Episode 1590 Scott Adams: Science Has Proven That Talking About the Pandemic Makes it Worse. And More
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 2 minutes
Words per Minute
144.75304
Summary
In this episode of Coffee with Scott Adams, host Scott Adams talks about a new report that says Chris Cuomo may have been behind a smear campaign against Fox News' Janice Devens, who was critical of the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo.
Transcript
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another exciting episode of Coffee with Scott Adams.
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And I dare say this will be the best one you've ever experienced.
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Possibly the best thing that's ever happened in the entire solar system, at least.
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But if you want to enjoy this at the maximum potential, and why wouldn't you?
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I mean, you're already the sexiest and most well-informed and smartest people on earth.
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Why wouldn't you want to take it to another level?
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And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that's going to make everything better.
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It's called the simultaneous sip, and watch it do its work.
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You know, the trouble is I've been blocking people who say, Scott's finally waking up.
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Because so many people are saying it as a joke now.
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All right, well, there's new news today that Andrew, not Andrew, but Chris Cuomo, was apparently reportedly, according to anonymous sources,
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now, let's be fair, if there were anonymous sources saying something about Trump, would you believe it?
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Because anonymous sources have no credibility whatsoever.
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But CNBC has some anonymous sources, which if it weren't already in the news, I wouldn't even talk about it,
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because the credibility of these things is so low.
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But accordingly to this source, Chris Cuomo worked with his brother's top aides to discredit Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean.
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Because she was a big critic of the governor, you know, Chris Cuomo's brother,
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for his handling of the nursing homes and her family members who died there.
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Do you think they, quote, targeted somebody because she was talking out?
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You know, she was already talking out, and we'll suppose it was a hit piece saying that she had, I don't know, strangled a puppy or something.
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Suppose they could come up with some kind of a hit piece on her.
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Like such a bad play that you wouldn't even really consider it.
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You know, if you're operating at the level of a sitting governor or a host on CNN, aren't you smarter than that?
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I mean, I definitely can see going after pundits who are sort of full-time pundits.
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Both sides are going after the pundits on either side.
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So it makes sense that the right was going after Chris Cuomo, and the left was going after Tucker Carlson.
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But this Janice Dean thing was such a special case.
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You can't shut somebody up about a death in their own family.
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And it's not like she was some continuous critic of all things Cuomo.
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She just had one very specific complaint that was quite valid.
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And the reason I don't believe it is that it wouldn't make sense for people who operate at this level of understanding politics
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to take out somebody who had deaths in the family and really just had one topic of complaint.
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If this were true, it would suggest that taking out critics is an ongoing conversation.
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I am so curious how many conversations have happened about me.
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Don't you wonder, like, who exactly is looking to take me out?
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I just don't know if it's a lot or anybody who knows how to do it or anybody who'd be good at it.
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I'd love to know what the secret file on me is.
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Like, what is it that somebody has already found out or made up, I suppose?
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I would think that the top, I don't know, 20 or so effective people on each side are all targeted one way or the other.
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I'm definitely in the top 20% of effective persuaders.
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And the reason I love it is just because I like making trouble.
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There are some topics in which I get all outraged about, you know, like anybody would.
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And there are some topics that I think are just funny, even though I know they're kind of serious.
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So, as long as nobody's dying or getting hurt, I often will find humor in things that other people are taking quite seriously.
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And the topic here is the trans swimmer, a woman, by designation and by preference.
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But it was somebody who was born and raised male and had all the testosterone advantage of that.
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And so this person is just breaking all the swimming records at the college where she attends.
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And the teams are very unhappy about that because they have no chance of winning if she's in the competition.
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And this is what Mike Cernovich tweeted about this.
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He goes, can't wait for this brave hero to break all the Olympic records for women swimming.
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I mean, do the Olympics have rules that would prevent this?
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You know, if the Olympics allowed this, I'm saying no's.
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But what specifically is the rule that would disallow it?
