Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2517 A Conversation With Michael Ian Black

00:00:00.000 here, and then I'll do an introduction. Very good. I'll sip a little tea while we wait.

00:00:04.560 Sipping is good. All right. In a moment, you should appear on my feed here.

00:00:16.540 Hey, everybody. Everybody's piling in for an amazing experience. Let me just adjust this.

00:00:23.360 Actually, I think we're fine. I think we're going to be good to go. So today's going to be a very

00:00:29.120 special episode. I'm here with Michael Ian Black, who you may recognize from TV. He's an author.

00:00:39.940 He's got a substack. He's an actor. What else would we add to that?

00:00:45.980 Sten-up comedian, I guess.

00:00:47.680 Sten-up comedian.

00:00:49.460 Podcaster, perhaps.

00:00:50.940 Podcaster. Let's add that. Where do they find your substack?

00:00:54.420 I think it's just at substack.michaelianblack, I think.

00:01:00.620 Yeah. Probably just his name. We'll kick it up. And the reason we're talking is that I made a

00:01:06.880 provocative statement on the X platform that all the news is fake. And Michael saw that and wondered,

00:01:15.620 how do you know what's real? At least in how I figure out what's real. And how do you even talk

00:01:21.400 about it if you think it's all fake? And I thought, that's like one of the best questions

00:01:25.740 that I've heard in a year. You know, I'm so tired of talking about which character is the good one

00:01:30.700 and who's that letter and all that stuff. But what's really interesting is, how do you know

00:01:35.320 what's real? And I've got a lot to say about it.

00:01:38.420 I'm sure you do.

00:01:39.040 And so I actually prepared some notes that show the, just very quickly, that are the tools that I use

00:01:47.600 that I'm wondering if you've been exposed to. And I could run through it, but I'd invite you to

00:01:52.880 interrupt me because otherwise I'll do too much talking.

00:01:57.780 Yeah. I will interrupt as I see fit. But I agree with you that the topic of conversation is exactly

00:02:03.380 what you just said. You had posted a tweet that said, and I think I'm quoting this correctly,

00:02:07.880 you cannot have a political conversation with somebody who believes the news

00:02:12.220 is real. And I took that to mean that the news is fake.

00:02:19.060 Correct.

00:02:19.940 Okay. So we agree on the basic terms.

00:02:23.120 Yeah. So let's start by giving a little more, I'll give a little more definition to that.

00:02:28.220 Now, I think the news is true when it's directly observable. Like they say, there's a,

00:02:33.200 there's a soul.

00:02:34.120 I'm sorry. I'm going to interrupt you even off the top of the bat. I'm so sorry,

00:02:36.760 because I want to get clarification on what you mean by news.

00:02:41.100 Oh, the, let's say, I'll say the stuff that is important to politics and economics and science,

00:02:47.720 the big stuff that would be both on the news, but in social media where they're talking about

00:02:52.160 the news.

00:02:53.100 So stuff that is reported as fact.

00:02:56.040 Reported as fact. Yes.

00:02:58.620 Let's go with that.

00:02:59.480 So I'm agreeing that things that we can directly observe are certainly facts.

00:03:05.060 Hurricanes are hurricanes. A celebrity dies. He's really dead.

00:03:08.280 The stuff, the, the, the stuff.

00:03:10.620 And of course there's a little hyperbole in what I said intentionally,

00:03:13.840 but I'm really trying to narrow it down to the domains of politics, science, and economics.

00:03:20.480 The big stuff, the stuff we care about. Now, um, I do sometimes treat those things as real

00:03:28.860 because language is too messy. You know, it's hard to say, well, this thing I'm talking about now

00:03:34.420 might, you know, there's a small chance it's not real. So we do have, we do have the problem that

00:03:39.520 I do talk about it like it's real sometimes.

00:03:42.220 Can I answer with you one more time? I'm so sorry.

00:03:44.280 As much as you want.

00:03:45.520 Okay. When you say something is real, is that the same thing as saying it's true? Are we,

00:03:51.560 are just, are those terms interchangeable? Okay.

00:03:54.060 Yeah. Yes. Um, and then there's a hybrid where the report is true, meaning that somebody really

00:04:00.640 reported it, but maybe the facts are not true. So meaning they got it wrong. They got it wrong.

00:04:06.280 Yeah. So here's my, here's my argument. My argument starts with, there are some disciplines

00:04:12.400 that people learn that make them better at determining what's true and what's not in the

00:04:16.980 news. For example, if you're a plumber by training, you're probably good at predicting plumbing,

00:04:22.900 but it's not really a good generalizable skill. If you're a teacher, you're probably great at

00:04:29.000 figuring out what your kids, what, what works with your kids in your class. But again, it's not super

00:04:34.460 generalizable to the real world. Uh, I have in a sense, we dispute that. I would say many of the

00:04:42.380 lessons that a teacher teaches in a classroom are absolutely generalizable to the real world.

00:04:47.960 Uh, lessons about patience, lessons about listening, lessons about empathy, lessons about,

00:04:53.180 uh, curiosity and questioning. I'm keeping it just to the news.

00:04:58.060 Okay. But if, but if your argument is that, um, certain professions make you better able to discern

00:05:03.940 what is real and what is not, it would seem to me that teachers would absolutely have maybe a

00:05:10.800 better than average ability to do that. Let, let me back off from that then point taken. How about

00:05:16.680 plumbers? I think you'd have to go by the individual, but I agree with you that the skills

00:05:24.060 that one learns in plumbing aren't probably that relevant to media criticism. So I'll, I'll give you

00:05:30.340 teachers because you gave some good examples, but let, but let me tell you what I think would be at

00:05:34.540 the top of the stack. Um, an economist would be in much better shape to know if the news about the

00:05:41.700 economy is fake. Yeah. Uh, I've got a degree in economics. So when I see economic news, I'm in

00:05:48.160 pretty good shape to know when it's fake. I've got an MBA, which teaches you to know about individual

00:05:54.320 businesses. So if I see an, if I see an individual business doing something that doesn't look right,

00:06:00.120 the degree you have is an MBA in business or do you have a separate MBA? Uh, MBA means business.

00:06:07.560 Yeah. That's what the B is. That's your business. Right. Right. Right. Um, I'm also a, I guess I'll

00:06:15.200 say a famous management observer because of my comic strip. So Dilbert is all about the weird things in

00:06:22.220 management. Now I would argue that there's, you know, there's no such a thing as a degree in

00:06:26.340 watching a management, but if you do something for 35 years, you end up getting better at it.

00:06:33.020 So observing managers and how they work and what's typical in a big company, I'm probably in the top

00:06:38.440 2% of people who could do that just from experience. That's totally debatable.

00:06:45.200 Debatable, but you'd probably put me in the top half. I don't know. I have no idea. Well,

00:06:50.820 I would agree that you have been observing management for 35 years. Yes. Oh, oh, here's,

00:06:55.360 here's the other thing. I also work, work, that adds to every podcast. I like a dog at the

00:07:02.400 background. Um, on top of that, I've worked for big companies. So I've got the real life

00:07:09.180 experience of how corporations work, which is how Dilbert was formed. In fact, Dilbert is only

00:07:13.480 popular because the things I observe people say, Oh, that's so right on. That's the whole point.

00:07:19.060 Totally agree. So, um, then beyond that, because I talk about politics, uh, for the podcasting,

00:07:26.600 et cetera, and on X, um, I make an habit to watch the news from both sides. So I see news that's

00:07:32.860 completely different on the left and right. I, I, I'm sorry, go back. You said, because I'm an observer

00:07:38.380 of politics, I see politics from both sides. Is that what you, is that, was that your point?

00:07:43.060 Because I talk about it. Because you're talking about it. It's incumbent on me to look at both

00:07:47.560 sides. So I know what you would agree that you have no expert, let's say credentialing

00:07:50.760 in politics, the way you have in business administration. That's true. Right. Um,

00:07:56.980 so here's, let me give you some examples when, uh, Fauci, uh, and my general statement is that 0.97

00:08:04.860 I'm an expert at determining bullshit. I'm not an expert at knowing what's true. And so, okay. So 0.65

00:08:11.160 when you say you're an expert at detecting bullshit, are you credentialed in the same way at detecting 0.99

00:08:16.580 bullshit as you are at business administration? Uh, I'll say that I have a track record, which I'll 0.98

00:08:22.660 give you some examples. Okay. But will you give me the counter examples of when you were wrong?

00:08:27.980 Yes, actually I have those. Okay. So you have been right and you have been wrong as all of us have

00:08:34.120 been. Yeah. So when you say you're an expert at detecting bullshit, it seems to me that what

00:08:39.360 you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you can detect bullshit. Well, not with a hundred 0.99

00:08:45.980 percent certainty. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Nobody can do that. So, and yes, I do have some real good

00:08:51.820 examples of whoppers I got wrong. So that'll make you happy. It's not a question of being happy or

00:08:57.400 not. It's just a question of understanding where you're coming from. Yeah. Okay. So here's an

00:09:00.800 example. When, uh, the pandemic happened and Fauci came out and said, masks will do you no good.

00:09:09.220 I'm the only person in the country, a public figure who said, oops, he's lying. He believes that

00:09:14.920 they are good. And he's just making sure. I'm so sorry. Let me see if I can rectify this situation

00:09:24.900 very quickly. I'm so sorry. You know, it seems like if you're not doing it right. I like to have at least

00:09:36.900 a baby or a dog. All right. While we're waiting for Michael to take care of that, let me make sure

00:09:44.040 I'm looking at my locals comments. So sorry. I was throwing them away. I threw them away.

00:09:49.720 I threw them away. All right. So when Fauci came out and said, uh, uh, masks won't help you. This is

00:09:57.840 on the first day. Masks won't help you. I'm the only person in the country who said publicly and very

00:10:02.620 loudly, he's lying. That's a lie. And the reason I knew it is because there would obviously be a

00:10:09.560 shortage of masks for the professionals. It would be more important for the professionals to have

00:10:14.500 them. And that probably that was just a strategic smart lie later, much later, he admitted that that

00:10:21.040 was a lie. And his belief was that mass worked. And then that turned into another problem down the

00:10:26.700 road, which is they didn't really work well enough to justify the mandates. So I don't want to get into

00:10:32.080 the details. I'll just say that's one example in which I was an example of what, uh, calling

00:10:37.960 correct. Have you been correct about you said he was lying when he said masks and importantly,

00:10:43.860 the only one in the world. I don't know if that's true, but I'll take you at your word.

00:10:48.580 Yeah. I haven't seen an exception. Here's another, there's another example. Uh, I'm also,

00:10:53.940 I'm sorry. Let me just interrupt for a second, because I do think this is important.

00:10:57.700 You just said I was the only one in the world who said that.

00:11:02.800 And do you mean that literally?

00:11:05.140 All right. So here we have to talk about reading comprehension.

00:11:09.340 If I say, hold on, hold on, hold on. If I say white people like cheese, you don't need 1.00

00:11:16.160 to ask if I mean all of them. If I say I'm the only person in the world that got it right,

00:11:21.960 you don't need to ask, well, how do you know? Have you pulled everything?

00:11:26.000 I think that's important because you're setting yourself up as somebody who knew the truth when

00:11:31.000 nobody else knew the truth. And so you make, so let me just finish. So when you make a statement

00:11:36.140 that says I was the only one in the world who said that to me, that sounds false. Now, if you're,

00:11:44.440 if, if, if, if, if your point is I'm, I'm, I'm exaggerating and whatever, fine. I don't know

00:11:49.720 this well enough to know whether or not you're exaggerating and whether you mean that literally.

00:11:52.980 I'll tell you, I'm always exaggerating. So whenever I talk about universals, they're never universal.

00:11:58.700 Okay. So if I say it's light in the daytime, I allow that there could be an eclipse.

00:12:06.440 So there's just some ordinary assumptions. All right. But I'll try to be more careful because

00:12:11.160 I see that that could be a sticking point. Now on top of this, part of my talents are I'm a hypnotist.

00:12:17.840 Are you, were you aware of that? I'm a trained hypnotist.

00:12:20.760 I know that you claim to be a trained hypnotist. I don't really know what that means.

00:12:24.880 It means I went to school for it. I got certified. I've been practicing it. I've been studying

00:12:29.880 persuasion. I've written on it. I've got a bestselling book on the topic. So that allows

00:12:35.280 you to sort of be a BS detector as well. And so Fauci really stood down as obviously a BS to me.

00:12:44.180 Now, did anybody else get it right? I didn't hear of any. So I'll just, I'll just back up to the claim

00:12:50.020 that I interacted on that question a great deal. And nobody suggested that anybody else

00:12:55.480 had the same idea. Fair enough.

