi Gabbard as a VP.

00:35:58.360 Now, of course, let me say what every woman who just heard that will probably say, quite rightly. 0.98

00:36:06.420 Why would it be Rand at the top of the ticket and Tulsi as the vice president? Why don't you

00:36:12.520 reverse that? Perfectly good question. And I have nothing to add to that. It's just a perfectly good

00:36:21.300 question. So that would be a strong ticket. That would be pretty strong.

00:36:28.360 Whichever way they went, that would be a strong ticket. Alan Dershowitz has weighed in on this

00:36:34.600 question of whether the president can be impeached after leaving office. What do you think he said?

00:36:40.860 What do you think Alan Dershowitz says about whether Trump can be impeached after leaving office?

00:36:48.500 Well, Alan Dershowitz does this thing. I didn't even know this was fair, but apparently he did it

00:36:55.640 and you can get away with it. I can't believe it, but this is weird. You're not going to believe it

00:37:02.080 when I tell you, but he read the Constitution. Did you know you could do that? That you could read the

00:37:09.340 Constitution and then it's got words in it? And if you read the words, you'll know what it means?

00:37:14.840 I didn't even know that was a thing. But thanks to Alan Dershowitz who did read the Constitution

00:37:21.200 and he tells us this, you know, and of course I literally had never looked at the words

00:37:26.640 that are relevant to this point, so I'm glad that Dershowitz did. He says that the Constitution says

00:37:34.460 something like this, quote, that the president shall be removed from office on impeachment

00:37:39.780 and conviction, not by the expiration of his term before the impeachment. And then he also says

00:37:47.720 that it mandates that, quote, judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to

00:37:55.560 removal and disqualification. So the Constitution refers to removal and disqualification.

00:38:04.460 What does the word and mean? It means both, right? This and this. If it meant one or the

00:38:15.940 other, what would be the word that they would use instead of and? It's a word or. If the Constitution

00:38:24.320 had allowed you to remove somebody from office and or disqualify them, then you would have

00:38:34.440 you could have the and which would be both or optionally. You could have the or so that you

00:38:41.900 could have just one or just the other. But it doesn't say and or. And it doesn't say or. It says and.

00:38:53.400 How do you interpret and as anything but both of them, right?

00:38:57.920 And given that that's not an option to do both of them because he can't be removed from an office

00:39:03.800 he's not in, doesn't the Constitution quite clearly and unambiguously say, as Dershowitz apparently is

00:39:11.720 arguing, that you can't you can't remove from office somebody who's gone and therefore you can't

00:39:17.380 satisfy the and. Therefore, the framers did not intend it to be something after office.

00:39:23.420 Sounds like a good argument to me. And as I've said many times, if Dershowitz has an opinion,

00:39:32.020 just just stop having your own opinion. Just take his opinion. It's just it's going to be better than

00:39:36.880 your opinion. Right. He does this. Well, you don't just wait for his opinion and just adopt it. He's one

00:39:44.500 of the few people who is willing to take an opinion on any political side by following the law.

00:39:50.680 So once you find somebody who can do that. Oh, and by the way, I would add him to my list

00:39:55.920 of people you should look to to know if the news is real or not.

00:40:05.260 Here's a here's a question. How do you think historians will describe the 2021

00:40:12.980 one, let's say, assault on the Capitol? Do you think that when time has gone by

00:40:20.180 and that the serious historians, not not biased people, just serious historians who just want to

00:40:26.940 get it right? They don't have a political bias. Few years have passed. Nobody nobody's going to win

00:40:33.580 or lose anything because of their opinion. What are serious opinion serious historians going to say?

00:40:39.600 Are they going to say it was an insurrection? Are they going to say it was a coup? Or are they going

00:40:46.540 to say things got out of hand and people people did some things they shouldn't have done? I feel as if

00:40:54.140 no historian is going to label this as an insurrection. And if they do, I don't think you

00:41:01.700 could ever trust history again. Well, you probably shouldn't trust it now. You know, history is always

00:41:06.360 written by the winners. But will it matter, say in 10 years from now, if a historian is just trying

00:41:14.620 to get the story right? I don't think they're going to take a political position on it and call it the

00:41:20.120 big lie. I don't think they're going to call it anything but a protest they got out of hand. Because

00:41:25.980 what is the argument for it to be an insurrection? Who goes to an insurrection and thinks, yay, if we get

00:41:36.020 control of this empty room, we rule the country? Was anybody thinking that? And suppose the worst case

00:41:43.400 had happened. Suppose they'd taken a hostage. And suppose the hostage had been, worst case scenario, Mike Pence

00:41:51.680 or Nancy Pelosi. Nobody wants to see any of that kind of stuff happen. But what if it had? Would that

00:41:59.120 group have then been in charge of the United States? No. Literally nothing works that way. You can't

00:42:09.880 conquer a country by controlling their empty rooms and one or two politicians. That's not a thing.