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Would the United States have to pull out because they're discriminating?
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So why would any country field a woman's team that wasn't all trans?
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If the whole point is to win, the Olympics are pretty much about winning, right?
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We're, you know, it's all about fellowship, which sounds sexist.
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I don't know if they actually had trans athletes.
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The thing that amuses me is that I think the Olympics should be cancelled.
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It gives people the absolute wrong message in life.
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It's the opposite of the message that I give people.
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My message is, don't try to be the number one person in the world as some specific thing.
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Instead, put together a set of talents that will serve you well in a variety of situations throughout your life.
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And if somebody focuses all their time on, like, throwing a javelin, then they end up being a certain age and they have one skill.
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Now, if you win the Olympics and get a gold medal, you might be able to parlay that into something.
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But there's only one person every year who gets that gold medal for javelin throwing, to pick one example.
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So, I think Olympics are terrible, terrible role models.
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They're wasting their lives preparing for something that doesn't have any practical use.
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And so, when I see the potential that the trans situation could completely break the Olympics, I just think it's kind of funny.
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I mean, I'm not saying you should think it's funny.
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It's probably just a defect in my personality that I like trouble.
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But if it's bad for the Olympics, I'm all in for it.
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Remember I told you many, many times that you can have any worldview you want,
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because our view of the reality is completely subjective.
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And you can have any one you want, but you should pick one that predicts.
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Because the best filter on life for understanding it is the one that has a good record of predicting things.
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If you thought that Trump was definitely going to jail for all of his many, many, many so obvious crimes,
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Aren't you wondering why the news told you that he was definitely going to jail?
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Well, oh, if there's one thing we know for sure, all these crimes, I mean, I can't even list them all.
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Give me a longer piece of paper and a couple of sharp pencils,
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because I don't have time to list all the felonies President Trump has created.
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Was there anything he did that looks like it's going to be a legal problem?
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But there are secret investigations going on, and wait till we get those taxes,
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and wait till we get those extra testimonies about January 6th.
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Do you think Matt Gaetz is going to actually go to jail for any crimes?
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Whatever it is they have on him looks political.
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Students who play games all day in hopes of being the next shroud.
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Yeah, anything where you're trying to be the best in the world or even the top ten is pretty tough.
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Now, I know that sounds funny coming from me, because in the world of cartooning, I'm in the top ten of working cartoonists.
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Maybe not in the top ten of all cartoonists of all time, but in people who are still alive and still making comic strips, I'm in the top ten.
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So do I look like a violation of the top ten of all time, because the way I got here was with a talent stack, where I'm not the greatest at anything, but you put them together and they work pretty well as a combination.
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So, look at me as an example of a talent stack, not of being the best at anything, in particular.
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Well, it's fake news because of the way it's presented, but all the details, I think, are real.
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The CNN would do a pretty big feature on the rising crime, especially murders, in cities.
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So, you know, a story like that is going to be talking about all these blue cities, right?
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Yeah, all these blue cities with their bad governance causing all the crime by defunding the police and stuff like that, right?
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One of the fastest growing cities in the country.
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Is nearing the end of its deadliest year on record in 2021.
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What would be an example of another city that's not in Texas?
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So they find this city in Texas, presumably a red city, right?
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Okay, so people in the comments are saying that Austin is blue, but that's even better.
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All right, so that's even better for the point I was going to make, which is why did they pick Texas for the focus?
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So the emphasis of their story is that the problem in Texas, in their capital city, is guns and COVID.
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So you've got a big problem in Texas with all the guns and the bad treatment of COVID, I guess.
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Here's the other way this story could have been done.
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The biggest problem in Texas is the only blue city, according to you guys.
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And I'm going to assume you're right about that.
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Defunding the police probably made more problems in other places.
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But basically everywhere you've got, you know, Democrat leadership, you've got trouble.
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I mean, that's how Fox News tells the same story.
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So we have one story about rising violence in the country.