00:13:00.420 Here's some, some other examples. When Trump recently was asked about what he would do about

00:13:06.900 the spiraling debt, he said that he would take care of it with growth, you know, grow the

00:13:12.140 economies. We'd have more taxes. Now, because I have a background in economics, I know that's

00:13:17.580 not a real answer. That's bullshit. Now it's bullshit because if our debt were, let's say 1.00

00:13:23.280 a trillion dollars and we're adding a hundred billion a year to it, you probably could grow 0.96

00:13:28.320 your way out of that. But anybody with even a little bit of economic knowledge knows that

00:13:32.480 when you have a $35 trillion debt and you're growing at two trillion a year, you can't really

00:13:38.200 grow out of that. So that's an example. If you didn't know economics, you'd say, hmm,

00:13:42.680 that sounds like a good idea. I'd rather grow than increase taxes. Here's another one. When

00:13:49.200 the, uh, this, it helps me old and have, having seen a lot of patterns. So, you know, if I'm

00:13:55.720 30% older than you, I've got 30% more pattern practice. So here's one that I called out as

00:14:02.260 did many people. Um, I said that the jobs reports would be fake because that's just always the

00:14:09.220 case when the incumbent also is in control of the people who do the data. So the jobs reports

00:14:15.740 are fake. You mean they're just made up of, out of whole cloth. Oh, I'll let me finish. That'll

00:14:20.460 be the answer to that question. So it's very common for the jobs report to come out and then they

00:14:25.040 revise them later. That's actually normal process. But what is predictable is that it will, the first

00:14:31.520 story will be whoever's in charge. In this case, it's Biden is doing great on jobs. Look at these

00:14:37.160 numbers. And then months later, there's a smaller story. Oh, we revised this down. It really,

00:14:42.500 really wasn't nearly that good. Now that was something. I recall a quarter very recently where

00:14:47.920 it was revised up. This is during Biden's administration. I don't have that information

00:14:52.960 in front of me, so it's entirely possible I'm mistaken, but I do recall very recently it

00:14:58.140 was revised up. So today it was revised down. So today it was massively revised down. But in

00:15:04.900 addition, if you've worked with data, a lot of my corporate jobs were data and projecting

00:15:09.960 and trying to predict the future, which isn't really a thing. If you knew that, you knew that

00:15:15.520 the numbers were probably cooked anyway, meaning that it had a lot of part-time people, had a

00:15:20.520 lot of migrants got jobs. If senior citizens are going back to work, that's not good news. 0.98

00:15:25.720 So you can't even tell the good news from the bad news.

00:15:29.700 Is the job report designed to include seniors, part-time workers, migrant workers, et cetera?

00:15:37.340 Or is there some exception that these job reports that you're talking about

00:15:41.140 are including numbers that aren't traditionally included in the job reports?

00:15:47.160 Everybody who gets a job is probably included. But what's different is whether it's good news

00:15:51.720 or bad news. If you heard that all of the jobs went to senior citizens, you would think that's 0.98

00:15:56.720 bad news. If you heard that all went to 20-somethings getting out of school, you think that's the

00:16:02.720 best news ever.

00:16:03.920 I don't know that I agree with that, but okay.

00:16:07.980 Well, all right.

00:16:10.920 I mean, you're stating an opinion about what I would think, and I'm not saying I necessarily

00:16:15.060 agree with that, but okay.

00:16:16.160 Okay. Economists would agree with me. All of them. A hundred percent.

00:16:23.740 Again, I don't know that that's true.

00:16:25.520 Yeah. All right.

00:16:26.320 Well, you're making claims and I don't know. I don't know if a hundred percent of economists

00:16:32.580 would agree with that statement. And I suspect you don't know that either.

00:16:36.620 Yeah, actually I do. A hundred percent of economists would agree with this statement

00:16:41.380 that if all the jobs went to senior citizens, that's not nearly as good as if all the jobs 0.77

00:16:47.140 went to young people. That would not be a disputable claim.

00:16:54.080 Okay. I'll take your word.

00:16:55.700 All right. Have you ever heard of a gel man amnesia? 0.97

00:17:00.640 Have you ever run across that?

00:17:02.080 No.

00:17:02.180 Gel man amnesia. This is one of the most important things to know to look at the news. 1.00

00:17:06.540 So there was a physicist named Gelman and he would read in the news and he would see

00:17:12.440 a story about physics, which was his expertise. And he would say, oh my God, they got everything

00:17:17.660 wrong. And then he'd see another one about physics and like, they did it again. It's

00:17:22.060 wrong again. Every time I read about my expertise, it's wrong. But then he would turn to the next

00:17:26.380 page about something that was not in his expertise. He'd say, oh, that looks right. And one day

00:17:32.680 he realized, wait a minute, could it be an accident that everything I know about is wrong,

00:17:38.140 but the things I'm not an expert on are right? Maybe it's all wrong all the time.

00:17:43.900 So one of the things that maybe you've experienced, I'd love to see if you've had this experience.

00:17:49.540 If you've had the press write about you, you've seen how inaccurate it is. Have you experienced

00:17:55.400 that yet? No. So here's what I have experienced. And I think this is similar to what you're talking

00:18:01.780 about. So I remember a profile was written about me for, I want to say GQ, but it might've been

00:18:08.420 another magazine. And the profile that I read didn't necessarily reflect back to me what I thought of

00:18:19.180 myself, but I didn't think it was inaccurate in terms of what the writer may have thought about

00:18:24.660 me, if that makes sense. Sure. Sure. So I wasn't misquoted. Nobody was lying about me. And over

00:18:32.800 decades of my experience, I'm trying to think, and I don't think I've ever read anything about

00:18:41.480 me from a reporter that was just wholly untrue. I don't think. All right. So my experience having

00:18:49.500 been the subject of news, hundreds and hundreds of big stories, they're wildly inaccurate, even on

00:18:57.920 basic things like what my jobs were, where I live. I mean, really basics, who I married, my age. And then

00:19:05.920 if they try to interpret anything about what my opinions are, that's just all ridiculous. So the first 0.62

00:19:11.460 thing that the first filter I put on it is that just because I'm not an expert in that field

00:19:17.320 doesn't mean it's real because the news is terrible at getting the right context. Often the facts are

00:19:23.340 right, as you said, but sometimes the context we left out. Let me give you some. Ontario, the wait is

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00:20:30.560 Here's another example. In science, science told me for years that having two drinks a night was fine.

00:20:39.640 In fact, it might make you healthier. I've said for 30 years, I know that's not true. And I'm using my

00:20:46.260 economics degree to tell you that the only people who would do those studies are the people who sell

00:20:51.000 alcohol. And if the study went the other way, they wouldn't show you. Now, if you don't understand

00:20:56.160 that science is motivated, meaning that the only person who's going to be able to afford a big

00:21:02.920 multi-year, $10 million controlled study with a placebo, are the people who are selling something

00:21:09.680 because nobody else's does it. So you can't really trust the study done by somebody who can make

00:21:15.700 millions of dollars if it goes one way, and they'll lose money if it goes the other way.

00:21:19.720 Because you could expect they would simply hide it if it went the other way. And if it were

00:21:24.900 inaccurate, but in their direction, they'd put it out and see if anybody noticed. That's the world

00:21:29.260 I live in. Now, I can speak from experience because it was my job to give data to my bosses. And I

00:21:36.380 remember going into when I worked for the bank, it was my job to say if each of the branch outlets were

00:21:41.400 doing a good job so that the managers could be evaluated. And I took the data to my senior vice

00:21:48.480 president and they said, I can guarantee that the data is crap because it comes from all different 0.95

00:21:53.960 places. There's no credibility to the data. So therefore, my conclusions are also useless. 0.98

00:22:00.020 You really can't tell who's doing a good or bad job. The data is garbage. The senior vice president 0.97

00:22:05.160 of the bank said to me, I know and I don't care. I only use the data when it agrees with what I wanted

00:22:10.420 to do. That is the only way that corporations work. And I was on the inside. So I went to another

00:22:18.320 company just to make sure it wasn't that one company. I went to the phone company. And it was

00:22:23.520 my job to do analyses that agreed with what my boss wanted to do. And so I did. And that's where I

00:22:29.660 learned that whenever there are a lot of variables involved, it's the assumptions that drive the outcome.

00:22:35.020 It's not the data. Now, if you haven't had that experience. It's the outcome, not the data. I'm

00:22:40.340 just trying to understand that. Okay. Keep going. All right. So an example would be if I think the

00:22:45.720 discount rate or the interest rates are this, it looks like a good idea. But if I assume that

00:22:51.200 there's something else and there was lots of room for assumption, we could go the other way. So I can

00:22:56.240 simply pick my assumptions based on how I wanted the output to look. So, okay. So here's an example

00:23:02.940 of an agency that in my estimation is not lying about this. And I'd be curious to know what their

00:23:13.020 agenda would be. So for decades, NASA has been saying that climate change is real. It's manmade

00:23:18.420 and it's a growing threat. Why, why would they lie about that?

00:23:24.420 Excellent question. That was going to be my big climax to talking around and believing in climate change.

00:23:29.220 Climax. All right. So, uh, can we save it? Cause with a little bit more.

00:23:34.980 The only reason I'm reluctant to is because I, because we're going through a list of your

00:23:40.660 accomplishments and your background and that's fine, but it hasn't gotten to the heart of the

00:23:46.680 conversation, which is the media. So, so I'm willing to, I'm willing to accept everything that

00:23:52.280 you've said to this point, but that's not what the conversation is about. Uh, I think, I think it

00:23:57.760 is. I thought we were talking about, I thought we were talking about how I can determine what's

00:24:01.620 true in the media. Is that wrong? Okay. Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure. But, but, but to me, the larger

00:24:11.400 question is the claim that all, all news is fake. Um, that's the, that's, that's the question I'm

00:24:17.920 interested in. Right. So here's another one. I've also studied mass hysterias. So when, uh, when I

00:24:25.400 saw that there was a story that said the Russians have a secret sonic weapon that they're using on

00:24:30.300 our embassies, I said, Oh, that's a classic mass hysteria. When they said the doctors have found

00:24:36.100 actual real damage in these people, I said, that's a mass hysteria and months and months and months go by.

00:24:42.860 And then the report comes out. There's no sonic weapon. We think it was a mass hysteria. Now I

00:24:48.520 knew that on day one, because I studied mass hysterias. If you study them, you'd know it was

00:24:54.340 a classic. You, you personally have concluded based on everything that you've read that Havana syndrome

00:24:58.720 is nothing but mass hysteria. And, uh, and, and, and are we now at the point where science,

00:25:07.420 the sort of respectable science establishment has also said that, or is that still your claim and your

00:25:11.460 claim alone? No, that that's now the, the common narrative is that has been debunked as a weapon.

00:25:17.600 There are still, still some people saying they think it is, but the more common narrative is they

00:25:22.360 studied it to death and they found out there were some sounds that were happening. Um, and it's still

00:25:27.720 mystery, but they, they kind of ruled out the weapon thing. Now the, here's how you could rule out the

00:25:32.620 weapon. Even if you didn't know about mass hysterias, it's the, it's the Scott Alexander rule.

00:25:38.000 Uh, Scott Alexander was a blogger who pointed out the first time I saw it. Uh, it's a pseudonym,

00:25:44.480 by the way, Scott Alexander. And he pointed out that if you see a story that says a, a dog bites a man,

00:25:50.600 well, you probably won't see that story because that's ordinary dogs bite people. If you see a story

00:25:55.300 that a man bit a dog, well, that'll probably be in the news, but here's the second part.

00:25:59.740 Um, it's almost certainly not true. So about 19 and a 20 stories, this is, this is be my own

00:26:06.380 estimate that are fantastical on the surface turn out not to be true. So when you tell me that there's

00:26:13.340 a secret sonic weapon that the Russians are using to really do an act of war on America by attacking 0.96

00:26:19.360 an embassy and doing it more than once, that is a fantastical story, which the Scott Alexander rule

00:26:26.360 would say, you can't know for sure, but there's a 19 out of 20, it's fake. Let me give you another

00:26:31.080 example. So here's an article from the insider from March 31st, 2024. A year long investigation

00:26:37.780 by the insider in collaboration with 60 minutes and dare Spiegel has uncovered evidence suggesting

00:26:43.600 that unexplained anomalous health incidents, also known as Havana syndrome may have their origin in

00:26:49.800 the use of directed energy weapons directed by members of Russian GRU unit 29155.

00:26:58.540 They always blame with the fake news, by the way. Say that again. There's a whole bunch of blaming

00:27:04.920 Russia things for hacking and things that sound very similar. If you haven't seen the pattern,

00:27:09.660 it's not as obvious, but go ahead. Well, I'm just giving you the headline. So

00:27:14.220 it's Der Spiegel, it's 60 Minutes, and it's the Insider, which is an organization that I don't know,

00:27:20.500 and they're saying uncovered evidence suggesting may have their origin in the use of a directed

00:27:26.380 energy weapon. And when I looked at the NIH and National Institute of Health report on Havana syndrome,

00:27:35.780 it sort of suggests exactly what you just said. No evidence of MRI detectable brain injury or

00:27:44.160 biological abnormalities compared to healthy volunteers who reported Havana syndrome.

