Episode 1900 Scott Adams： Obama Craps All Over Democrats, ESG Is Dying, Ukraine Peace Plan, And More
Episode Stats
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Summary
Anecdotal evidence is better than science at some point. Hunter Biden s real estate company received $40 million from a Russian oligarch, and the FBI wants to know if that's a good or bad thing.
Transcript
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Good morning, everybody. It's good to see your smiling faces. You know, you look a little bit
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better than last time I saw you. Did you get some sleep? Wow, looks like you've been to the gym.
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Good job hydrating, too. If you'd like to take it up another level, get your hydration going.
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All you need is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stein, a canteen drink or flask,
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a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine here of the day, the thing that
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makes everything better. It's called the Simultaneous Sip. Go.
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Ah, Uzbekistan in the house. Silk Road. Good to see you.
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Alright. Now, would you like to hear all of the interesting things in the news?
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That's why you come here, right? Don't you? I have a question for you, anecdotally.
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As you know, I've recently changed my Twitter profile to put BLM in my pronouns, and I appear
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there in a BLM shirt. Have you noticed that since I went full BLM, has the algorithm surfaced
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surfaced my tweets more often? Go. Have you seen my tweets more often in the past week?
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I don't really believe that we can see that small of a difference. But a lot of people
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say yes. Alright, so they're probably, it looks like 60% yes, 40% no. If you answer, I don't
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know if this is true, because I'm just looking at the answers streaming by. But if you thought
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that was true, by let's say, a 60-40 split, then I would conclude it's not true. Do you
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understand that? If all of you collectively gave your opinions, and about 60% of you thought
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that I was more visible, and 40% thought I was not, I would not conclude that I was more visible?
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Because that's just about how much bias is built into the question. Since we're all biased as hell
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about the algorithm. You know, if 90% of you had said yes, I would have been tempted to say,
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you know, it's just anecdotal. But 90%, you know, you can't ignore that. Here's something I never hear.
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You always hear people say, I know science and you don't. And one thing I know is that anecdotal
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information is not science. Right? You've heard me say that a million times. Except that at some point,
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there is enough anecdotal evidence that you don't need any science. Am I right?
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And I like to use this example. If every time you walk outside, a baseball hit you in the head,
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and you looked around and you didn't even see a baseball game or a baseball field. But every day,
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for 100 days in a row, you walk outside, you look around, you're expecting it, and then you go,
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okay, boom, and it hits you in the head again. A hundred times in a row. And there's no science
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whatsoever to explain it. Would you change your behavior after getting hit in the head a hundred
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times in a row? I think you would. And I would suggest it might be the right decision without any
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science at all. So there is some point at which anecdotal evidence is better than science.
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So there, I said it. Anecdotal evidence is better than science at some point. It's just not the
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onesies and twosies, which are useless. All right. So here's a typical type of story for 2022.
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So there's these new leaked emails. And I think we knew something about this story, but maybe less
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detail. That Hunter Biden's real estate company, so this is Hunter Biden, received 40 million
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investment from a Russian oligarch, Yelena Baturina, whose name I just like to say three times,
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if I may, because it's such a fun name to say. I'm just going to gratuitously say it two more times.
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Yelena Baturina. One more. This is just for me. This is just for me. Please bear with me.
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Yelena Baturina. I just had to get that out of my system. All right. She's a billionaire widow of a
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corrupt Moscow mayor. So what could go wrong there? And not only did she invest 40 million into the
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Biden real estate company, but gave 3.5 million to Hunter Biden for consulting.
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Now, does anybody really think that that was a consulting fee? 3.5 million? No, obviously,
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that was a gigolo fee. She was paying him for sex. 3.5 million might seem like a lot, but I checked
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her picture. And I'd say that was market rate. It looked like a market rate to me. All right. And
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let me tell you what the FBI is doing about this, given that there's voluminous evidence of possible
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Hunter Biden impropriety. I've got that information. What the FBI is doing...
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Huh. Can't find it. Let's see. What is the FBI doing? Might be in here. No? Anything? Anything? Is this on?
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No? Oh, the FBI is doing nothing. Nothing. As usual.
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No. This is why I feel like there's some kind of pendulum turning. This next bit, I don't even
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understand. So this was tweeted by a Democrat activist, Scott Dworkin. If you look at his profile,
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he's big in Democrat stuff. So he's like a real Democrat, super Democrat activist guy. So a Democrat
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activist was tweeting around a hidden camera recording of a Republican representative, Dave
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Schweikart, who was in an elevator talking to somebody, and it got recorded. And he was caught
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on this undercover video. And he talked about if the GOP wins in the election, they take control.
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He was talking about how the GOP would want to break up the FBI and impeach members of the
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Biden administration. And a Democrat operative thought, I gotcha. I gotcha now. Boy, they're
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never going to vote for you now that you're willing to break up the FBI and put in jail some
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members of the administration. Not in jail. I'm talking about impeachment.
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Now, am I wrong that the Democrat misjudged the reaction to that? Because I looked at it and I
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said, oh, yeah, that's exactly why Republicans are going to vote for Republicans, because they
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want exactly that. Am I missing something? Does this story sound like bad news to Democrats?