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And if you look at how the left covers it, it's something wrong with the right.
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And how the right covers it, it's something wrong with the left.
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Anyway, I just thought that was hilariously, overtly propaganda-ish.
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So it's not like one side is doing propaganda on this.
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But I do think Fox News is probably closer to a correct context.
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Do you think that, I'll call it the Fox News take,
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which is it's the blue cities that are clearly the ones with problems.
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Does that, first of all, does that pass the fact check?
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I think I gave some terrible advice on Twitter yesterday, for the first time.
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Aviva Fry was jokingly tweeting that he was considering cursing on Twitter.
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And that he thought better of it because he realized that his kids' friends, you know,
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Here's my advice, because I feel like I may have accidentally hurt some of you.
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Like, actually, like in a bad way, career-wise or even socially or something.
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Because I worry that people see me tweeting and, you know, I have a lot of followers and
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Because, essentially, it's a marketing strategy for what I do, which is all public.
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If you do things in public for a job, which is the only thing I do, I try to attract attention
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So, if you have what I call, you know, F you money, so if I got banned from Twitter tomorrow,
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It's not going to prohibit me from getting a job somewhere, right?
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If you say something that's a little too far on Twitter, you know, your dating prospects
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will be lower, your ability to run for office will be destroyed.
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So, don't use me as a role model for how provocative to be.
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And definitely don't use me as a role model for how much you should curse.
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But it made me think that there might be people here who are saying, and I can think of one
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in particular that I think maybe got in trouble with it.
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You know, one person who might have said, I think I'll tweet like him.
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And I don't think that works for the rest of you.
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So, I'm just going to say, just know that the way I do it is because I'm literally a professional
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in this domain, and I can take risks that you can't.
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Or at least reasonably, I can take risks that you can't.
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So, don't be like me when it comes to tweeting or swearing.
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I told you before that CNN was replacing Chris Cuomo with Smirconish, at least temporarily.
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Oh, did, I'm seeing Matt is saying that Sertowicz and Pasabek made the same point.
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That is something we all should have warned you about sooner, I think.
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So, Smirconish is, like I said, the most balanced reporter on CNN by far.
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There's nobody in his class, I don't think, who's balanced.
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But unfortunately, the facts are not working for Biden at the moment.
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And he's mentioning that the revised CBO score, the, what does CBO stand for?
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So, that's the entity that looks at all the budget propositions, proposals,
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and says, what will happen to the economy if you do this or don't do this?
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And so, they scored this Biden's Build Back Better bill.
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I got to say that at least one more time because it's too much fun.
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And unlike the first estimate that said it would be closer to revenue neutral, meaning it wouldn't increase the deficit.
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Now, I would like to give the Republicans some kudos.
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I'm not sure exactly which Republicans were behind it.
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And what the Republicans did is said, hey, CBO, can you run this again?
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Except this time make the following assumption.
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Turns out that if you make that completely realistic assumption,
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because the government is not good at discontinuing giveaways, right?
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If you do it with a more realistic assumption that the temporary stuff lasts forever,
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or at least 10 years, which in financial terms, 10 years is forever.
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Most of you don't have any experience in financial projections,
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10 years in the future is the same as infinity when you're doing a financial projection.
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Because after 10 years, nothing's predictable after that.
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The predictability drops to zero at about 10 years.
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So the Republicans quite smartly picked pretty much the exact right number.
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Because you get the same benefit as if it had been a forever calculation
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And when they scored it with these more realistic Republican assumptions,
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it turned out to increase the deficit by $3 trillion.
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But as was noted on Twitter today, I block people because it's part of the show.
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It's, you know, maybe bad for the people who get blocked, but I don't care.
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So when I block, I always tell you why, and I just make it part of the show.
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But if you're not doing that, you know, you might not want to block people like I do.
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So it's notable that Smirkanish gave the correct context for this story.
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You know, a new show is supposed to give you context, but it doesn't happen that much.