00:42:18.200 The beauty of living in a democracy is that you could take the leader of the country. You could

00:42:25.260 have kidnapped the president. And it wouldn't change the nature of the country. Because the

00:42:30.840 leader is not the country. Now, if we'd been a dictatorship or something, maybe removing the

00:42:36.900 dictator, that would be an actual coup. But since we don't have a dictator, you could remove

00:42:44.600 all of them. And the country would just go on ticket. We would just elect some more and just keep on

00:42:51.660 going. We would just pretend the insurrectionists didn't exist. So how do historians call that

00:42:58.680 any kind of an insurrection? It's going to be pretty ridiculous. So there's a bombshell story from 0.95

00:43:05.900 Seth Abramson. It's a bombshell. You're not going to believe this story. It was a shocker. And

00:43:14.960 everybody's buzzing about it. And it goes like this. On January 5th, at the Trump International

00:43:21.820 Hotel, and you're not going to believe this, a number of people got together.

00:43:35.880 Did you believe it? Bombshell. Whoa. Yeah. Some people got together in some rooms. They talked

00:43:46.720 to each other. And I don't think we can let this stand. That's the kind of bombshell reporting

00:43:57.080 that we're looking for from our journalist class. So Seth Abramson, I think you've done a solid

00:44:05.480 thing for the world by revealing, and it's shocking, it really is shocking, that there were people who met

00:44:12.820 and I don't even know how to say this, but they talked to each other. Yeah, they did. They talked

00:44:23.580 to each other. There may have been questions and replies. It could have gone that far. It could have

00:44:30.220 gone as far as people asking questions or offering opinions and then people replying. That's how bad

00:44:36.960 things got in the meeting where a few people got together and talked. And I feel as if something

00:44:44.740 must be done about this. Now, Seth, of course, added some extras to the story to make it a bombshell.

00:44:53.360 And one of the extras is, what if, what if, and by the way, there's no evidence of this,

00:45:00.600 but what if the people who were talking had suggested or communicated with some of the

00:45:11.420 protesters who ended up in the Capitol and told them, you're going to have to get inside

00:45:17.140 the Capitol? Because as Seth Abramson points out, what would be the point of a protest where

00:45:26.780 people are just standing around saying what they like? How is that going to change the outcome

00:45:33.580 that was the process that was happening at that moment inside the building? And so Seth

00:45:41.100 Abramson assumes, or not assumes, but let's say he speculates that there's a possibility,

00:45:47.940 a strong possibility, that there's a smoking gun in here and that somebody in that room,

00:45:53.980 they may have talked to each other and decided to send a message to maybe Ali Alexander. There's some

00:46:01.380 reporting that Kimberly Guilfoyle may have placed a phone call to Ali Alexander, who was organizing the

00:46:08.760 Stop the Steal. Now, because that's reported, how likely is it true that Kimberly Guilfoyle

00:46:18.720 placed a phone call that evening to Ali Alexander? What should you assume about the likelihood that

00:46:26.460 that's true? It's reported by a notable national journalist type. I would say coin flip, 50-50.

00:46:37.500 Any story about somebody said they saw something and somebody thought somebody did something,

00:46:44.500 it doesn't matter the source. That's no better than a 50% chance of being true. So if it's a coin flip,

00:46:54.200 it's almost like it didn't happen. Might have happened, maybe didn't. Well, it's not the same as

00:47:00.120 nothing being reported. But the speculation that people who talk to each other may have committed

00:47:10.620 a crime, which would have been inspiring an insurrection to get into the building, which

00:47:15.580 would be the high criminal part. Why is it a bombshell that people who talked might have been plotting a

00:47:24.520 crime? Because isn't that true of every group that talks? Is there any group that talks privately

00:47:30.940 who you could say for sure, who you could say for sure if you weren't in the room, where they were not

00:47:36.480 plotting some crimes? I've been in corporate meetings in which we were plotting crimes.