00:27:54.340 Now, let me give you a rule that I think is really useful to this conversation. You never

00:28:03.900 to really know what's true. So in this example, for example, maybe... Wait a second, wait a second.

00:28:09.680 You never really know what's true. 100%. But you claim to know what's true. No, you're doing that

00:28:15.640 100% thing again. You never 100%... Forgive me, I am fairly literal. So if you tell me something

00:28:23.820 and you use specific words, I'm going to treat your specific words as what you meant.

00:28:27.800 All right. But can you handle the fact that it never means 100%? Let me give you a universal.

00:28:34.660 I will try. But as we're sort of going through this, I may ask for clarification from time to time.

00:28:43.780 So to get away from that standard of the 100% thing is problematic. The thing I use is whether

00:28:50.400 your worldview predicts. So if you don't predict, you're not close to reality. So when Fauci said,

00:28:59.860 these masks don't work, I predicted he was lying and it was right. When the sonic weapon was introduced,

00:29:09.640 I predicted they would never find evidence of the weapon. Now, the prediction is correct so far,

00:29:16.360 but could it be wrong tomorrow? Yes. But the prediction so far is good. Here's another one of

00:29:22.400 the same type. We have these credible sounding reports that there are UFOs that have been captured

00:29:28.200 with actual dead aliens and they're a big warehouse. The Scott Alexander rule says, nope, that's so

00:29:37.780 fantastical that you know it's not true. My prediction is we'll never see one of those aircraft.

00:29:44.440 So, so far, that's true. Now, tomorrow we could see one. And then I would say, whoa,

00:29:50.480 that rule didn't work that time. So there are none of these rules that are going to work every time.

00:29:55.860 Except that in the case of UFOs, for example, we have seen on radar, eyewitness accounts,

00:30:05.920 many eyewitness accounts from different views of the same incident. We have congressional

00:30:12.200 testimony to this effect. We have, um, uh, under oath. We have voluminous evidence of the existence

00:30:21.660 of UAP. And I'm, I'm on the same page with you that there are things happening that we don't

00:30:29.500 understand and reports that we've not explained. Right. What I'm saying is that we don't have a

00:30:34.680 warehouse with 12 UFOs in it. That we know of, but yes. That, so, so my prediction is that that's as

00:30:42.360 close as I can get to truth. I'm not just that one corner of the issue is there'll never be a

00:30:47.100 warehouse with 12 UFOs. All right, let me give you some others. Were you aware? I feel, I honestly,

00:30:53.580 I feel like I have enough, like your predictive powers at this point. I'm like, great, but let's

00:30:58.840 talk. Can we talk about the media or no? Um, I think I'm going to, I think I thought we were,

00:31:05.440 let me give us an example. We're talking about Fauci. We're talking about UFOs. Oh, I see. I see.

00:31:11.400 Okay. But we're not talking about the reporting of those stories, which is what I'm interested in

00:31:14.980 because you told me that I can't trust the news. All right. So to me, I see it all as the news.

00:31:20.220 Fauci talking is the news. That's why I asked for clarification on what you meant by the news.

00:31:24.340 And the news is the reporting of facts and events that actually took place.

00:31:29.260 Would you agree that when Fauci said masks are not necessary, that the news all reported

00:31:37.220 the news covered what he said? Yes. I totally agree with that.

00:31:41.280 Okay. So I think we're on the same page. I don't know that we keep going.

00:31:44.820 Did you know, but so, so what I wanted to know and see, see if you don't want to do this,

00:31:49.260 because this is what I plan to do. I wanted to tell you what tools I'm using

00:31:53.060 to determine which of the news stories are real. So if I could, if I could run down a few more,

00:31:58.860 you'd have something to, to, to challenge them. Are you aware that the CIA is known,

00:32:05.020 it's documented that they've used a fake UFO sightings as distractions from news that they

00:32:12.000 didn't want to covered? Yes. Okay. And did you know that, uh, the CIA used to manipulate our

00:32:20.040 movies and TV shows and media for the benefit of the country, you know, trying to make us all

00:32:25.720 patriotic and believe what the government was saying, but then that was illegal. It became

00:32:30.420 illegal. You talking about Mission Mockingbird? Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. And then that became

00:32:34.820 illegal. Uh, and then Obama made it legal again. So in other words, our CIA can propagandize us,

00:32:42.200 propagandize us, propagandize us today. Did you know that? I'm aware that the Obama administration

00:32:49.920 passed a law saying that voice of America, and I feel like radio for Cuba or whatever it was,

00:32:55.880 were allowed to broadcast in the United States. Is that the story you're talking about?

00:33:01.880 I think that's a subset of the larger rule. They said there was nothing prohibiting,

00:33:06.160 um, you know, some kinds of persuasion coming from our intelligence people directed toward the United

00:33:13.980 States. I would need more information on that. Do you have a link? Um, not with me, but I could

00:33:20.620 probably get that. So just for the sake of this conversation, we can move on, but I will not

00:33:24.540 take you at your word on that. That it's legal for the CIA to, um, propagandize the United States

00:33:32.460 citizens. Yes. I will not take your word on that. All right. I'll, I'll stand on that being the, 0.54

00:33:37.360 that it's legal. Okay. Um, are you, did you follow the, uh, Twitter files and all the exposed,

00:33:44.100 the very vaguely. Okay. So it got more attention on the right. The basic idea is that the intelligence

00:33:50.160 people and the FBI were very deep into the social, um, the, the social apps and telling them what they

00:33:59.660 thought was real and what wasn't, and trying to convince them to do less of this. And there was

00:34:03.800 a lot of banning and censoring, et cetera. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's,

00:34:08.900 that's a, that's a claim that I don't agree with. You're saying the government banned certain users

00:34:14.260 on social media, the government itself. No, no, no, no. I'm saying that the government work with the

00:34:19.940 social media, but when the government comes in and says, you know, you really ought to do this.

00:34:25.180 Social media is at a weak position. So I think most of them caved.

00:34:31.560 Okay. I, again, I'm not going to take you at your word for that. I, here's what I, here's what

00:34:37.100 I will agree with. Cause I, I do think there's probably truth in what you're saying, which is

00:34:42.460 that the government, um, would look at certain accounts on Twitter, for example, and say, this

00:34:48.880 person is, uh, I don't know. I don't know what their excuse would be, but fomenting violence,

00:34:54.220 for example, and we think you might want to take a look at this.

00:34:58.060 Well, hold on. Let me, I have to interrupt you there. I don't know if the violence was ever an

00:35:03.860 issue, what they were, it was mostly about pandemic misinformation and political misinformation.

00:35:10.440 And a lot of the people who were banned and suppressed were later found out to be the correct

00:35:16.460 ones, especially the doctors, the doctors who had, uh, alternative views about vaccines

00:35:21.840 and stuff. So we do know that the government, um, because of the Twitter files, uh, through

00:35:27.620 the FBI and through the actual, just government itself, uh, had deep ties. And then a lot of

00:35:34.560 people who worked for the social media programs were.

00:35:36.920 Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait, when you say deep ties, you're implying something that

00:35:40.940 I don't believe to be true. What you're saying, because again, this is me being literal. So if I'm,

00:35:46.620 if I'm misunderstanding you, please tell me, when you say the FBI has deep ties to certain social

00:35:54.080 media and maybe all of them, what I hear is this, the FBI is controlling social media platforms. When

00:36:03.500 you say deep ties to me, that means exerting control over as opposed to relationships with

00:36:11.480 social media companies, which I would expect, um, and alerting them to miss or disinformation

00:36:21.200 that they can. And then, and, and suggesting maybe heavy handedly suggesting, I don't know that that's

00:36:27.820 the case that they should do something about that, but that's different. I think than having deep

00:36:33.300 ties to, well, I think deep ties means that they had, uh, people who had regular relationships and

00:36:42.020 regular meetings. I think there was even an office of the FBI and Twitter headquarters.

00:36:47.520 Entirely possible. I don't know.

00:36:48.720 That's so much, but I would argue that if the CIA is your friend and wants you to do something,

00:36:55.240 it's not a peer relationship. If the FBI says, you know, we'd really like you to do this.

00:37:01.220 And here's our argument and the social media doesn't want to do it. And there were cases

00:37:05.400 where Twitter actually said, no, um, it's hard to say no.

00:37:09.900 So here's what I found from December 16th, 2022. This is in the national review. And this is what

00:37:16.100 I would expect by the way. Uh, hold on. I just have to get rid of these pop-ups. It says, uh,

00:37:21.260 this is the beginning of the article. The FBI frequently communicated with Twitter, Twitter's

00:37:27.220 trust and safety team before Elon Musk acquired the company, the sixth installment of the Twitter

00:37:33.200 files expose series reveals between 20, uh, January, 2020 and November, 2022 over 150 emails

00:37:40.980 were exchanged between the FBI and former Twitter trust and safety head Yoel Roth. It does not say

00:37:49.280 they had an office at Twitter. Uh, and it says the FBI social media specializing task force born after

00:37:56.780 the 2016 election expanded to 80 agents and collaborated with Twitter to hunt down election

00:38:02.900 meddling by foreign actors. Now I don't have a problem with any of that, and I'm not sure why you do. 0.99

00:38:08.540 Well, let me give you an example. There were a lot of things that were censored through that process.

00:38:15.080 Um, and it was other entities. It wasn't just the FBI, other government entities that turned down to

00:38:20.780 be true. So medical things from highly qualified medical doctors, but it didn't fit the narrative.

00:38:27.720 So it was suppressed by the way, Amazon, I'm not saying that they didn't, but I'm just saying this article

00:38:34.940 seems to suggest that it was about election interference and election misinformation.

00:38:41.240 I don't see anything in here about COVID. Maybe that's a different article that I will find,

00:38:45.720 but keep going. Well, there's there, we could talk about election disinformation. That's a fun

00:38:51.260 topic too. All right. Let me, let me keep going. Um, one of the ways, you know, something's true

00:38:56.120 is if the opposition fact checkers say it's true. In other words, if there's a entity that does fact

00:39:03.400 checking that's very Republican and they've always been very Republican, but they fact check something

00:39:08.660 that's bad for Republicans, that's more credible. Likewise, there are some fact checkers like Snopes

00:39:14.780 is famously pro Democrat, or at least that's the, the image they present. Um, recently scopes debunked

00:39:24.660 the fine people hoax. Were you aware of that? That none of your news carried it.

00:39:29.620 That what, that scopes debunked the very fine people hoax? The fine people hoax. Can you define

00:39:34.940 what the very fine people hoax is? So the hoax was that Trump once called neo-Nazis marching in

00:39:40.620 Charlottesville fine people. And who reported that? Uh, the entire press consistently, and it became,

00:39:48.920 uh, it was actually the centerpiece of Biden's, uh, entire 2020 campaign. So again, let me just go

00:39:56.080 back for a second. Your claim is that the news reported that Trump said, and I think, I think,

00:40:03.880 I think you're putting this in quotes, Nazis are very fine people unquote. Is that what you're saying? 0.87

00:40:08.780 Yeah. The exact quote was, uh, they said that he called, uh, the neo-Nazis and the racist fine people.

00:40:17.580 That's what they said. Now it's not a quote because the quote doesn't exist. He, what he actually said

00:40:25.240 was, I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the, the racists. They should be disavowed totally.

00:40:31.680 But Joe Biden never said that Trump said that he called Nazis very fine people.

00:40:37.160 What? I can play you, I can play you his, his election, uh, ad right here. This is from his

00:40:42.120 announcement. Hold on. Hold on. Are you saying that the centerpiece of Biden's entire campaign,

00:40:48.940 which was that Trump did say that, are you saying that the Biden did not have that as a center?

00:40:55.200 Seriously? Uh, no, what I'm saying is Trump, I mean, Biden used the Charlottesville incident

00:41:01.060 and the violence that occurred there as the launching pad for his election. Biden never said

00:41:09.500 that Trump said that Nazis were very fine people. In fact, he goes out of his way

00:41:14.760 to say, and I'll play, I'll play it for you. Oh my God. I mean, I've got, I've got his words

00:41:20.560 right here. Do you want to hear them? Uh-huh. Okay. So I don't, I'm assuming you can hear this.

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00:42:02.420 I should tell you that I've been, I've been listening to compilations of him, of Democrats

00:42:07.740 and him saying it all day. Wait, I'm sorry, what? I've been listening to compilations of him saying it,

00:42:14.260 Biden and the news for the last 24 hours. Saying that Trump said Nazis are very fine people? 1.00

00:42:21.840 It's the single biggest story in the country. I don't know how you could not be aware of it.

00:42:25.940 This is, this is amazing. It's currently not the single biggest story in the country by any stretch

00:42:30.640 of the imagination. Hold on, hold on. It was the centerpiece of Biden's campaign.

00:42:34.980 Yes. He's going into a debate that will be hosted by two of the people who have reported it as true

00:42:40.920 for years. And it's the most important thing because it's the thing that made people think that

00:42:48.020 Trump's a racist. You're talking about a very, you're making a very specific claim. And I just want

00:42:53.800 to be clear. Your claim is that Biden said that Trump said that Nazis are very fine people. 0.99

00:43:03.400 Yes.

00:43:03.960 He did not say that.

00:43:05.360 No, he said it every time he gave a speech.

00:43:08.640 But I'm telling you, I had, I tried to play the audio for you and you interrupted. So let me play

00:43:13.160 the, let me play the audio.

00:43:14.880 Well, hold on. If you have one audio, that's not going to tell anything. So I need to show you

00:43:19.220 one where he does say it right after I do. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Hold on. So the claim

00:43:26.240 is that Biden launched his entire campaign on the incident at Charlottesville. You and

00:43:31.580 I agree on that, by the way, that's absolutely correct. Right. Further claim is that Biden

00:43:37.040 said that Trump said that Nazis are very fine people. And what I'm telling you is in his

00:43:43.680 original campaign video, which launched his campaign, he does not say that. So, so I would

00:43:51.100 like to prove, I would like to prove my claim.

00:43:54.440 Go ahead.

00:43:55.140 By playing the audio. Okay. Is that cool or no?

00:43:58.960 Yeah, go ahead.

00:43:59.760 Okay.

00:44:00.460 That's good.

00:44:09.940 Okay.

00:44:13.680 All right. Somebody's probably, somebody's going to send me a link in, are you playing

00:44:33.880 it?

00:44:34.100 That's pretty much the quote from Biden. So he does not say in that.

00:44:38.940 I didn't have any sound.

00:44:41.020 Oh, well, I'll just, I'll, I'll read it to you.

00:44:43.680 Uh, hold on a second. He says,

00:44:47.200 uh, the words of the president of the United States that stunned the world and shocked the

00:44:55.540 conscience of this nation. He said they were quote, this is Biden talking. There were some

00:45:00.600 very fine people on both sides, unquote, very fine people on both sides. With those words,

00:45:07.360 the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading

00:45:13.400 hate and those with the courage to stand against it. Nowhere does he say, Trump said, Nazis are

00:45:20.960 very fine people.

00:45:23.220 Wait, but he said that the people marching in Charlottesville were very fine people. Is

00:45:28.600 that what you're saying?

00:45:29.080 No. Uh, uh, he's saying, uh, the quote he's quoting Trump and the quote that he uses is,

00:45:36.980 so this is Biden talking by quote. He said there were, and then Biden quotes quote, there were some very

00:45:45.020 fine people on both sides, unquote. With those words, the president of the United States assigned a

00:45:53.340 moral equivalence between the moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the

00:45:57.480 courage to stand against it. So your interpretation of that is that he called the, some of the people

00:46:04.100 who are marching and would, we would both consider racists that he called them fine people. Is that

00:46:10.760 what you take from the quote? I'm saying what I take from the quote is, and I'll, I'll just quote

00:46:17.160 back what Biden said with those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence

00:46:24.880 between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. That's what I take

00:46:30.300 away from it. The moral equivalence argument. So the moral equivalent between whom? So that would,

00:46:36.240 that would suggest that he said that between the opposing sides at the Charlottesville rally.

00:46:40.900 So that's not what happened. I'm quoting Biden. So you should quote Trump. If you quote Trump,

00:46:49.680 what he said was, I'm not talking about the, um, the racists and the neo-Nazis. They should be

00:46:56.100 condemned totally. Now condemned totally is the opposite of a moral equivalence. And that's what

00:47:01.860 he said at the same time he brought up the comment. It wasn't later or revised days later. He wanted to

00:47:07.400 make sure that you knew he was not making a moral equivalent, but they cut that part out. And you

00:47:13.780 probably only saw the part where they, they left that out. So Biden leaves it out too. Do you notice

00:47:19.500 that it's not in his quote yet? Don't you think it would be relevant? Don't you think it would be

00:47:25.160 relevant for Biden to have said at the same time he said that he said, I condemn totally the racists

00:47:31.140 because that would mean not a moral equivalence. Um, yes. However, however, I think you're ignoring

00:47:39.380 is the larger context in which all of this took place. And it goes back to the beginning of his

00:47:46.960 campaign, which I think, you know, when Trump came down the escalator and called immigrants, 0.97

00:47:52.800 rapists and, uh, murderers. And, and he said, and I'm sure there are some very fine people.

00:47:58.460 Now, when you take, when, when I take that statement, what I hear is most of the people 0.99

00:48:05.760 coming into this country illegally are rapists and murderers. And some, I assume are very fine 1.00

00:48:12.780 people. So what do you take away from that statement? Well, so I think you're doing that

00:48:17.720 absolute thing again. When, when Trump ran for office, he said, uh, I use a lot of hyperbole,

00:48:24.440 which is exaggeration. He didn't say that in his, in his announcement speech. He didn't say

00:48:29.380 when he came down the escalator, introducing himself as a candidate for the presidency of

00:48:38.100 the United States, he did not say, I use a lot of hyperbole. So forgive me when I say,

00:48:44.540 uh, they're sending rapists and murderers. And some, I assume are very fine people, unquote.

00:48:51.400 So I'm not quite sure what you mean.

00:48:55.340 So separately, uh, you, I don't think it matters that he said at the same time,

00:49:02.500 it's something he said that, you know, I don't think I've ever heard, I mean, he probably it's,

00:49:08.560 it's entirely possible. He has, I don't think I've ever heard Trump say, I, I, I use hyperbole

00:49:13.580 and exaggeration to make a point. Um, he does. And he, he wrote a whole book about it. The art

00:49:18.740 of the deal. It's all about, you know, big first offer and so he's actually quite famous. And he

00:49:26.240 says that I'm a salesperson for the country, which means, you know, I'm going to exaggerate.

00:49:31.240 So what you're saying is we shouldn't take Trump's words.

00:49:35.460 No, I'm saying this is a reading comprehension issue that my reading comprehension,

00:49:40.900 when somebody who says I exaggerate about everything and he said it so clearly, it's a,

00:49:45.940 there's a whole book about it. Um, that when he says something like they're, they're bringing,

00:49:51.000 uh, you know, murderers and rapists and some are fine people. I say, Oh, there's another one of

00:49:56.240 those exaggerations to make it sound like it's a little worse than maybe it is. But directionally

00:50:01.380 people who like Trump have, they've come to learn that directionally they like where he's going

00:50:06.960 more security at the border, but they don't really take, they don't take the, the literal stuff

00:50:11.780 too seriously. Well, his supporters don't. So, but I, but I do understand why that would be a

00:50:19.100 problem if you took it literally. Now here's a prediction. Uh, when I talk to people about the

00:50:25.220 fine people hoax and they find out for the first time that it was a hoax and that it was a centerpiece

00:50:30.200 of Biden's campaign, I predict, I, I, I'm not granting that it was a hoax. I'm what I'm granting

00:50:37.820 is what you did say, which is that in, uh, that he did say, I totally condemned Nazis and white 0.59

00:50:44.960 supremacists. I will grant you that he did say that. Hold on, please let me finish. What I'm not

00:50:52.060 granting you is that it was a hoax in the sense that it was reported, uh, in my memory. And maybe

00:51:01.100 you have the, the, maybe you, you have example, counter examples that will jar my memory. It was

00:51:07.100 reported. I never heard anybody report that Trump said Nazis are very fine people. Also, I will repeat

00:51:13.900 that it's not a hoax because when you look at it in the totality of the context of the Trump campaign,

00:51:18.420 it was, uh, it all came within a larger discussion about Trump's racial attitudes.

00:51:26.460 Okay. So here, here would be the, the way the right would interpret what you just, you just said.

00:51:32.680 Okay.

00:51:34.400 And whether it's right or wrong, this is how we would interpret it.

00:51:38.280 How we would interpret it?

00:51:39.940 We meaning people who are, uh, different opinion, right? I'm, I'm actually, I read,

00:51:45.780 I'm a Democrat, but I, I, you just said how we would interpret it. So I'm just trying to get

00:51:50.720 clarification on who we is.

00:51:52.540 We, the people on the other side.

00:51:54.480 So the right.

00:51:56.640 So you're, you're, you're on the right. Got it.

00:51:59.480 The, the, the right, as well as scopes or Snopes. So Snopes is a fact checker,

00:52:05.280 but I'm just trying to understand that you're saying you're on the right.

00:52:07.300 But so, but let me, let me get the drill down. So Snopes says,

00:52:11.540 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't want to get past this point because you keep saying I'm a

00:52:14.280 registered Democrat, but then you say we on the right. So I'm trying to understand which it is.

00:52:18.720 I'm a registered Democrat who's on the right, who, who, who agrees with a lot of things.

00:52:24.880 So you're a conservative Democrat.

00:52:27.600 A what?

00:52:29.200 Conservative Democrat.

00:52:31.280 Um, I don't like to label myself. Uh, I actually, I said you're a Democrat.

00:52:36.880 You just literally labeled yourself for clarification. Um, I'm a Democrat so that I

00:52:42.720 don't get a list of Republicans because that sounds dangerous at the moment. That's another

00:52:47.580 conversation, but you're a Democrat on the right. Got it. Um, but I don't associate with all the

00:52:55.240 topics of the right. It's just, I like Trump. Okay. I'm more, I'm more like a Democrat who likes

00:53:00.680 Trump. There's a lot of those now. Sure.

00:53:02.700 Bill Ackman.

00:53:05.940 Elon Musk. A lot of the tech guys. So it's a very common category. But anyway, the point

00:53:11.180 is that, uh, Scopes says very clearly that Biden did say that, uh, or that it's a, it's

00:53:18.460 a, uh, common hoax that the president said that you will set, we'll send you some videos

00:53:22.980 after. So there's a little compilation clip of Biden saying it. So I'll, uh, I'll send that to

00:53:29.560 you after. Okay. All right. So here's a couple other things just to make it quick. Um, when the

00:53:37.640 year 2000 bug came out, people were worried, but I wasn't because I had experience in tech and I said,

00:53:43.600 no, they'll just write a program to find the things and correct it. And that's what happened.

00:53:46.720 Uh, let's get to, I think you want to get to, uh, climate change. You want to jump into that?

00:53:52.720 No, I just want to talk about the media, which we haven't talked about at all.

00:53:57.280 I I'm not interested in talking about specific issues so much as how they reported, which was

00:54:02.060 Are you trying to do some like weird little thing where you're not, you're going to, you're

00:54:08.420 going to say that all the things I say are fake don't count because it seems like you're not

00:54:15.280 being honest right now. Let me, honestly, it feels like you're just playing some kind of game here.

00:54:22.040 Can we go back to the beginning of our conversation? The very beginning where I said, I'm interested

00:54:26.540 where we talked about the tweet that you sent that I responded to. You cannot have a political

00:54:32.120 conversation with somebody who believes that the news is real. That's what's happening right now.

00:54:37.240 Okay. Hold on. Then you said, and I said, and you said, um, I'm able to discern what is real in the

00:54:48.120 news. And then you gave me how and why, because of your, uh, your MBA and your hypnosis and your

00:54:54.220 expertise in all sorts of things. And I granted all of that. I said, okay, great. And then we've

00:54:59.200 gone into specific issues. The issues themselves to me are irrelevant to the conversation about the

00:55:06.520 media and how the media reports things. So that's what I'm interested in talking about. Okay. So, so

00:55:12.900 that's a separate conversation. Okay. But I don't understand that. So the new, the topics are as

00:55:19.980 reported by the news. And if I say this topic was reported wrong by the news, am I in the wrong

00:55:25.060 conversation? No, you're absolutely in the correct conversation. So, so if we talked about how the

00:55:32.280 news reports climate change, and then I tell you why I think it's wrong, would that be in the right

00:55:37.860 conversation? It would be, except that we're moving on from topics where I feel like you, I, I, I'm not

00:55:46.140 done with the topic, but I feel like you are. And so you want to move on to the next topic, which one

00:55:50.620 the fine people? A Charlottesville. So what I'm interested in is quotes where Biden said,

00:55:57.160 Nazis are very fine people. I'm interested in journalists saying that Trump said, Nazis are

00:56:04.880 very fine people. Cause then we could, then we, and then we could agree if a reporter had said,

00:56:12.180 Donald Trump was out today saying Nazis are very fine people. Then I would go, yes, Scott, 0.90

00:56:16.380 you're absolutely correct. That is wrong that they said that. So how about this? So that, that would

00:56:22.000 be a point of fact, which I believe, um, tens of million people would agree with and you would not,

00:56:30.020 but we can solve this after. Why don't we follow up now? Because it seems to me if the Charlottesville

00:56:35.900 hopes is as prevalent as you say, then why you wouldn't have this at the tip of your fingertips,

00:56:42.420 because I already demonstrated that Biden didn't say it. That's all I'm, that's all I'm asking for

00:56:50.360 is journal eight, a, a, a number of journalists saying that Trump said Biden, uh, that, that Biden

00:56:57.300 said that Trump said Nazis are very fine people. All right. So I thought by now somebody would send

00:57:02.300 me a, so I've watched a number of those clips just today. People hoax clips.

00:57:14.240 Bank more encores when you switch to a Scotiabank banking package. Learn more at scotiabank.com

00:57:20.740 slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotiabank, you're richer than you think.

00:57:26.040 So, uh, fine people hoax. So the trouble is doing, uh, searches online. I was able to do

00:57:36.820 searches very quickly online and I found arguments that, uh, countered yours. Well, you didn't

00:57:43.800 look on Twitter or X. What do you mean Twitter or X? Uh, on X there are a bunch of, uh, videos

00:57:51.480 that show that. Well, those videos should be widely available. I would imagine on YouTube

00:57:55.480 or Google. Okay. But is, but is the question whether I can, I can do it while you're watching

00:58:00.380 if you want to wait, if you want to wait, I'll do it. Yes. Yes. Actually, because we're having

00:58:04.020 a conversation about whether something is true or not. And if you can't show me that it's

00:58:08.460 true, then. Okay, great. I'm happy to hold. So to, to my, uh, to my users on X, could you

00:58:16.260 do me a favor and send me the links? Uh, just DM them if you're watching and I'll search

00:58:22.960 for them at the same time. But it's surprising to me. I have to say, because I know you spent

00:58:27.400 a lot of time on this. No, this is common knowledge. So I don't have, I don't have a link. I don't

00:58:32.620 have a link to knowledge if you can't support it. All right. Um,

00:58:43.120 but the question is, the question is, did, did reporters say that Trump said Nazis are

00:58:52.660 very fine people? Oh, actually let me, let me ask AI. Will you take that? Not really.

00:58:58.800 We don't, we all know AI hallucinates. Fair enough. Uh, let's see. Where could I search

00:59:05.800 for that? That you would Google, Bing, Yahoo. Well, the trouble is, I don't know what the search

00:59:11.680 term would be. Cause if I do find people hoaxed, I get too many hits. What I'm looking for is

00:59:15.880 something within it. It seems like you've been talking about this for years that you should

00:59:19.600 have it at the tip of your fingertips. And I don't understand why you don't.

00:59:22.700 Well, I don't have at my fingertips that Trump said those things about, um, immigrants. That's

00:59:30.940 common knowledge. I had it. Well, you looked it up. That was easy. I'm asking you to look it up.

00:59:37.160 That's all I'm asking for is you to look it up. All right. So let's see. Let's looking things up

00:59:43.180 on my phone is always a mess. Let's do that. Okay. Fine people.

00:59:51.980 Here we go. Here we go.

00:59:59.360 Donald Trump in Charlottesville, have you ever called neo-Nazis very fine people?

01:00:02.760 Well, he called all those folks who walked out of that. They were neo-Nazis shouting hate,

01:00:08.340 their veins, bullshit. 1.00

01:00:09.180 But he said specifically that he was condemning them. He said he did not. He said he walked out 1.00

01:00:13.460 and he said, let's get this straight. He said there were very fine people in both groups.

01:00:18.560 Right.

01:00:18.700 They're chanting anti-Semitic slogans, carrying flies.

01:00:21.780 That's exactly what he said. He said, can you specifically say Nazis were very fine people? 0.83

01:00:26.660 He said, no. He said there were very fine people on both sides. So that's not at all supporting

01:00:31.400 what your claim is. Biden is saying that Trump said there were very fine people on both sides.

01:00:39.100 Nazis are very fine people. Biden directly says, no, he did not say that. We can play the clip

01:00:46.360 again. Let's play it again, just to get it clear.

01:00:48.580 Let's play it again. 1.00

01:00:59.440 Damn it. 1.00

01:01:06.260 There it is. 1.00

01:01:06.960 Why was that not played?

01:01:12.020 Today we are here to examine one of the most critical and debated.

01:01:18.040 Well, you win.

01:01:20.600 So it appears.

01:01:21.840 It's a still hoax.

01:01:23.080 Cool.

01:01:23.600 What's that?

01:01:24.300 I disproved your claim.

01:01:26.860 Cool.

01:01:27.740 I'm happy to.

01:01:28.180 No, you won that. I can't find it while you're waiting.

01:01:32.180 Because it doesn't exist, Scott.

01:01:33.960 Because I just.

01:01:35.020 Oh, hold on.

01:01:35.440 Because it doesn't exist.

01:01:37.540 I'm not listening.

01:01:38.520 Mr. Vice President, are you aware that you're misquoting Donald Trump in Charlottesville?

01:01:42.280 He never called neo-Nazis very fine people?

01:01:44.620 No, he called all those folks who walked out of that.

01:01:47.320 They were neo-Nazis shouting hate. 0.98

01:01:49.760 Their veins. 0.89

01:01:50.540 But he said specifically.

01:01:52.600 He was calling all those people.

01:01:54.900 Let it play. Let it play.

01:01:55.920 Because in the very next sentence, he says he tries to ask Biden if he quoted that.

01:02:03.260 All right.

01:02:03.540 Mr. Vice President, are you aware that you're misquoting Donald Trump in Charlottesville?

01:02:07.620 He never called neo-Nazis very fine people?

01:02:10.000 Okay.

01:02:10.220 So then Biden describes.

01:02:12.320 They were neo-Nazis shouting hate.

01:02:15.060 Their veins. 0.92

01:02:15.800 But he said specifically that he was condemning them.

01:02:18.140 He said he did not.

01:02:19.100 He said he walked out and he said.

01:02:20.860 No, he did not.

01:02:22.320 He said there were very fine people on both groups.

01:02:25.020 There were very fine people on both sides.

01:02:26.720 He never said Nazis are very fine people.

01:02:30.780 He just said they were Nazis.

01:02:34.320 Yes.

01:02:34.640 He described what he saw, which is people with veins bulging and marching and saying terrible things.

01:02:40.240 Then the reporter says.

01:02:42.040 But did you say Nazis are very?

01:02:44.580 Did you did you hear him say Nazis are very fine people? 0.98

01:02:46.920 He says, no, let's get this straight.

01:02:48.840 He said there were very fine people on both sides.

01:02:52.460 He did not say.

01:02:53.720 Who is he referring to?

01:02:55.920 Who is he referring to?

01:02:57.360 If not the Nazis. 0.88

01:02:57.980 You're playing semantic games.

01:02:59.780 What you said was your claim is Biden said.

01:03:03.660 Trump said Nazis are very fine people. 0.98

01:03:07.240 The clip you just played disproves that claim.

01:03:11.700 He did not.

01:03:12.040 You're doing this.

01:03:13.280 Biden goes out of his way.

01:03:14.960 Let me just finish.

01:03:15.520 Biden goes out of his way to say, no, let's get this straight.

01:03:20.880 He said, meaning Trump, there were very fine people on both sides.

01:03:25.700 Biden disagreed with the statement that Trump said Nazis are very fine people. 0.98

01:03:30.900 So I don't know.

01:03:31.480 He agreed with it.

01:03:32.240 He agreed with it.

01:03:33.200 He didn't.

01:03:34.080 He said yeah.

01:03:35.480 We've played it twice.

01:03:36.540 Let's play it a third time.

01:03:38.380 All right.

01:03:39.560 All right.

01:03:40.280 So listen for the yes.

01:03:42.060 Mr. Vice President, are you aware that you're misquoting Donald Trump?

01:03:45.280 In Charlottesville, he never called neo-Nazis very fine people?

01:03:48.720 No, he called all those folks who walked out of that.

01:03:51.340 They were neo-Nazis. 0.89

01:03:52.640 Shouting hate. 0.94

01:03:54.100 He said they were neo-Nazis.

01:03:56.200 Yeah, right.

01:03:56.740 Okay.

01:03:56.960 So let's play it again.

01:03:58.020 I mean, keep going.

01:03:58.640 Keep going.

01:03:59.020 I mean, keep playing.

01:04:00.100 Now, we're referring to the same people.

01:04:02.940 So Biden is agreeing that the topic is neo-Nazis, right?

01:04:06.560 Yes.

01:04:07.280 Biden is agreeing that the topic is neo-Nazis.

01:04:09.800 And that the topic is what Trump said.

01:04:12.200 So all right.

01:04:12.520 So the topic is neo-Nazis.

01:04:13.720 He said specifically that he was condemning them.

01:04:16.020 He said he did not.

01:04:17.160 He said he walked out and he said, let's get this straight.

01:04:20.280 He said there were very fine people in both groups.

01:04:23.160 They're chanting anti-Semitic slogans.

01:04:25.400 So you started out by defining the groups.

01:04:29.460 You defined the groups.

01:04:30.240 And then he paraphrased what Trump said, which was the point.

01:04:34.300 The reporter said, are you aware that you're misquoting Trump?

01:04:39.660 Biden has not quoted Trump as saying Nazis are very fine people.

01:04:43.340 And we haven't found that quote.

01:04:45.560 Oh, man.

01:04:46.320 If I'm being overly semantic, please tell me.

01:04:51.460 Because I don't understand what you're saying.

01:04:53.960 The quote, your claim.

01:04:55.380 And correct me if I'm wrong.

01:04:56.200 If I'm getting your claim wrong, I apologize.

01:04:59.180 Your claim is that Biden said, Trump said, that Nazis are very fine people.

01:05:06.300 Unquote.

01:05:07.420 That's your claim, right?

01:05:08.960 All right. 1.00

01:05:09.300 So this is some bullshit. 1.00

01:05:11.060 This is some super bullshit here. 1.00

01:05:13.280 Let me see if I can explain this. 0.99

01:05:15.280 Let me see if I can explain it.

01:05:16.100 Is that your claim or isn't it?

01:05:18.620 Yes or no?

01:05:20.520 No. 0.99

01:05:21.980 Fucking no. 0.99

01:05:22.920 Let me explain it to you. 0.99

01:05:23.860 Your claim is not that Biden said, that Trump said, Nazis are very fine people. 0.99

01:05:28.700 No, you're doing this fucking thing where you're changing my words like you don't understand how language works. 0.99

01:05:36.840 Let me explain how language works. 1.00

01:05:38.340 The conversation is Nazis, neo-Nazis, and racists.

01:05:41.680 I use them interchangeably. 1.00

01:05:43.780 And you fucking know that. 0.99

01:05:45.420 Yes. 1.00

01:05:45.520 So when I say that he says something about Nazis, I include neo-Nazis, I include racists.

01:05:50.420 Yes.

01:05:50.640 If they said racists, I'm including neo-Nazis.

01:05:52.800 Yes. 0.88

01:05:52.960 I'm calling neo-Nazis Nazis.

01:05:54.780 Yes.

01:05:55.260 Is that clear?

01:05:56.340 Yes.

01:05:56.700 If that's clear, then the fine people that Biden explains are the neo-Nazis.

01:06:03.920 He says it directly, and he says that Trump called them fine people because they're on

01:06:08.640 the other side.

01:06:09.620 Who else was he talking about?

01:06:11.240 Biden.

01:06:14.120 Okay.

01:06:14.680 I can't get into Biden's head, but the initial question from the citizen was, are you aware

01:06:26.940 that you are misquoting Trump when he says Nazis are very fine people? 0.99

01:06:32.840 Which he didn't answer.

01:06:35.240 Right.

01:06:36.080 They agreed.

01:06:37.100 Biden then says, Biden then describes the people who were at the Charlottesville rally,

01:06:42.080 whether accurately or inaccurately to, you know, okay.

01:06:46.840 But we, but you and I both agree that there were Nazis, white supremacists, racists, et cetera,

01:06:50.600 at that rally.

01:06:51.480 Right.

01:06:51.980 Okay.

01:06:52.500 So then the reporter says, ask for clarification about the quote, right?

01:06:57.940 We agree on that.

01:06:59.460 He was asking why he said it.

01:07:01.580 Yes.

01:07:02.180 Okay.

01:07:03.000 And then Biden answers, let's get this straight.

01:07:06.680 And he quotes Trump again.

01:07:08.580 He says there were very fine people on both sides.

01:07:11.900 That's different.

01:07:13.080 That's a very, very quote.

01:07:15.080 No, he started by saying that there were neo-Nazis.

01:07:19.080 Okay.

01:07:19.360 And he never mentioned anybody else until he said there were fine people on both sides,

01:07:23.960 which would suggest there's neo-Nazis on one side and the anti-Nazis on the other side.

01:07:29.820 Let me, um, let me put a pin in this for a second, because I think we can both agree

01:07:35.780 that this conversation was happening in a very public space where there is probably room

01:07:40.820 for misinterpretation and mishearing on both sides.

01:07:43.440 Yes?

01:07:45.160 Do we agree?

01:07:45.720 Yes.

01:07:46.740 And, and I would go further and say, if that were the only evidence, oh, here, I got some

01:07:51.920 more.

01:07:52.180 Here we go.

01:07:56.140 Here we go.

01:07:56.780 Also, as an aside, as an aside, hold on, before you play it, before you play it, before you

01:08:07.340 play it, before you play it, and I, and I want to hear it, um, as an aside, let's say,

01:08:14.700 for example, that Biden did say that Trump said Nazis are very fine people. 0.66

01:08:20.360 And I don't know that he did to me, that is irrelevant to the conversation that I wanted

01:08:27.020 to have with you, which is about the media, not about a politician, but, but, but, but

01:08:33.320 let's, but let's hear this next example, right?

01:08:36.200 Trump supporters had recently started to claim that the president didn't actually say neo-Nazis

01:08:42.780 in Charlottesville, quote, very fine people, even though he did say it.

01:08:47.620 He does say it.

01:08:48.620 Absolutely incorrect.

01:08:51.140 There's some more.

01:08:53.880 But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.

01:09:02.620 Here's the part that got out.

01:09:03.860 Why can't this president, who by the way called Nazis very fine people.

01:09:07.820 He believes those Nazis and white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville are very fine

01:09:13.700 people.

01:09:14.560 And the president said there were very fine people on both sides, including marching with

01:09:18.540 Nazis.

01:09:19.320 Debate host. 0.99

01:09:19.840 White supremacists and neo-Nazis. 0.99

01:09:22.600 Hold on. 0.99

01:09:23.780 So here, here's Biden himself.

01:09:26.600 Of course, of course, my phone breaks just, just at the most important time.

01:09:32.500 Nazis in Charlottesville.

01:09:34.240 Trump's very fine people.

01:09:35.780 He prayed.

01:09:36.820 Let's get back to Biden here.

01:09:38.220 There were very fine people on both sides, including marching with Nazis. 0.91

01:09:41.860 Yeah.

01:09:42.000 From white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

01:09:45.400 Trump's very fine people.

01:09:46.560 He praised those people marching with neo-Nazis in the KKK.

01:09:50.380 It's very fine people.

01:09:51.300 Saying that neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists are very fine people.

01:09:57.400 Who was that last person?

01:10:00.440 Not sure.

01:10:01.140 You know what?

01:10:01.720 It's fine.

01:10:02.620 You're changing history.

01:10:03.820 You're changing culture.

01:10:04.860 And you had people, and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis or the white nationalists, because 0.90

01:10:10.120 they should be condemned to total.

01:10:13.420 But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.

01:10:19.660 You had people in that group.

01:10:20.400 Excuse me.

01:10:20.760 Excuse me.

01:10:21.100 I saw the same pictures as you did.

01:10:22.200 You had people in that group that were there to protest.

01:10:24.080 They're taking down to them a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert

01:10:27.160 E. Lee to another name.

01:10:28.580 George Washington was a slave owner.

01:10:30.000 Was George Washington a slave owner?

01:10:30.880 So will George Washington now lose his status?

01:10:33.040 Right.

01:10:34.180 So you can see that the media, which is what we're here to talk about, was what?

01:10:42.060 I saw one journalist say it.

01:10:45.960 You saw Jake Tapper hosting the debate.

01:10:50.540 I'm sorry.

01:10:50.980 Go back.

01:10:51.520 Can you show me Jake Tapper?

01:10:53.740 I didn't see Jake.

01:10:55.820 I heard him, but I thought that was him.

01:11:00.880 Take down.

01:11:05.680 Are we going to take down statues to judge what?

01:11:07.720 Trump supporters had recently started to claim that the president didn't actually...

01:11:13.280 Let me fast forward a little. 1.00

01:11:15.200 Ah, fuck it. 1.00

01:11:21.980 I'll find it in a second. 1.00

01:11:23.060 Here's Jake.

01:11:31.600 Very fine people.

01:11:33.400 And the president said there were very fine people on both sides, including marching with

01:11:37.220 Nazis.

01:11:38.100 Yeah. 0.99

01:11:38.320 From white supremacists.

01:11:39.560 He just quoted Trump correctly.

01:11:41.620 Trump's very fine people.

01:11:43.140 Can we pause it?

01:11:45.520 Let's hear Biden.

01:11:47.220 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

01:11:48.000 You're talking about Tapper.

01:11:49.020 I'd rather stay on Tapper for a moment.

01:11:51.320 Stay on Tapper.

01:11:51.720 Tapper quoted Trump correctly.

01:11:55.440 There were very fine people on both sides.

01:11:57.000 And then he said, including marching with white supremacists, which is true. 1.00

01:12:02.860 Well, I'm the only person I know who actually interviewed people who attended the rally.

01:12:07.780 Irrelevant.

01:12:08.240 That's irrelevant.

01:12:08.900 I'm talking about Jake Tapper.

01:12:11.080 You brought up Jake Tapper.

01:12:12.100 So I'm going to finish the conversation about Jake Tapper.

01:12:14.480 Oh, are you saying that what Jake said is true or that it's true that Jake said it?

01:12:19.640 I'm saying it's true that Jake said, Jake correctly quoted Trump.

01:12:27.660 No.

01:12:28.240 And then said.

01:12:29.640 No, he did not correctly quote him.

01:12:31.480 Okay.

01:12:31.780 He left out the key part of the quote, which is I'm not talking about the people who are

01:12:36.320 marching.

01:12:36.600 That's the key part.

01:12:40.320 That's a misquote, not a quote.

01:12:42.160 It's not.

01:12:43.660 Okay.

01:12:44.200 So, okay, great.

01:12:45.360 So this is a question.

01:12:46.380 This is a question of interpretation.

01:12:48.420 And it's also a question of context because when Trump says there were very fine people

01:12:54.400 on both sides, and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis or the white supremacists who I

01:12:58.220 totally condemn, you're missing the larger context, which is what I was talking about

01:13:03.520 when I said it began with his initial campaign.

01:13:06.800 Oh, no.

01:13:07.440 So you can't use another hoax as proof of this hoax.

01:13:12.140 He did not say that they were sending rapists and murderers, and some, I assume, are very

01:13:16.060 fine people.

01:13:16.940 He did.

01:13:17.080 I don't want to keep going in circles about this because I think it's-

01:13:19.480 He did, and that's a hoax.

01:13:21.340 It's a hoax because the ordinary way to interpret that is he's exaggerating and there's too much

01:13:26.860 crime coming across.

01:13:28.440 The ordinary interpretation-

01:13:29.800 How what I interpreted it as is Trump saying they're sending rapists, they're sending murderers,

01:13:38.980 and some, some, meaning a minority, I assume, meaning I have no idea, are very good people,

01:13:47.140 or very fine people, whatever it was he said.

01:13:49.600 So you and I, obviously, and this through no fault of either you or I, hear language very,

01:13:57.320 very differently.

01:13:57.900 It doesn't mean that one of us is correct and one of us is incorrect because it is subjective.

01:14:04.080 So what I'm hearing is-

01:14:06.080 Well, one of us is putting a filter on this, which is that everything he says is an exaggeration.

01:14:14.080 And that is something you can see for yourself.

01:14:17.600 If everything he says is an exaggeration or a lie, and he does frequently lie, how can you

01:14:24.460 trust anything he says, which gets us back to the original question and the original point

01:14:29.700 of why I'm on your show, which is that the media-

01:14:32.640 Well, good.

01:14:33.200 All right, good.

01:14:33.640 ... always-

01:14:34.640 So, so, so, so the answer is, I started out with saying I don't trust him when he says

01:14:40.100 he can grow our way out of the debt.

01:14:41.980 Right.

01:14:42.300 Because I've got some background in that.

01:14:44.320 But when he says a sentence that is clearly hyperbole, and he says, I always use hyperbole,

01:14:50.580 and then you observe him using hyperbole every time he talks, then you say, oh, he's a hyperbole

01:14:56.700 guy.

01:14:57.080 I shouldn't take that too seriously.

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01:15:22.120 Okay, now, if you're saying in the art of the deal, he said, and I believe you because

01:15:32.840 I haven't read it, he says, I often use hyperbole to make my point.

01:15:37.280 That's a very different scenario than when you're running for president of the United

01:15:42.800 States, when your words matter, when precision in language matters, when the words that you

01:15:49.220 say are going to become policy, it seems to be-

01:15:53.980 Oh, here we agree.

01:15:54.860 Yeah, we agree.

01:15:55.940 At that point, hyperbole is no longer your friend, is actually a tool, you're handing a

01:16:05.280 tool to your enemies to say, he said this thing, and he's lying.

01:16:10.540 And by the way, a lot of people on the right would agree that his language is unnecessarily

01:16:16.200 provocative.

01:16:16.860 I would agree with that.

01:16:18.900 Yeah.

01:16:19.720 So there's no argument there.

01:16:21.680 A lot of lies, right?

01:16:25.140 What's that?

01:16:25.960 It's also a lot of lies.

01:16:27.260 Would you agree with that?

01:16:28.500 Yeah, I would say that both presidents lie about pretty much every major topic, at least

01:16:33.940 a little bit.

01:16:35.500 Well, there's a difference between lying a little bit and lying consistently.

01:16:39.400 Trump lies consistently.

01:16:40.900 I mean, it's all written down.

01:16:44.620 I mean, we've got all of his lies categorized.

01:16:48.240 If you were to take, let's say, the top five things that Biden is running on, I don't think

01:16:55.000 you would find any of them be true.

01:16:56.960 But that's not unusual.

01:16:58.620 That's not even a cut on Biden.

01:17:00.020 All right, let's talk about the top five things he's running on.

01:17:04.080 The fine people hoax, the drinking water hoax.

01:17:08.080 He's not currently running on the fine people hoax.

01:17:10.620 He's running on immigration. 0.93

01:17:16.980 He's running on inflation.

01:17:18.860 He's running on the economy.

01:17:20.700 He's running on competence.

01:17:22.320 He's running on abortion.

01:17:26.680 So those, I would say, are kind of the five, the top five.

01:17:30.220 So abortion is its own category where I don't think anybody's lying about abortion.

01:17:35.860 I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just feel like we're not talking about what I'm here to talk

01:17:39.220 about, which is the media.

01:17:41.560 We're talking about politicians.

01:17:46.820 How do you talk about the media without talking about the topics of the media?

01:17:50.780 Because we can talk about how something is reported versus whether or not we can say

01:17:56.280 that that report was real, and we defined real as being true.

01:18:01.500 Oh, so let me just go through some of my other tools.

01:18:04.360 This might help you.

01:18:05.520 One is that if you have an anonymous source, it's almost always wrong if they have something

01:18:09.840 wild to say.

01:18:11.360 There's anonymous source about Hillary Clinton wanted to drone Assange. 1.00

01:18:17.480 Now, those are anonymous sources.

01:18:19.800 I just didn't hear you.

01:18:21.200 I didn't hear you.

01:18:21.760 Hillary Clinton wanted to what? 1.00

01:18:23.300 There's a story that Hillary Clinton once mentioned in a meeting when she was at the

01:18:27.720 State Department.

01:18:28.880 Why don't we just drone Assange? 1.00

01:18:31.240 I mean, kill him. 1.00

01:18:32.360 Now, that's reported by anonymous sources. 0.99

01:18:36.140 Anonymous source also says stuff about Trump.

01:18:38.820 And when they say things about Trump, I say, you can't trust an anonymous source.

01:18:42.440 Now, I apply that to Clinton as well.

01:18:45.300 Don't trust it.

01:18:46.360 However, there was so that's a good rule.

01:18:49.680 It's a good if it's an anonymous source.

01:18:51.540 Yes.

01:18:51.880 And hold on.

01:18:53.420 Let me just let me just respond.

01:18:55.280 Yeah.

01:18:55.420 In general, I agree with you.

01:18:57.880 Like, you should not take anonymous sources.

01:19:00.720 You should take them with massive grains of salt.

01:19:03.940 However, if you can then do follow-up reporting on what that anonymous source says and get

01:19:09.340 somebody on record as either confirming or denying it, then it's helpful.

01:19:12.600 Right.

01:19:13.240 I agree.

01:19:13.540 But generally, those will turn out to be false.

01:19:18.360 Generally, the research doesn't find them.

01:19:20.360 For example, do you remember the story that Trump tried to strangle the driver of his car

01:19:26.560 on January 6th?

01:19:28.000 Yes.

01:19:28.340 That was in the news.

01:19:29.680 Yes.

01:19:30.060 But that was, that news was, but hold on, hold on a second.

01:19:32.200 Before we get there, that news was based on testimony by Casey Hutchinson, who reported

01:19:36.940 it.

01:19:37.200 And then, and then when they didn't ask, they didn't ask for, okay, I'm so sorry, but

01:19:43.180 so in my memory, that wasn't anonymous.

01:19:45.800 You're right.

01:19:46.500 Your point is taken.

01:19:47.580 That wasn't anonymous.

01:19:48.620 Okay.

01:19:48.880 But in my memory, the journalists then reported what she said, right?

01:19:54.060 Right.

01:19:54.620 And then nobody, that would be an example of a story that's true.

01:19:58.520 She did say that.

01:20:00.820 It's accurate that she said it.

01:20:02.180 Yes.

01:20:02.440 And then what they didn't follow up on is to talk to the driver, the one who got

01:20:06.840 strangled.

01:20:07.860 And if they had, he was trying to tell a story that nothing like that happened.

01:20:12.420 But I had seen that story.

01:20:13.820 I had seen the story where the driver said that didn't happen.

01:20:17.260 But it took a long time.

01:20:19.000 And the January 6th committee, I believe, never asked him to testify, which would be

01:20:24.280 weird.

01:20:25.540 So let me give you a few other, there's a number of stories that I know the truth of

01:20:29.720 because I was actually behind the curtain and I was kind of a key player in some big

01:20:33.660 stories.

01:20:34.380 So I can't teach you to do that.

01:20:35.880 You just have to be there.

01:20:36.840 There are probably at least five things that history will report as true that I know not

01:20:41.820 to be true.

01:20:42.680 Okay.

01:20:43.020 And I can't tell you about, but I wish I could.

01:20:45.400 I would love to tell you why climate change is more of a scam than you think.

01:20:52.000 But is that off topic for you?

01:20:53.820 It's not off topic.

01:20:57.200 No.

01:20:57.640 Okay.

01:20:57.960 Sure.

01:20:58.140 Let's talk about it.

01:20:58.760 But I will stipulate that I don't know enough about climate change to have a, probably the

01:21:04.760 most informed opinion about it.

01:21:06.000 All right.

01:21:06.460 So neither of us are scientists.

01:21:07.940 So I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say that I know science and therefore I'm overruling

01:21:12.540 the scientists.

01:21:13.060 That's not going to happen. 0.99

01:21:14.900 Let me tell you just what my bullshit detector tells me. 0.99

01:21:17.880 Number one, we learned in the pandemic that as long as scientists have a boss, they're 0.99

01:21:23.720 going to agree with the boss because the boss has a fiduciary responsibility to the company,

01:21:29.300 to the stockholders.

01:21:30.440 Okay.

01:21:30.580 So who are we talking about specifically?

01:21:32.000 Are we talking about Fauci?

01:21:32.740 So regular doctors.

01:21:35.800 So during the pandemic, most, probably, I don't know, 95% of regular doctors agreed with

01:21:41.700 the vaccinations and agreed with the program that the government presented.

01:21:45.860 We found out later that a lot of things were not true, such as the vaccinations didn't act

01:21:50.980 as a vaccination.

01:21:52.040 They didn't prevent as much as we thought, just maybe a little bit in the beginning.

01:21:56.140 And so there was a case where you could see that the people were seemingly agreeing with

01:22:03.000 the people who paid them.

01:22:04.460 In other words, if the boss of the hospital says, you cannot go out there and say vaccinations

01:22:08.780 are bad, we're making a fortune in giving vaccinations because they got paid a lot to

01:22:13.440 give vaccinations.

01:22:14.460 So the doctor would lose their job, lose their reputation.

01:22:18.140 So it turns out that during the pandemic, you really couldn't trust the experts.

01:22:22.860 And it's because the experts had a boss and the boss couldn't buck the narrative because

01:22:27.920 it would be bad for business.

01:22:30.200 But likewise, climate change is the same situation.

01:22:35.740 But wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

01:22:36.700 I don't want to move on from COVID because I don't agree with that at all.

01:22:40.640 Which part, that they have bosses?

01:22:42.940 No, obviously, everybody has bosses, although most doctors, I assume, are in private practice.

01:22:48.760 No, actually, no, that's what everybody thought.

01:22:51.220 When HMO and whatever, they belong to these larger health organizations.

01:22:54.460 Yeah, they're almost all have bosses now.

01:22:56.500 No, okay.

01:22:56.940 So where I disagree is my understanding of the COVID story is that it was unfolding very

01:23:08.800 quickly, that there was a novel virus circling around the world that people hadn't seen before.

01:23:16.260 Information was scarce at first.

01:23:19.740 It was constantly being updated and revised.

01:23:22.840 Those updates and revisions were reported by the news.

01:23:26.500 Donald Trump started the Warp Speed, Operation Warp Speed, to get the vaccine into the hands

01:23:33.380 of as many people as quickly as possible.

01:23:36.020 All of that was reported.

01:23:38.220 The deaths were reported as COVID was occurring.

01:23:41.400 And it seemed to me that from where I was standing as a consumer of the news, what we

01:23:49.840 were witnessing was a fast-moving story happening in real time with a lot of difficult and conflicting

01:23:55.160 information that resulted in a lot of trial and error in terms of what the best way to approach

01:24:02.920 this pandemic was.

01:24:04.860 I think that's a fair characterization.

01:24:07.200 Let me just make the general claim that if somebody is getting paid for an opinion, you

01:24:11.940 can't trust it.

01:24:13.340 Is that fair?

01:24:14.880 Sure.

01:24:16.140 They could be right, but you couldn't trust it just because they said it.

01:24:19.780 I don't think you could.

01:24:20.400 I agree with you.

01:24:21.040 You can't trust it on its face.

01:24:22.340 Yes.

01:24:23.080 Okay.

01:24:23.980 So climate...

01:24:25.100 You can't really trust any opinion on its face.

01:24:26.800 Well, so earlier I said that if somebody who's on the other side from you politically ends

01:24:34.000 up agreeing with you, that's a little more credible because they're taking a risk.

01:24:37.860 You know, it's the opposite of being paid.

01:24:39.660 Generally, yeah.

01:24:40.160 You're being unpaid.

01:24:42.040 So there are some cases like that.

01:24:43.500 All right.

01:24:43.700 So in climate science, if you were a climate scientist and you said climate change is not

01:24:48.100 real, you would lose your job, basically.

01:24:51.400 You really wouldn't have a chance.

01:24:53.340 At what point?

01:24:54.180 At what point?

01:24:54.720 Because decades ago, there were people saying, scientists saying, I don't think this is real

01:25:00.280 and I don't think any of them lost their jobs.

01:25:02.340 At the moment...

01:25:03.940 Because as the science became clearer and clearer and clearer that climate change is real and

01:25:08.240 man-made, which even the Republican Party at this point agrees with...

01:25:12.760 All right.

01:25:13.500 Let me say what I believe just in case some people don't get...

01:25:16.680 I don't know if the planet's getting warmer.

01:25:18.980 I don't know that.

01:25:20.220 I don't know if humans are causing it a little bit or a lot or none.

01:25:24.020 I don't know that because that's the domain of science.

01:25:28.440 My criticism is the climate models and the credibility of the people.

01:25:33.700 Now, if you ever heard of this scam, there's a scam where you get in the mail a recommendation

01:25:40.100 for a stock.

01:25:41.460 And it says, this is going to go up way if you buy it and then you don't buy it because

01:25:46.020 it looks like a scam.

01:25:47.000 Next week, they send you another stock and they say, look at this one.

01:25:49.560 You can check for yourself.

01:25:50.660 It went up 50%.

01:25:51.560 And you get three in a row and you say, finally, these guys are magic.

01:25:56.580 I'm going to invest in the fourth one.

01:25:58.280 It turns out to be a scam.

01:25:59.960 Now, the way that's done is they send out different recommendations to thousands of people.

01:26:04.960 Some of them are right by luck.

01:26:06.280 Then the ones that are right, they send out just new ones to just that group.

01:26:10.460 And there will always be a few people left who magically got a whole bunch of correct

01:26:15.780 recommendations.

01:26:17.180 And they'll think, oh, these guys are magic.

01:26:19.040 So that's how the scam works.

01:26:20.600 That's the way the climate models work.

01:26:22.640 No.

01:26:23.500 Hold on.

01:26:24.120 Let me finish it.

01:26:25.280 Okay.

01:26:25.480 There are hundreds of climate models.

01:26:27.920 And the reason there's not one is that they disagree on what the climate model should do.

01:26:33.480 The climate models are revised.

01:26:35.820 And the ones that don't work, the ones that don't hindcast, as they call it, if you heard

01:26:40.240 that word, hindcasting means it's the opposite of a forecast.

01:26:43.920 It means if this model had existed, it would have predicted the past.

01:26:49.120 Right.

01:26:49.280 Exactly the way we model the big bang, for example.

01:26:52.260 Right.

01:26:52.540 The big bang, which has been largely debunked.

01:26:55.040 I'm not sure if you saw that story.

01:26:56.500 It hasn't largely been debunked.

01:26:59.520 However, there is controversy in the field about it.

01:27:02.480 Yes.

01:27:03.480 It definitely hasn't been debunked.

01:27:05.320 So here's the thing.

01:27:06.820 Having a lot of experience with...

01:27:08.260 You just threw out a huge statement that isn't true.

01:27:11.340 You just said the big bang theory has been debunked.

01:27:15.200 It has not.

01:27:16.600 Oh, it's been debunked in the sense that they found universes that couldn't exist.

01:27:21.740 They have not found other universes.

01:27:23.660 Hold on.

01:27:24.140 Not other universes.

01:27:24.780 Hold on.

01:27:25.320 They found other, I think...

01:27:26.940 Galaxies.

01:27:27.540 Galaxies.

01:27:28.120 Galaxies.

01:27:28.400 Yes.

01:27:29.060 They found galaxies that should not exist if we're really 13.9 billion years old.

01:27:35.040 Yes.

01:27:35.860 So that would mean that what they thought about it must be wrong in some substantial way,

01:27:40.280 but they don't know what that is.

01:27:41.500 But that does not debunk the big bang even a little bit.

01:27:44.140 You're conflating different things.

01:27:45.660 Well, I would say it's debunked in terms of a smooth...

01:27:50.340 It started as a thing 13.9 billion years ago and then expanded.

01:27:54.740 The age of the universe may be in doubt.

01:27:56.460 That is true.

01:27:57.500 But to say the big bang has been debunked is just flat out incorrect.

01:28:02.360 And when you say things like that, you're misleading your audience.

01:28:06.200 It's not true.

01:28:07.340 Well, I would argue that simulation theory...

01:28:11.460 You don't have to argue it.

01:28:12.160 It's not true.

01:28:13.380 Hold on.

01:28:13.720 You didn't hear the rest of the sentence.

01:28:14.940 Okay.

01:28:15.020 I apologize.

01:28:15.640 I apologize.

01:28:16.520 All right.

01:28:17.700 I'm a proponent of simulation theory, as is Elon Musk and a lot of smart people.

01:28:23.320 And just so that it's defined for people who don't know, simulation theory is the theory

01:28:27.160 that we are currently living in a simulation.

01:28:28.940 We're in a simulation.

01:28:30.080 Yes.

01:28:30.300 So if we're in a simulation, then none of that stuff's real.

01:28:33.820 Yes.

01:28:34.040 In other words, the big bang.

01:28:34.840 And the logic of it is it's probably a trillion to one odds that we're a simulation.

01:28:41.180 Although, even in a simulation model, the big bang could also still be true.

01:28:45.520 Because the simulation could have started with a big bang.

01:28:48.800 Yeah.

01:28:49.420 But it wouldn't be true in base reality.

01:28:51.860 It would just be true in our simulation.

01:28:53.500 Sure.

01:28:54.180 Yeah.

01:28:54.440 All right.

01:28:55.120 So anyway, but the point of that was that if you have lots of models and you're allowed

01:29:00.480 to tweak them in the past.

01:29:02.260 Oh, it didn't work for the past.

01:29:03.680 Now I have to tweak it.

01:29:04.840 And you can add models and you can subtract them.

01:29:08.060 That's not modeling and that's not a science.

01:29:10.580 That's more like horoscopes.

01:29:12.640 No, because I think you're mischaracterizing how modeling works.

01:29:16.420 Modeling works by inserting assumptions into an algorithm and having them spit out the results.

01:29:23.480 Right?

01:29:23.940 We agree with that.

01:29:25.060 Yeah, of course.

01:29:25.480 So what scientists are trying to do in, what do you call it?

01:29:32.000 Hind modeling or rear modeling or whatever?

01:29:34.100 Hind casting. 0.89

01:29:35.640 Hind casting. 0.89

01:29:36.860 What you're trying to do is insert parameters into the model so that it spits out a model

01:29:43.820 that resembles what we observe.

01:29:45.760 And in doing so, you're getting closer and closer to what you believe to be the truth.

01:29:50.940 It is not the same as horoscopes.

01:29:52.980 What you're doing is you're trying to find what is the correct representation of the universe.

01:30:02.040 So, for example, the scam that you put forward, which I agree is absolutely a scam.

01:30:09.720 I'm familiar with it.

01:30:11.360 Does not in any way, shape or form bear a relationship to climate modeling.

01:30:18.400 And here's why.

01:30:18.880 I agree.

01:30:19.360 I agree.

01:30:19.940 I agree.

01:30:20.500 That was an analogy just to kind of prime you.

01:30:24.120 It's a bad analogy.

01:30:25.940 And it's a bad analogy because the scam artist is going into it with the intention of scamming

01:30:32.480 people.

01:30:33.100 In other words, they know that they are entering false information into the bloodstream with

01:30:39.300 the hopes that gullible people will believe them.

01:30:41.140 Let me just finish.

01:30:42.220 As opposed to climate modelers who are entering information into their models to the best of

01:30:49.320 their ability to determine what, in fact, is the truth.

01:30:52.360 That's a very, very, very different scenario.

01:30:55.800 What would happen if a climate modeler came up with a model that said the climate is not

01:31:02.060 getting warmer?

01:31:02.820 What would happen?

01:31:03.800 Then you would submit that for peer review.

01:31:05.920 You would have people look at your model.

01:31:07.600 And if they agreed with it and were able to replicate your findings, they would treat it

01:31:12.940 seriously.

01:31:13.560 If they can't, they wouldn't.

01:31:15.620 That's the way this country works.

01:31:18.140 Now, in the real world, they would shut up and they would tweak it until it agreed.

01:31:22.360 In other words, anybody who's working for money, they don't have the option to disagree and

01:31:32.640 keep their jobs.

01:31:33.800 That's just not true.

01:31:34.740 That's not an option.

01:31:35.920 That's not true.

01:31:37.020 In the real world, it's true.

01:31:38.800 It's not true.

01:31:39.920 Where I think there is truth in what you're saying, and I do think there's truth in what

01:31:45.160 you're saying, is that...

01:31:46.680 Money drives everything.

01:31:48.540 Where I do think there's truth in what you're saying is that there are certain assumptions

01:31:53.040 in the scientific world and in all industries, in all worlds, that if you're an iconoclast

01:31:58.140 and you go against them, you're going to get tremendous amounts of pushback to the accepted

01:32:02.120 wisdom.

01:32:02.460 That is certainly true.

01:32:04.360 And there will be times when the person who is pushing back against the accepted wisdom

01:32:08.180 is 100% correct. 0.99

01:32:10.920 And that will be borne out over time if they submit their shit to peer-reviewed journals 0.94

01:32:16.560 or they're able to have their findings replicated by other scientists. 0.97

01:32:20.900 That is the scientific method.

01:32:22.520 Now, we've had climate models since probably the 70s, right?

01:32:28.280 And they've predicted that by now the oceans would be rising and the hurricanes would be

01:32:33.740 worse.

01:32:35.100 And that hasn't happened.

01:32:37.120 And what we're seeing is that hurricanes are worse and the seas are...

01:32:40.480 No, no, no, no, no.

01:32:41.960 No, fact check.

01:32:42.840 Hurricanes are about to be.

01:32:44.240 Again, this is not a topic that I am familiar enough with to debate the science of.

01:32:52.520 Um, but let's just go to the NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

01:33:02.020 And let me just say, I'm just Googling right now.

01:33:04.340 I have no idea what I'll get.

01:33:05.280 Are hurricanes getting worse?

01:33:09.460 Let's see what they say.

01:33:10.820 According to NOAA, climate change is making hurricanes stronger and more common.

01:33:22.120 Intensities.

01:33:22.860 Model projections indicate the tropical cyclone intensities could increase by 1 to 10% with

01:33:28.180 a 2% Celsius warming.

01:33:30.820 That's the model, not the actual.

01:33:32.260 Yeah.

01:33:32.540 The actual is that they about the same.

01:33:34.540 Uh, okay.

01:33:37.440 So we can look at what are the most intense hurricanes on record.

01:33:46.040 We haven't had any bad ones in years.

01:33:52.040 2005, 2019, Hurricane Lorenzo.

01:33:55.500 This hurricane had winds estimated to have reached 160 miles per hour.

01:33:59.680 That was one of the worst ones.

01:34:00.560 Hurricane Allen, 1980.

01:34:02.280 Sustained winds of 190.

01:34:04.380 Uh, and Dorian, 2019 was also one of the worst ones.

01:34:12.700 So it seems to me that hurricanes are increasing in intensity.

01:34:17.540 Well, let's, uh, we can't fact check this one.

01:34:20.500 Let me just say that.

01:34:21.760 Why isn't the NOAA an acceptable resource?

01:34:25.440 You said that the models say it's going to go worse.

01:34:28.540 Yes.

01:34:29.060 Uh, I'm saying that, that since the seventies, their, their, uh, predictions have not been

01:34:35.600 accurate.

01:34:36.480 Not always.

01:34:36.980 Certainly, uh, have global temperatures risen in the last, how, how often do you want to

01:34:44.140 say 20 years?

01:34:45.480 Do you believe that we can measure the temperature of the earth?

01:34:49.120 The temperature of the earth?

01:34:51.520 Do you think we can measure that?

01:34:53.760 Um, I'm not sure what you're, I'm not even sure I understand the question.

01:34:57.120 Are you saying, do I take individual thermometer readings all over the place and model those

01:35:04.080 to understand whether the, the average temperature has been rising?

01:35:08.100 Yeah.

01:35:08.600 Do you know about the heat island problem?

01:35:11.640 Um, if you'd never heard this, it's like you've never experienced a conversation about

01:35:18.100 climate change.

01:35:18.780 Let me explain it.

01:35:19.680 So there are, there are sensitive thermometers put around the world, but they maybe cover less

01:35:26.260 than 1% of the world.

01:35:28.260 Um, and they measure the temperature in their little area and then they extrapolate from

01:35:32.560 there.

01:35:33.040 But the problem was that they, they tried to put them away from cities because cities create

01:35:38.220 warmth because all the concrete.

01:35:40.400 So it wouldn't be a good temperature, you know, it'd be distorted.

01:35:43.200 But what happened was that the thermometers stayed where they were, but the cities grew.

01:35:49.120 So you had a whole bunch of heat island problems that come from the cities that distort the

01:35:54.760 thermometers.

01:35:56.420 Um, so we don't have, we don't have a way to really compare.

01:36:01.020 I'm going to go again off climate.gov.

01:36:04.620 This is from the National Oceanic, uh, Atmospheric Administration, global, climate change, global

01:36:10.780 temperature, yearly surface from 1880 to 2023 compared to the 20th century average blue bars

01:36:18.280 indicate cooler than average years.

01:36:20.240 Red bars show warmer than average years.

01:36:22.640 NOAA based on data from the national centers for environmental information.

01:36:27.360 And what we see is a graph that starts in 1880, uh, and goes to 20, it looks like 22 or 23.

01:36:35.640 And the graph shows that from 1880 until about 1940 temperatures were cooler than average from

01:36:43.540 about 1960 till today, uh, temperatures are warmer than average, but more than that, the

01:36:50.640 trend line on the red temperatures is increasing enormously.

01:36:54.980 So I'm going to take the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's word over yours.

01:37:02.300 All right. 0.94

01:37:03.060 So what I've claimed is that I'm not an expert in the fields, but I can tell bullshit when 0.98

01:37:08.920 I see it. 0.98

01:37:09.540 So do you think that that's bullshit what the NOAA is reporting? 0.99

01:37:13.380 I think it's bullshit that they can measure the temperature smoothly from the 1800s. 0.99

01:37:19.760 Okay. 0.98

01:37:20.500 So what about from the 1960s?

01:37:22.420 What about during the pandemic when CO2 dropped to a fraction and the temperature stayed the

01:37:29.240 same?

01:37:30.000 Because it takes years and years and years from, for the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

01:37:34.880 to dissipate.

01:37:35.720 I'm sure you know that.

01:37:37.140 But there were several years of very, yes, yes.

01:37:41.280 So we should be years for the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to dissipate.

01:37:46.560 I know you know that.

01:37:47.360 But they're also saying that the temperature is, you know, sort of smoothly going up with

01:37:52.620 CO2.

01:37:53.300 They're not saying it's smoothly going up.

01:37:55.500 Over time, it's smooth.

01:37:57.020 As I said, the trend line is upwards.

01:38:00.660 The trend line.

01:38:01.720 Yes.

01:38:02.460 The actual chart is jagged.

01:38:05.420 But over the last 50 years, it's been going up.

01:38:09.940 I've got a dental appointment I'm going to have to run to.

01:38:13.820 But let me give a closing statement, then you can.

01:38:16.740 Sure.

01:38:19.040 So what I said was, it's hard to have a conversation with somebody who believes the news.

01:38:24.660 You said a conversation about somebody who believes the news is real.

01:38:28.220 Right.

01:38:28.820 Yes.

01:38:29.080 So the climate change argument is a really deep well, which I spent countless hours in.

01:38:35.880 And I can tell you, I've seen both arguments.

01:38:38.320 I've seen the official argument and I've seen the skeptics.

01:38:41.020 The skeptic argument is much stronger.

01:38:45.080 It's just much stronger.

01:38:46.420 According to you, who you just agreed is not a climate scientist in any way, shape or form. 0.99

01:38:52.540 But a really good bullshit detector. 0.84

01:38:54.120 And I do know that models are not a way to... 0.97

01:38:57.160 And I think your vaunted powers of bullshit detection may be overstated. 0.88

01:39:01.780 But you use hyperbole. 0.98

01:39:04.800 I do think it may be overstated.

01:39:06.800 All right.

01:39:07.140 So that's...

01:39:08.420 I think it is overstated.

01:39:10.120 All right. 0.98

01:39:10.420 And I don't grant you that you're an excellent bullshit detector. 0.98

01:39:16.060 It would take longer to give you my track record of that. 0.96

01:39:20.460 But I'll accept that.

01:39:21.580 So do you have a closing statement?

01:39:27.140 Anything you'd like to say?

01:39:27.580 I mean, I haven't prepared one, but sure.

01:39:29.300 I came on your show today to discuss whether or not political news is real.

01:39:35.100 We did not talk about that at all.

01:39:37.140 We talked about climate change.

01:39:39.560 We talked about Charlottesville.

01:39:41.600 We talked about politicians.

01:39:43.620 We talked about whether scientists are being truthful because they have to answer to bosses

01:39:50.220 and whether doctors are being truthful.

01:39:52.240 When I asked for some evidence, political evidence, on the one statement that you were

01:39:57.700 defending, you did not find it.

01:40:00.320 And it's a statement that you have been making for years and years and years.

01:40:05.380 You could not find any journal...

01:40:06.980 I take that back.

01:40:07.640 You did find one journalist saying it.

01:40:09.220 You did find one journalist who said it.

01:40:10.820 And I will grant you that. 1.00

01:40:12.220 I think you should die on this hill. 1.00

01:40:14.340 You should say that. 1.00

01:40:15.280 Everybody should go research that and find out if Biden made that claim.

01:40:18.880 I'm just saying...

01:40:19.860 And by the way, if you're right, then you win everything.

01:40:23.260 Great.

01:40:23.720 But I did research this in preparation for the interview.

01:40:26.200 And like you, I could not find it.

01:40:28.440 I could not find a journalist saying that Trump said Nazis are very fine people or quoting him.

01:40:34.920 So the conversation for me was interesting.

01:40:40.160 Absolutely.

01:40:40.640 And thank you so much for having me.

01:40:42.000 Like I'm totally happy and honored and flattered that you had me here.

01:40:45.980 But unfortunately, it was not the conversation I was hoping to have.

01:40:51.000 So thank you so much for hosting me.

01:40:53.460 I hope your audience hates me at least a little bit less than maybe they did beforehand.

01:41:00.260 But I suspect they hate me more.

01:41:03.040 That's the way it works.

01:41:04.020 I know.

01:41:04.280 Oh, believe me.

01:41:05.080 I know.

01:41:05.940 But thank you for the respectful conversation.

01:41:07.960 Thank you for hearing my side.

01:41:09.240 I hope I gave you the respect of hearing your side to the best of my ability, even if I was interrupting.

01:41:14.120 I appreciate it.

01:41:15.820 Okay.

01:41:16.320 But I do often need clarification because I don't always understand things or how they're meant.

01:41:22.780 Okay.

01:41:23.440 So that's my statement.

01:41:24.440 Thanks for having me.

01:41:25.260 Thank you.

01:41:25.960 So let me thank you as well.

01:41:28.960 It's kind of brave for you to come over here and, you know, in territory that's maybe not your natural territory.

01:41:35.220 And I love getting out of the silo and finding out what other people think.

01:41:42.520 It's actually fascinating.

01:41:43.940 But listening to your views, I found absolutely fascinating.

01:41:47.780 And me, you.

01:41:51.040 So maybe we should end on the positive.

01:41:53.660 So thank you very much.

01:41:55.060 Thank you, Scott.

01:41:56.440 Michael Ian Black, look for his sub stack.

01:41:59.180 Look for his podcast.

01:42:01.100 And maybe we'll talk again.

01:42:03.040 Anytime you want.

01:42:04.180 All right.

01:42:04.560 Thanks.

01:42:05.060 And bye for now.

01:42:06.360 Take care.

01:42:07.020 All right.

01:42:07.340 Take care.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - June 25, 2024

Episode 2517 A Conversation With Michael Ian Black

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