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If you're a Democrat, do you say, oh, no, they're going to break up the FBI? What Democrat thinks
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that? Are they afraid that the FBI will be modernized or what? And how about impeaching members of the
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Biden administration? Well, don't you think that even Democrats think there's going to have to be
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something there or there will be no impeachment? Remember, the Democrats think that the Trump
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impeachment was valid. So they actually think impeachment is like a real thing where real
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evidence comes out and a real decision is made. So if they think that impeachment is a real thing,
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they shouldn't be too worried about somebody trying it unless somebody is guilty of something.
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Otherwise, it'd just be an embarrassing situation like January 6. Well, the George Floyd family is
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considering a lawsuit against Yeh, because Yeh said in public that he believes that George Floyd more
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likely died of a fentanyl overdose than from the actions of the police. Now, I read this story and I just
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started salivating. Do you know why? Please, please do the lawsuit. Please do. Because I don't think
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they thought this through. Think it through. If they do the lawsuit, Kanye gets to re-litigate the
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question of the fentanyl and George Floyd system. And I don't know how this works, but if enough time
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has gone by and it's, you know, Kanye or Yeh, who is part of it, they're going to have to do discovery,
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they're going to litigate just that part of it again. So just the one question, was it the fentanyl
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or the knee? Imagine that being a new case. And what if, what if the reason the George Floyd trial
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went the way it did, just if, was because the citizens and, you know, the jury and the judge,
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and basically everybody involved, knew if they didn't get a conviction, the whole city would go up in flames.
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Right? So I do not think that Derek Chauvin got a fair trial or anything like it. It has nothing
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to do with being white, right? If you reverse the races, I would say the same thing. It doesn't
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matter who was the person or what was the situation. If one verdict would have a riot and the other
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verdict would not, if one verdict could get you killed, literally killed as a juror, and the other
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verdict would get you praised, what are you going to do? Right? But what if Kanye ends up in this trial?
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He wouldn't ask for it, but what if he ends up in one and he gets to try it in an unbiased place
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after time has gone by and the George Floyd, you know, anger has subsided a little bit?
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What if he wins? What if he wins? See, the George Floyd family is probably under the assumption
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that they would certainly win, or at least they would certainly win on the facts, the facts being
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it's been proven, blah, blah. But correct me if I'm wrong, didn't the, didn't the original
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autopsy? Weren't there some notes where the original autopsy doctor said, under normal circumstances,
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if they came to your house and found you dead with that much fentanyl in you, they would say
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that was a fentanyl overdose. But because of the other, you know, the other situation around
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it, they decided it wasn't. I mean, all Kanye has to do is show that note and then just keep
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showing it. And here it is again. And here it is again. Because if the coroner, or whoever
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did the autopsy, I guess it's a coroner, if the coroner also had some doubt at one time,
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isn't that sort of enough to show that a citizen could have doubt as well? I mean, I think, I think
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Ye gets away with it just by showing there's some question about whether the experts got it
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right, right? You would have to know the experts got it right in order to know that, yeah, you got
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it wrong. I don't know, that would be an interesting trial. That could change everything.
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It could change everything, except it would take, you know, a year and be a huge waste of time.
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All right. I think it was Wall Street Journal noted that black Americans are, they're less like other
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voters in the sense that most voters are looking at economic stuff as the top issue. Black voters
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also say economic stuff is the top issue. But according to the racist and bigoted Wall Street
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Journal, I'll explain that later, they say that black voters are not just obsessed on the economics
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like other voters, but also have equal weight to things like health care, education, and public safety.
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All right. Here's what's wrong with that. Do you see the racist part of that? Did anybody see that this
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story is totally racist? Let me say it again and see if you see it. All right. So the Wall Street Journal
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says that most voters, I'm paraphrasing here, says that most voters are, think the economy is the number
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one thing, but black voters sort of spread their interest, you know, they also think the economy is
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a big thing, but they also think that health care, education, and public safety, which are characterized as
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social things in the article, those are social things and not economics. Do you see the problem?
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Is it just me? These are all economics. It's just a bunch of economics. Here's the other way to say
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this story. Here's the non-racist way to say the story. Okay. You ready for this? This might blow
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your mind a little bit. Here's the non-racist way to say the same story. Black voters seem to be more
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tuned into the fact that their economic well-being is associated with health care, education, and public
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safety. Because you can't run a business if you don't have a safety. You can't hire people. You
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can't thrive. You can't improve your economic situation without education. And health care is
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simply something that you buy when you have a good job, usually. It's something you buy with economics,
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right? So you tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wrong. Isn't this a fully racist story? Am I right? If you were a
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little bit objective, you would say the black population has a better bead on this issue. They have a better
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bead on the issue. They understand it better. Now, it might be also true that at a certain economic strata, that this all
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looks like economics to you. But if you're up in your ivory tower, you say, oh, economics is the stock
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market, and do I have a job? And down here is these social issues. It's not a fucking social issue if I
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have to pay for it. Am I done? That's my whole argument. If I have to pay for it, like health care,
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it's not a social argument. It's not a social argument. I'm paying for it. That's economics.
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Anyway, but I'm right, right? This is a totally racist story. Am I right? See, this is why I have the
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Black Lives Matter profile, because you need me to suss out these examples of systemic racism
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that are everywhere. All right. This next section will be called the Why Are They Not Already in
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Jail? Now, I'll bet you can't even guess what the topic is. But the category is, why aren't they
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already in jail? Here's the story. Researchers, I can't even believe this is true. Like, I can't believe
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this is true. Researchers at Boston University say they have developed a new COVID strain that has
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80% kill rate. Not 80% more. Not 80% more. It kills 80% of the people who get it based on mice.
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Now, they've only used it on mice, but they're, you know, they're assuming it would be the same with
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people. So what they did was they took the original alpha variant that's deadly, and then they took some,
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I don't know, spike protein or something, from the Omicron, and they took the worst parts of the two
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viruses, and they put them together to make a super deadly virus. To which I say, and the researchers
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are still alive, why haven't they been killed already? Why are they still alive? Shouldn't Homeland
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Security shut down the whole place and literally imprison forever anybody involved in this research?
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Do you know why I say imprison them or kill them? Because they know how to do this. I don't want them
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telling anybody else how to do this. Don't you think somebody would pay them a lot of money to explain
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how to do it so they can do it? Some terrorist or something? Yeah. Now, I'm not really, I'm not
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literally advocating that the law be violated and their constitutional rights be taken away,
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but it's funny to ask, why are they not already in jail? This was reported like it's a story of
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interest. This is not a story of interest. This is some assholes who built a weapon of mass
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destruction to depopulate the fucking planet Earth, and we're reporting it like it's a normal
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story. Well, a little story. No, they should all be in jail. Am I wrong? Why are they not in jail?
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They built a weapon of mass destruction that would destroy the Earth, if it works.
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Yeah, just doing their job. Yeah. Now, in reality, of course, there's, I don't think there's any law
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that they've broken, so of course they should not go to jail. But in terms of common sense,
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they need to be removed from the public somehow. I don't know, there's probably no legal, ethical
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way to do it. But I don't want these people walking around where anybody could, like, grab them and
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say, show us your notes. How'd you do this? We want to make ourselves a super virus ourselves.
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Anyway, that's a sign of the times. How many of you have caught the inflation reduction lie?
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It goes like this. Joe Biden says, well, sure, inflation's bad, but the inflation reduction bill
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will lower the cost of a number of things. We haven't seen it yet because it takes a little while
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for the bill to work through the system. But once it's worked through the system, things such as,
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let's say, anything that uses energy would be a lower price. So you'd be able to lower your
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ongoing energy prices by buying products and utilities that use less energy. And also hearing
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aids over the counter. That was another example. So hearing aids might be cheaper. Medicare might
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reduce your costs if they negotiate better. And some products would be less. All right, so those are
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three examples where they would have lowered the price, the end price, for the consumer. So that lowers
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inflation, right? Let's take, for example, that those are true things.
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Let's say it's true that these prices would go down. Let's say everything else stayed the same
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and Medicare hearing aids and any products that use electricity, they all go down in price.
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Would you call that a reduction in inflation? Go. If it's true, if it's true, just take that as an
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assumption. Is that a reduction in inflation? No, it's an increase in inflation. It's literally an
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increase. Let me say it again, and those of you who haven't studied economics, they're playing a game
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with you because journalists don't understand economics. And that's it. Now, I don't know why
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the real journalists who do understand economics haven't called them out on this, because I haven't
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heard it yet. Have you? Let me explain how inflation works. Inflation doesn't mean one of your products
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went down in cost or went up in cost. It's about, you know, the value of money in general.
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So what the government has proposed with their Inflation Reduction Act is that the government
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will increase its debt, and then that money that they got by increasing the debt will be spent
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to subsidize your purchases of, let's say, everything from Medicare-related things to hearing aids
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and products. If the government borrows your money, because it's basically our money, if the
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government borrows on our behalf to lower our prices, did they lower or increase our
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inflation? Go. If they do exactly what they said, they borrow money, they subsidize products
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that you buy, have they lowered or increased inflation? They've increased. Now, correct me
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if I'm wrong, this is unambiguous once I've explained it to you, right? If I hadn't explained
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it, well, let me ask this question first. Here's the first question. Until I explained
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it to you that this is literally, mathematically, specifically, and in every way the opposite
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of inflation reduction, before I had done that, did you know that? How many of you knew that?
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Now, some of you are saying we knew it wouldn't be a good idea. That's different. That's not
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what I'm saying. I'm saying that it's literally the opposite of what they're selling. So a lot
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of you knew it. Have you seen anybody say that the way I said it? Has anybody said it
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the way I said it on the news? Because did I not just explain it better than you've heard
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it? I think so. I think I explained it better than you've heard it anywhere. So see if you
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see my version of the explanation filter its way into the media. Because here's a classic
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example where the general media is not economically trained. Do you think that the talking heads
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on, I'll just pick CNN or MSNBC, do you think the talking heads on MSNBC understand what I
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just said? That this specifically increases inflation to lower some of your costs in the
00:23:55.860
short term? Do they understand that? I don't think so. I think they say prices go up or prices
00:24:02.960
go down, and they think that's all inflation. And it's not. Those are two different things.