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I just told you a story where it didn't happen on that Austin story.
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And I'm going to call him, I'm going to give him kudos for that.
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He goes on to say that now that the Build Back Better bill looks like a dog,
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and it looks like Joe Manchin is going to say no.
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And here's why Joe Manchin is saying no to Build Back Better.
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He says that they used budget tricks to make it look good.
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So he's a Democrat who's calling out the Democrats for using budget tricks,
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which is what the Republicans called them out for, too.
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Literally a trick to make something very expensive look like it's free.
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And so, do you remember, how many of you remember me telling you that Joe Manchin is actually running the country?
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He basically makes Congress's decisions for him.
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Probably one of the best decisions I've ever, or predictions I've made,
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is that this one guy, by being the smartest guy,
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I hate to say it, but, you know, at least on the Democrat side,
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He realized that the world had simply handed him power.
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He's responsibly using the immense power that the United States just handed him,
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somewhat accidentally, because of the, you know, coincidental balance of power.
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And coincidentally, he's, you know, one of the few people with, with Kyrsten Sinema who will cross the line.
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So, I don't know if I can say enough good things about Joe Manchin right now.
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I feel like he's holding the country together single-handedly.
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You know, power corrupts and great power corrupts absolutely.
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Somehow, the universe handed Joe Manchin great power.
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So far, he is handling it responsibly, in my opinion.
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Now, that doesn't mean he makes the same decisions you make.
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The standard is, is he being the patriot that we want him to be, Democrat and all, right?
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but is he being a patriot in exactly the way you wish any, any American would have been
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So, I don't know if I've ever given a Democrat this much credit,
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but, you know, if you had a Patriot of the Year award, to me, he'd be it.
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But, crossing party lines, for the benefit of the country,
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literally the only person doing it in the whole, well, Kyrsten Sinema, too.
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Then Biden, and Smirkanish is calling out Biden for this,
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the economy is doing great in every way, in every way, except inflation.
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The economy is doing great in every way except inflation.
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Meaning that the economy is great, except we all can buy less stuff,
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or at least the low-income people can buy less of the stuff.
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The whole point of the economy is to buy more stuff.
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But if your economy is going great, but you all have less money to buy stuff,
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that feels exactly like the opposite of a good economy.
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I mean, I suppose it's good for paying for our military in some ways like that.
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But if you're just a family or a person, and you're just trying to buy stuff,
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And then Smirkanish showed the actual inflation category,
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I wonder if he can last on CNN by being actually even-handed and showing context.
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I don't know if you can survive on the network if you keep doing that.
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I'm not totally convinced of this, but I'm watching it.
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You know, I like to tell you the ways to spot cognitive dissonance
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because people use similar language when they're in it.
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And here are a couple that I think are showing me cognitive dissonance.
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When people tell me, as I talk about risk management during the pandemic,
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when people tell me that I'm, quote, panicking,
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and I think to myself, I was actually thinking to myself,
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I can't think of any time I've ever worried about death.
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I can't think of any time I've ever worried about dying.
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So I'm not trying to tell you I'm without fear.
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You know, standard amount of fear, pretty average.
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You know, I'm going to wear a helmet if I use a motorcycle, et cetera.
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I can't think of any time in my life I've worried about death, per se.
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And twice today, people told me I was panicking.
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And I think that this might be cognitive dissonance.
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makes you hallucinate the things that aren't there.
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that somebody just talking about risk management
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where we should just, you know, go back to normal
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So you just hallucinate to fill in the connection.
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and you've probably watched me block people in real time.
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that looks the same as it did at the beginning.
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Like your own argument you feel is pretty solid,
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all the misinformation and hyperbole about viruses
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if we imagine that everybody gets it eventually,
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roughly the same number as died in World War II.
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and especially because many of them will be older.
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I don't know if you belong in the conversation.
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is that we get back to normal life, most of us.
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The bad is that maybe 5 million people would die.