00:47:44.260 But, you know, I suppose anybody could plot a crime. But that's not a story that people got

00:47:53.580 together and talked. If that's all you know, trying to connect that to some chain of events that would

00:47:59.800 make them all criminals and have to go to jail, that is a stretch. That's a stretch. And it's also a

00:48:09.720 stretch for something ridiculous. Because seriously, seriously, do you think that the people in that 0.72

00:48:19.660 meeting, you know, do you think that Don Jr., Eric, Kimberly Guilfoyle, do you think that, I guess,

00:48:28.560 Corey Lewandowski, a bunch of people, do you think that that group of people literally were suggesting

00:48:35.240 that somebody get into the Capitol building? I don't think so. That is the least likely thing that

00:48:44.740 could have happened in that meeting. And it's reported as, oh, there's a good chance X happened

00:48:50.800 when any reasonable person would say, I think I'm a reasonable person. In my opinion, it's the least

00:48:57.880 likely thing that happened. The least likely thing is that they called for that kind of, you know,

00:49:05.880 that kind of approach. Insane. All right. Michael Schellenberger was tweeting that apparently

00:49:15.100 in California, I'm so proud of my state, prisoners, people actually in jail, have stolen 31 billion

00:49:24.880 what? Let me try to finish this sentence. Murderers and other prisoners in California

00:49:33.780 have stolen 31 billion. Okay. If I'd heard that prisoners in California had stolen $31,

00:49:44.480 I'd say to myself, well, that sounds like criminals. Criminals will steal your $31. Don't turn around

00:49:51.900 and leave that on the table because those criminals, they're going to take your $31. If they'd said

00:49:57.600 $31, I'd say that sounds about right. Maybe $3,100. Yeah. Okay. $30,000. I'd say that's a lot, but yeah,

00:50:08.500 maybe that could have been stolen. If they'd said $310,000 they stole, I would have said maybe.

00:50:17.340 Prisoners can be pretty clever. They may have gotten that much. If they'd said $31 million,

00:50:22.880 I would have said, come on, come on. They're prisoners. They're literally in prison. How do you steal

00:50:32.160 $31 million while you're in prison? It wouldn't sound believable to me. And in fact, it's not

00:50:41.860 believable. They stole $31 billion. Billion. And here's the best part of the story.

00:50:51.560 Or the worst. That the person who is in charge, the California Labor Secretary,

00:50:59.400 is who Joe Biden has tapped to be his Department of Labor Secretary. So the person who is in charge

00:51:08.180 of that just got promoted. So there's your news. Perfectly normal. If you let prisoners steal $31

00:51:18.780 billion from you, that's grounds for promotion and the Democrat Party.

00:51:27.100 Apparently in Chicago, there was a meeting of white supremacists. So there were 80 white supremacists

00:51:36.080 who rallied in downtown Chicago. But a researcher for the ADL, which is the, what is the ADL?

00:51:45.420 They look for, they look for people like white supremacists. So they have some authority in this

00:51:51.260 situation. And they said, the good news is that's pretty much the entire membership of the group

00:51:57.080 nationwide. So there were 80 people who came to Chicago white supremacists. But it's probably all

00:52:04.780 the white supremacists in the entire United States who are part of that group. Now, before you say,

00:52:11.280 ha ha ha, there are only 80 in the United States, it doesn't take many white supremacists to do a mass 0.98

00:52:18.100 murder. Right? Now, I would imagine most of those 80 people are perfectly peaceful, but have odious 0.97

00:52:27.520 opinions. But out of 80 people who would label themselves white supremacists, do you think there's

00:52:35.120 nobody in the 80? If they're willing to publicly label themselves as white supremacists? You don't

00:52:41.460 think anybody in the 80 would do something bad on a big scale? So I would definitely worry about 80

00:52:49.180 white supremacists, especially if they have any kind of organization. But the other context is,

00:52:55.860 this is one organization. And it doesn't mean that there aren't, you know, the KKK, it doesn't mean

00:53:03.940 that there aren't other groups like this. But here's a question for you. How many people are in Antifa?

00:53:11.720 If I would like to know, by official counts, how many white supremacists there are, that's a good

00:53:18.380 thing to know. Any is too many. But I'd also like to know, you know, how many in the KKK, how many in

00:53:26.500 whatever militias that may have bad opinions in the opinion of these people. But I'd also like to know

00:53:33.320 how many people are in Antifa? And how many people in Black Lives Matter who, you know, would call

00:53:39.980 themselves members or so? Wouldn't you like to know that? Let's see the membership numbers of all the

00:53:46.160 groups. Because I'm not going to, I'm not going to run away from, you know, labeling any of them. I'm

00:53:52.520 not going to run away from labeling anybody a white supremacist group if they are. And I'm not going to

00:53:57.480 run away from labeling Antifa as a domestic terrorist group if they are. So let's, let's just get the

00:54:04.460 whole number. Why do we only hear the number of white supremacists? Antifa is an idea. That's right.