00:24:08.180
All right. So here's the Biden dementia update. He was out in public. And who was it? I think
00:24:24.680
it was Kat Timf who said yesterday at Godfeld, exclamation, that every time Biden talks, something
00:24:33.020
bad happens. Every time he talks, something bad happens. Now I'm sure somebody said that
00:24:41.440
about Trump at one point. But not like this. Like when Trump talks, it's provocative and
00:24:47.240
he causes trouble and everybody's head blows up. But every time that Biden talks, he looks
00:24:53.340
worse. Am I right? Here's the newest one. Somebody mentioned he was in the LA area and somebody
00:25:00.600
mentioned that gas is $7 a gallon. And Biden told the reporter that gas has always been
00:25:06.840
$7 a gallon in California. Now that's not what he meant, right? In context, he did not mean
00:25:16.600
that. Can we be non-political for a moment? In context, what he meant was California always
00:25:23.120
has higher gas prices. Would you agree? That that wasn't actually, that wasn't dementia.
00:25:30.600
He knew that California always has higher gas prices. But the way he said it was just
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so incompetent, right? He had the right idea, but the way he said it was just so dementia.
00:25:41.460
Anyway. Anyway. And he said, what else did he say that's dementia-wise? He said, he said
00:25:54.380
nationwide gas prices came down about $1.35. Okay. I don't know if that's true. Maybe it
00:26:02.740
did. They're still down over $1. Wait. If they went down $1.35 and they're still down over
00:26:11.280
$1. Isn't that the long way to say they're going back up? He just said they're going back
00:26:17.380
up, but he made it sound like they're going down. That was pretty good. Okay. I'll give
00:26:21.360
him credit for that. And then he said, housing is the big, is the most important thing we
00:26:29.740
have to do in terms of that. In terms of what? Getting prices down? Do any of you think that
00:26:37.220
housing is the big thing we have to do? Like, where is housing on the list of top 10 priorities
00:26:43.720
of the country? It's zero, isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's, I mean, I
00:26:50.700
suppose that would just be considered economics as well, going back to my prior argument. All
00:26:57.520
right. Obama was on a podcast, and he calls the Democrats woke, buzzkill people. And here's
00:27:09.880
a problem. Problem is, if I don't blow my nose, I'm not going to be able to go on much further.
00:27:16.880
So, excuse me. Excuse me. You know, that's one of the advantages of having a low budget
00:27:36.740
show. Nothing embarrasses me. All right, we're back. All right, so Obama, by framing the Democrats'
00:27:52.540
problems as being too woke, did anybody see that? So Obama actually went right at the Democrat
00:27:59.880
primary messaging. And the primary messaging is, hey, all you bad Republicans. And Obama
00:28:08.660
proved once again why he was elected president twice. Every time I hear Obama talk, and I know
00:28:17.540
you don't like his policies or whatever, so we're not talking about that. Just talk about
00:28:22.120
his ability as a politician. Every time he talks, he sounds smart to me. Even when I don't
00:28:29.440
like, you know, the policy or whatever. But whenever he talks, he sounds smart. Right? And
00:28:36.360
he did a better job than all of the Democrats of putting wokeness in context. And basically
00:28:44.280
he said, you have to let people, you know, be people and don't worry so much about using the
00:28:50.120
right terms and stuff like that. So basically Obama triangulated and came up with a way that
00:28:58.180
Republicans and Democrats could live in the same planet. Obama did that. Right? Now, I would
00:29:06.980
say Trump did not, and Biden did not. Was it really that hard to find that middle space? It
00:29:16.120
seems like the middle is just begging to be occupied. And the middle is, yeah, we should
00:29:21.660
be nice to each other, you know, and maybe respect how they want to identify, but don't
00:29:26.760
get all bent out of shape if somebody gets it wrong. Wasn't that always the middle? I mean,
00:29:33.240
it's where I've been. I've described the middle exactly like that. In fact, Obama's position
00:29:38.180
is exactly mine. Let me state it again. I'm happy to call anybody by whatever terms they
00:29:46.400
think are respectful. In return, I ask for what Obama asks. Don't be a buzzkill if I use
00:29:54.040
the wrong word. It's not personal. Just get over it. That's all. So I'm 100% on the Obama
00:30:01.960
opinion there. But here's the political ramification. Because Obama has put this frame on it, and
00:30:10.300
he's framed the Republicans as worried, as too concerned about the wrong things. And he
00:30:16.760
says that pretty directly. I'm paraphrasing. But he does say pretty directly that they're
00:30:22.200
focusing on the wrong things instead of the things that affect people. And because he framed
00:30:29.720
it so prominently, should the red tide happen and Republicans sweep Congress, that's going
00:30:39.180
to make Obama's frame the dominant frame. So think ahead. Think ahead to Republicans win
00:30:48.120
Congress. What will everybody say after the fact? They're going to look at Obama's framing,
00:30:55.160
they're going to say, damn it, we should have listened to him. He got this right. We were focusing
00:31:00.300
too much on the wokeness, and we didn't get the basics right, and the Republicans did, so they won.
00:31:06.960
Now, whether or not Obama is correct that, you know, this wokeness thing is a problem or not,
00:31:12.780
independent of that, I think he is correct. But independent of whether he's right or not,
00:31:17.300
is it true that he's created the dominant frame?
00:31:20.200
What do you say? You might say too early to tell. But if the Republicans win, this is going
00:31:27.680
to come back, isn't it? You're going to see it again.
00:31:35.220
Respectfully, you fall for every leftist manipulation. You think I'm falling for a
00:31:39.920
manipulation? You haven't even heard my point yet. Let me finish my point.
00:31:42.480
Well, the point is that Obama has created a frame that the Democrats are likely to fall
00:31:50.900
into naturally. And this should be the next big blow against the wokeness monsters. And
00:32:00.700
I think Obama will be the assassin. I think Obama has created a situation where when the Democrats
00:32:08.560
fall into the trap he's created of losing, he say, well, I told you why you were going
00:32:14.020
to lose. You can see it everywhere. And you walked right into it, even though I gave you
00:32:18.900
plenty of warning. And I think it's going to make the whole ESG, DEI, CRT, wokeness world
00:32:28.180
a little bit less important. That's what I think.
00:32:32.640
Speaking of ESG, I've got more ESG-related comics running this week. And I haven't heard
00:32:41.260
if I've been canceled yet today. But they're getting a little bit more pointed. And I know
00:32:46.880
you would like to know what that comic said today. So let me give you an update.
00:32:51.480
Wait. Stop it. I will get that in a moment. And all right. So Dilbert's boss is talking
00:33:03.620
to Tina. And the boss says, Tina, there's an opening for director of AI. And you are one
00:33:10.720
of the people I'm considering. And Tina is a technical writer. So she's not a technical,
00:33:16.540
doesn't have a technical job except for the writing part. And she says, I have no qualifications
00:33:21.760
for that job. And the boss says, that's OK. The AI will tell you what to do. And then
00:33:27.160
the third panel, Tina says, are you only offering me the job to meet your ESG and DEI goals?
00:33:33.320
And the boss says, I'm not allowed to say. And that one's been pretty popular. So at the
00:33:42.300
same time that Dilbert is attacking ESG, Obama is attacking wokeness. And Texas and BlackRock
00:33:53.820
are going at each other. Because apparently Texas is trying to get rid of all this wokeness
00:33:59.120
stuff. And now BlackRock, and of course BlackRock is the primary purveyor of the wokeness in investment.
00:34:06.560
So they're the ones pushing it on corporations to be extra environmentally, socially, and
00:34:13.000
governance-wise, you know, equitable and fair and good. And I woke. And, oh, well.
00:34:26.140
This is interesting. I thought I copied and pasted something. And then there's a cool technology
00:34:30.280
that copied and pasted a thing that says don't copy and paste. I've never seen that before.
00:34:35.520
I didn't even notice it until now. Anyway, so, yeah, so you've got Texas going after BlackRock
00:34:46.800
for being anti-energy. That's their complaint. So BlackRock thinks that, you know, your ESG
00:34:54.140
score will be lower, the E being environmental, if you're involved in the petroleum gas kind of
00:35:01.520
business. And since that's a big part of the Texas economy, they're not too happy about BlackRock,
00:35:08.200
and now BlackRock's pushing back. All right. So, as of today, the forces moving against wokeness
00:35:16.360
are as follows. The midterm election, which probably is going to go one direction. Obama, which has said
00:35:24.380
now clearly that the wokeness is a problem. Yay, he's got his own problems with the Jewish community,
00:35:32.840
which may overshadow anything else. But, you know, he's sort of the anti-wokeness person.
00:35:39.020
You've got Dilbert, always a bellwether of, you know, cultural change, that's shitting on ESG. And now
00:35:49.240
you've got the state of Texas crapping on it. So do you feel the pendulum has reached its height?
00:35:59.660
It's getting ready to turn. Do you feel it yet? Well, it's coming. So China decided to delay
00:36:10.640
indefinitely the release of its GDP and other economic statistics. So let me do some mind
00:36:20.640
reading. Why would a country delay indefinitely their economic data? Is it because it's so good
00:36:30.520
they don't, they're humble, and they don't want to embarrass themselves with these great,
00:36:35.020
great numbers? Is it because they're right in the range that people sort of expected, which
00:36:40.160
is not so good, but that's not, not, not unexpected coming out of a pandemic? Or is it possibly
00:36:46.940
that their numbers are terrible? So big problems in China, you know, they've got a, their workforce
00:36:55.600
is shrinking and the people are bringing their manufacturing back and they got a lot of debt
00:37:04.160
and they're still doing the COVID lockdowns and they've got a dictator who's installed himself
00:37:15.960
And Rasmussen had some information about California and abortion. So California's got this Proposition
00:37:23.960
1 on the ballot that would, I guess it would codify and make abortion legal under most circumstances.
00:37:33.580
And 59% of California support it. But in August, 66% supported it. So there was this really solid
00:37:45.580
two-thirds supported, you know, abortion as Proposition 1 would protect. Two-thirds, but it's already down
00:37:55.580
to 59%. And it's not very, just a few months. I wonder if that's an actual change or maybe a polling
00:38:05.580
thing. I don't know. But that, that's like a big change for a few months. I'm kind of surprised.
00:38:12.700
All right. But anyway, it looks like California is going to stay a place you can go and get your
00:38:17.840
abortion. So apparently it'll be legal to come to California as a tourist, get your abortion and
00:38:23.460
leave. Let's, let's talk about Ukraine. I keep looking for evidence that you, that Ukraine or Russia
00:38:33.860
are winning territory on the ground. Have you noticed that all stopped? The, the only reference that I could
00:38:42.560
find to Ukraine to Ukraine gaining ground is CNN made one, well, one sentence reference to the Russians
00:38:51.920
losing ground with no detail. It's not like they lost ground around this town or they're encircled or
00:38:59.360
anything like that. It's just no detail. The only detail about the military is the Iranian drone rockets
00:39:07.520
that the Russians are using, bombing the centers and the guided munitions that are taking out the
00:39:13.180
infrastructure for, I guess, Russia has already taken out 30% of the power plants in Ukraine. 30%. Now, there is
00:39:24.360
some thinking that the Russians might be low on munitions because they're using low-end stuff already. So they're using
00:39:32.680
the Iranian crappy little bombs that are good for terror, but they're not really, you know, they're not as
00:39:39.800
decisive as the big stuff. Why do I think the drones are Iranians? Because they've been captured on the
00:39:47.500
ground and they've been identified as Iranian. So our military says that's a fact. It's not, they're not
00:39:53.940
wondering. They say, oh, it's, it's overwhelming evidence they're Iranian. Now, the Iranians say no. The Iranians say it's not
00:40:00.340
theirs, but, you know, we don't trust them. So here's the thing. Have they reached the stalemate? I would say
00:40:10.040
that they are not desperate yet. So there's no, there isn't going to be a peace deal this week, because this
00:40:17.200
week they still think they can get a little advantage. So what happens in the winter? Well, if it's true that
00:40:25.740
Russia is running out of munitions, we should really, really see that in the winter, right?
00:40:31.860
Unless they have some other source that we don't know about. So in the winter, we should see the
00:40:37.720
Ukrainians starving. Well, maybe more freezing than starving. Although I think they'll mostly survive,
00:40:45.380
because I think they'll go where there is heat and they'll, they'll burn trees and they'll do what they
00:40:50.020
have to do. Allergies are just terrible today. Sorry. Now, that assumes that Russians don't
00:41:01.160
continue bombing successfully power plants. Because if Russia got, took out 70%, wouldn't
00:41:09.660
you imagine that the Ukrainians would be in a lot of trouble? 30% they could probably struggle
00:41:16.380
go by. In all likelihood, the most desperate time will be somewhere around January, February.
00:41:26.000
No, probably January, because February would still seem like you're getting close to the,
00:41:30.300
the turn of the weather. I'd say January. Somewhere around January, when the Russians are running out of
00:41:37.300
ammo and their people are freezing and their, their army is, uh, deserting, and the Ukrainians are
00:41:46.060
suffering, maybe people will start talking about peace. Now, here's what you can do as citizens.
00:41:53.920
Do you believe that your government is capable of making, helping peace happen in Ukraine? I say no.
00:42:04.020
I believe our government is trying to end Putin. What do you think? I believe that the Biden
00:42:09.520
administration is trying to get rid of Putin and permanently degrade Russia. That's what it looks
00:42:15.420
like. So as far as I can tell, there is no, um, there's no interest in the United States forming
00:42:24.060
a deal. So if we want that to happen, we, the citizens, we're going to have to do it. Now,
00:42:31.900
I'm going to make a statement about America, and you historians tell me if I'm right or wrong.
00:42:38.000
All right. Historians, ready. Our government is good at starting wars. Go. True or false?
00:42:46.640
Our government is good at getting us into war. Right. True. Everybody agrees. Question two,
00:42:55.040
or statement two. Our government is bad at getting us out of wars. They're bad at ending war. True?
00:43:02.720
True. Yes, even more true. But what about the public? The public doesn't really get you into
00:43:09.280
war. They're usually the ones who are dragged along. But it's the public who gets you out of war.
00:43:17.040
It's the public who gets you out of war. It's ended the Vietnam War, probably Iraq, probably Afghanistan,
00:43:22.640
and now this. If the public of the United States doesn't take charge of this situation, then you'll
00:43:32.400
get the government's, you know, unfettered strategy, which will get you pretty close to nuclear war.
00:43:40.560
Because if they're looking to end Putin, which is what it looks like, then you don't know what's
00:43:46.400
going to happen. I don't think you're in danger. I don't think there will be a nuclear launch.
00:43:51.200
I think, you know, the odds are really, really small. But it's a risk. And since it's such a big
00:43:57.280
risk, even a small chance of that you have to treat seriously. So here's what I think is going to
00:44:05.120
happen. I think that both sides have cleverly said that there's no negotiating. So I think Putin says he
00:44:12.960
wants to control all of Ukraine now, whereas Zelensky says that they want to get Crimea back, which they
00:44:19.920
lost in 2014 is solidly in Russian hands, which seems unlikely. But here's the good news. You ready
00:44:28.400
for the good news? Zelensky is really, really talented at persuasion. Would you all agree?
00:44:36.720
That no matter what else you think of him? He's really, really good at persuasion. Everything
00:44:44.960
that he's done suggests he is. He got the United States to back him. He got incredible, you know,
00:44:50.320
weapons. You know, he's being treated like a hero. Now, I don't think that the hero label fits him.
00:45:00.880
Like, I have my, I'm not, I'm not 100% on the Zelensky bandwagon, right? We're sort of
00:45:09.680
tentatively on his side. But I think I'd watch him really carefully, right? I'd watch my wallet
00:45:15.920
when Zelensky's around. So I don't trust him. But he's very talented. And here's what he's done that
00:45:22.800
you don't realize. You know how I always, I used to talk about Trump as creating assets out of
00:45:28.200
nothing? He would simply persuade something into existence, and then he would use it to trade it
00:45:35.140
away. You create something out of nothing, and then he'd sell it to you, or trade it in a deal.
00:45:41.400
What Zelensky's done with Crimea is he's taken something that most observers say is completely
00:45:47.800
non-negotiable. Russia just has it, and they would launch a nuclear weapon to keep it.
00:45:54.560
But Zelensky said it's non-negotiable, that he's getting it back. That is smart. That's why
00:46:02.940
Zelensky is Zelensky. Because if it were you, you might be saying the wrong thing, which is,
00:46:09.060
well, they've already got Crimea, but we really care about this new stuff they took. You know,
00:46:13.900
let's just stop the new stuff. Crimea's too much of an ask, because Russia needs that for strategic
00:46:19.580
reasons. They're going to fight for it harder than they would for the other stuff. And, but
00:46:26.040
Zelensky, by framing Crimea from the start as non-negotiable, has created an asset he can
00:46:33.640
trade. Right? Because it looks like there's no way you could get a deal. Zelensky wants you
00:46:40.600
to believe that. Zelensky wants everyone to believe, especially Russia, that no deal can be
00:46:47.200
made. Because then, if it came down to, look, look, we will start the fighting. The only thing we ask
00:46:54.500
is don't join NATO, and don't take Crimea back. That's all we ask. We'll give you back these other
00:47:02.280
disputed territories. And then Zelensky has something to trade. Something that doesn't
00:47:09.100
exist, his control of Crimea, he would trade it away. It's very smart. Now, is Putin also smart?
00:47:19.620
Yes. Putin is saying, the only thing I want is control of all of Ukraine, basically. He says
00:47:25.520
Ukraine can't be an independent country. Do you think he means it? No. No. No, he's doing what
00:47:33.500
Zelensky's doing. He's creating an asset out of nothing. Now, of course, you do believe, you do
00:47:40.820
believe that Putin does want all of Ukraine, because he does. You know, if it were free, of course. But
00:47:47.480
he knows he can't have it now. So since he knows he can't have all of Ukraine, he's saying, I'll trade
00:47:53.500
you all of Ukraine, effectively. He's setting it up for that. So you can see the end game already.
00:47:59.840
The end game is that Putin will release on all of Ukraine, which he doesn't have. Zelensky will
00:48:08.060
release on Crimea, which he doesn't have. So they'll both trade something that doesn't exist,
00:48:14.440
and that will be the primary part of the deal, the thing they don't have and can't get. And then
00:48:20.280
they'll make some accommodation about the future of NATO and do something with those little areas
00:48:25.720
that might be temporary, it might be permanent, I don't know. But it's doable. So if you believe
00:48:32.400
that there's no doable peace plan, you're completely wrong. All of the elements are in place. The
00:48:39.500
only thing that we're missing, what's the one element we're missing? Insufficient quantity.
00:48:46.720
What are we missing? Insufficient quantity. And we're almost there. Sanity. Yeah. Desire, drones, no, no,
00:48:59.840
no, but it's obvious. This is not a hard question, but you're not getting, there you go, pain, pain,
00:49:05.940
right. We're not at the pain threshold that would require a peace plan. So Ukraine probably still
00:49:12.620
thinks they have a chance of military getting, militarily getting some land back, maybe. Russia
00:49:18.720
might think, well, if we can drag this out through the winter, we'll ruin their resolve, maybe. But
00:49:26.260
that means that neither side has reached the pain point yet. So there's no deal to be made. That's
00:49:32.080
the most important thing. Somewhere around January, I predict, their mutual pain will reach a level
00:49:38.940
where a peace deal makes sense. And also, you know, Russia might be running out of munitions. And
00:49:45.560
both sides will be in a lot of trouble by January. And that's when you do the deal. Because you can't do
00:49:52.940
it till then. They all know that things will be worse in January, so they're going to wait for that.
00:49:58.120
And see if the other side gets it worse than they do. All right. And I've been promoting David
00:50:10.060
Sachs' tweeted plan. He also wrote an article in Newsweek in which his deal, which I'll say
00:50:17.700
again, would be that Russia would give back the new territory that they just captured since
00:50:24.640
February. They would keep Crimea, because they have a Navy base, and it's just too important
00:50:30.100
for them. And Ukraine would not join NATO. Does that sound like a deal that could be made in
00:50:38.840
January? I'd say yes. I think yes. Now, I'm not predicting it will be. I'm saying that that's
00:50:46.320
the only time it could be, and that it's a doable deal. Now, it's not the deal I would have
00:50:53.060
done. I would have expanded the deal to include, you know, space and other things. So it looks
00:50:58.400
like a, I would make it look like it's not a peace deal for Ukraine and Russia. Because
00:51:04.620
as soon as you do that, it looks like you've got a winner and a loser. But you could erase
00:51:08.800
that by expanding the deal to other domains, and then say, okay, we found a way for everybody
00:51:14.720
to win. Because we got all these other things that are in there, and those are good. So if
00:51:20.460
you want something that would last, do something that makes everybody look like they want. That's
00:51:24.460
doable. And oh, the other thing that Zelensky did that's brilliant, persuasion-wise. So you
00:51:34.720
know, the Chechens looked like they wanted to send 70,000 highly trained, vicious Chechen
00:51:44.800
soldiers to help Putin. Because the head of the Chechen Republic is a pro-Putin guy, so
00:51:51.720
he was really trying to show his pro-Putin stuff. But as you know, the Chechen Republic was
00:51:59.280
brutally crushed by Putin some years ago. So you don't think the Chechens are necessarily
00:52:06.120
pro-Putin except for their leader. So here's what Zelensky did. The Ukrainian parliament has
00:52:14.180
recognized the Chechen Republic of Itchkiria as an independent state that is, quote, temporarily
00:52:21.660
occupied by Russia. And they condemned the Russian genocide against the Chechen people.
00:52:33.380
Persuasion. Sitting ovation. All right. Oh, so good. So good. That's like an A-plus right
00:52:43.020
there. Like, I don't think it'll change anything. But just in terms of the mental game, A-plus.
00:52:50.500
All right. So Zelensky is going for the kill shot. Zelensky's not trying to survive anymore.
00:52:58.400
He's trying to take Putin out. And if he can cause a revolution in Russia, I don't think this
00:53:04.720
will do it. But he's pushing all the sensitive stuff. Now let me ask you this. How much, how
00:53:14.560
many bombs can Kiev accept before they bomb Moscow? Do you think that's coming? Because I can't
00:53:24.300
decide if that's a propaganda mistake. Probably would be a mistake when it would feel like too
00:53:31.600
much of an escalation. But Zelensky seems willing to escalate. So I don't know. I think it would
00:53:38.520
just make the public angry and make them dig in. I think the Russian bombing of Kiev is a mistake.
00:53:46.120
To me, that looks like a military mistake. What do you think? Because I don't see that it's going to
00:53:51.920
change the resolve. You know, the number of people who died in Kiev from the rocket attacks,
00:53:59.100
give me a fact check of this, but from the Iranian drones yesterday, five? Five civilians died?
00:54:08.200
And in the whole city of Kiev, five people died? If only five people die in the city in a day,
00:54:16.600
that's not really, I don't know. I don't see that changing the course of the war. Seven people,
00:54:23.000
somebody said. Yeah. I mean, every death is a tragedy. We know that. But in terms of predicting
00:54:28.660
where it goes, that's a small number. Supposedly 6,000 total civilian deaths since the start.
00:54:39.220
That doesn't sound like many. You know, the Iranian drone attacks are about as close to an EMP as you
00:54:45.880
can get, because there's almost virtually no human death, but it's, you know, getting rid of
00:54:54.380
infrastructure and stuff. Anyway, so I think the public is going to have to take control of the
00:55:05.060
peace negotiations because our government doesn't seem willing or capable of doing it. I think
00:55:11.460
promoting the David Sachs plan, if only because it tells Putin that there are peace paths. So the
00:55:20.440
odds of using a nuclear weapon, if you think there's a chance of a peace deal, there's no way Putin's
00:55:26.640
going to use a nuke. You agree with that, right? If he thinks there's a legitimate pretty good chance
00:55:32.040
for a peace deal, you would never actually use a nuke. And I think if the public, with, you know,
00:55:39.860
Elon Musk and David Sachs, people who are prominent, if they're willing to talk about the details of a
00:55:46.540
deal, it tells Putin to hold off on the nukes. So you are actually part of the war process now,
00:55:53.920
whether you like it or not. So the American public opinion, which we're starting to form here,
00:56:00.640
is one of the things that will keep you safe. So if it's your opinion that Putin doesn't need to
00:56:06.380
be removed, and there is a peace plan, he is far less likely to use a nuke, because he would go for
00:56:15.600
the safer possibilities first. Yeah, no, and I don't think anybody uses a nuke in their own country.
00:56:24.280
I just don't. And remember, Russia's whole argument is that Ukraine needs to be part of
00:56:32.420
Russia, right? So if he nukes even the battlefield in Russia, I just don't see it. I just don't see it.
00:56:43.160
Because remember, you know, when we look at Ukraine, we're just seeing real estate. But the entire idea
00:56:48.980
here is that Ukraine and Russia have some kind of a, you know, a soul connection, you know,
00:56:54.800
there's some kind of deeper connection. I don't know what the analogy would be in the United States,
00:56:59.240
but it would be like, you know, let's say there were some civil war, and we talked about, you know,
00:57:05.600
nuking Washington, D.C. I feel like we wouldn't do it, even if militarily we thought it made sense.
00:57:14.280
Because you can't really nuke your own country. It's just hard.
00:57:26.040
If he nukes Ukraine, he loses his claim as a sovereign of Ukraine. Exactly.
00:57:34.480
Yeah, I think the tactical nukes would be the same problem. You know, just the PR of it is bad.
00:57:40.460
All right, that's all for today. YouTube, I'll talk to you tomorrow.