00:54:11.440 Somebody say the white nationalists want separation. So you're making a distinction

00:54:19.180 between white nationalists and white supremacists. Are you claiming that the people who went to

00:54:24.700 Chicago call themselves white nationalists as opposed to white supremacists? I don't know what

00:54:30.420 your point is. But there is a difference. I've argued that there's no such thing as white supremacists.

00:54:38.220 Because I don't know of any white person who hasn't noticed that other ethnic groups are doing better

00:54:46.860 than the white supremacists themselves. The weird thing about white supremacists is they tend not to

00:54:54.160 be the people who are super successful in life. And they're looking at other ethnic groups who have

00:55:01.380 members who are completely successful. So how do you have a philosophy that you personally are a

00:55:10.300 supremacist over somebody who's doing way better than you're doing? You know, they're, they're way

00:55:15.160 smarter. If you did a standardized test, they would beat you specifically. You know, forget about any

00:55:21.140 general averages or whatever you think about that. The, the people that you're, you're discriminating

00:55:28.040 against or want to have a lot of people in that group who are killing it way better than you are

00:55:34.200 in every way, right? There are people who have more talent, more brains, better looking, you know,

00:55:40.200 you name it. There, there's no characteristic in which the white supremacists themselves personally

00:55:46.000 are not far outstripped by lots of members of every ethnic group. And so how is it that, you know,

00:55:57.520 how is it that they're supremacists? I don't know. If you, I guess you can find 80 people who will

00:56:03.620 believe anything, but I don't even know how that makes sense. Some say they should be doing better

00:56:10.800 except for, as the commentator is saying, is they're blaming Jews for holding them back. But again,

00:56:17.000 that's the opposite of being a supremacist. That's just being a racist. Now, I'm certainly claiming that 0.63

00:56:23.220 there are plenty of racists in the world. I'm not denying that. That's the most, probably one of the

00:56:27.920 most common things you'll find anywhere. But finding people who literally think they're superior,

00:56:33.680 I think that ended some time ago. But there are certainly white nationalists and there are people

00:56:42.000 who are racists of all kinds. The white nationalists are kind of a special category because I do think

00:56:48.680 that you could be a, so this is not my own opinion. I'm just talking about other people here.

00:56:55.400 I do think that a person who is not me could have the opinion that, hey, let's just stop trying to

00:57:03.500 get along and let's be separate if we prefer being separate. That's a reasonable opinion,

00:57:10.480 even if you disagree with it. But it's not practical. We don't have really a practical way to

00:57:15.900 have everybody separated. And the minute you did that, the minute you separated by race

00:57:23.540 and you said to the white nationalists, hey, white nationalists, good news. All you guys can go live

00:57:31.000 by yourself and you will never be bothered by any other types of people. What would happen

00:57:35.540 immediately? Immediately, the white nationalists would find ways to fight with each other.

00:57:43.220 It's just human. You know, they would decide that some are rich and some are poor. They decide that

00:57:49.920 some are Catholic and some are not. They'd find some reason to hate each other.

00:57:55.440 Sure. So imagining that, imagining that you can identify a group and separate them and then

00:58:03.040 they could go live happily ever after without having to deal with other people is a little

00:58:07.860 bit optimistic. I just don't see it's, somebody says I'm guilty of mind reading here. I'm just

00:58:18.020 describing what a white nationalist is by definition. And if somebody wants to live with themselves,

00:58:25.440 you can want it, but I don't know how practical it would be. You would just end up hating people for

00:58:32.200 other reasons. All right. That is all I need to say today. So as I understand it, tomorrow morning,

00:58:40.460 I'm going to wake up and I should have time to do one of these. But the next morning, I will be

00:58:49.500 flying overnight. So I'm going to miss, uh, I'm going to miss one. So if you don't see me,

00:58:55.260 um, that's why. And then I'll be back and we'll be, uh, I'll be live streaming on YouTube, uh, at the

00:59:03.880 same time as Periscope. When I get back, when Periscope goes away, as it will in March, um, I'll be

00:59:10.500 streaming from at least YouTube and I'll add, probably add some platforms. And if the locals platform has

00:59:17.460 streaming by then, I'll, of course, be using that. Uh, sticks. Um, what about sticks?

00:59:30.680 Wear 33 masks. I will. All right. That's all for now. Talk to you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - January 27, 2021

Episode 1265 Scott Adams： The News, Historians, A Virus Test That'll Make You Turn the Other Cheek

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript