Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2837 CWSA 05⧸12⧸25

00:00:00.000 Oh, it's a good day in the stock market.

00:00:03.660 I hope you have some.

00:00:06.560 Well, let me get ready for the show.

00:00:11.100 Looking at your comments.

00:00:13.640 Looking good.

00:00:18.760 There must be a lot of good news today.

00:00:23.780 What do you think?

00:00:24.560 Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization.

00:00:33.340 It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and you've never had a better time.

00:00:37.860 But if you'd like to take a chance, I'm making this experience even better than you could ever even imagine with your tiny, shiny brain.

00:00:47.020 All you need is a cup of mug or a glass of tank or Chelsea Stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of what kind?

00:00:54.100 Any kind.

00:00:55.180 Fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:00:56.860 I like coffee.

00:00:58.480 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine today, the thing that makes everything better.

00:01:03.460 It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.

00:01:13.460 That's good stuff.

00:01:16.800 Well, let's start with the ridiculous and get to the sublime. 0.96

00:01:20.420 From the ridiculous to the sublime. 0.66

00:01:24.820 According to News Nation, UFO hit a U.S. fighter jet.

00:01:32.140 Pilots flying over Arizona said they saw swarms, swarms, I say, of weird flying objects, and one of them was smashed into a F-16.

00:01:43.040 I guess the pilot's okay.

00:01:46.960 But the FAA confirmed it, and a former Pentagon UFO guy says Arizona's been buzzing with sightings near the border.

00:01:59.060 But some people say it's just the cartels' drones.

00:02:03.340 I'm going to go with cartel drones.

00:02:07.560 That would be my guess.

00:02:09.580 I do not think the aliens are at the border.

00:02:14.120 Why would the aliens even be there, of all places, for them to be? 0.99

00:02:18.300 Well, according to Eric Dolan and Psy Post, did you know that left-wing authoritarians are less likely to support physically strong men as their leaders?

00:02:33.760 So if you're a left-wing person, you don't like leaders that are physically strong.

00:02:39.860 But if you're a right-wing person, you like them strong.

00:02:43.980 How many people are surprised by that?

00:02:46.160 Not, you know, I really think that politics is just a difference in testosterone sometimes, at least, you know, the male version of politics.

00:02:59.580 I can't judge for women, but for men, it's kind of testosterone.

00:03:06.460 The Republicans are high testosterone. 0.98

00:03:09.100 The Democrats are low testosterone. 0.98

00:03:11.540 And everything else is just rationalization. 0.97

00:03:15.080 That's what I think.

00:03:16.160 Well, did you know that the weight-loss drugs, liraglutide and semaglutide, make a huge difference in reducing your alcohol consumption without any extra effort?

00:03:34.500 So the patients say it doesn't take any effort.

00:03:36.620 They just don't want as much alcohol.

00:03:39.020 So that's good.

00:03:39.860 This is more evidence that willpower is fake and imaginary.

00:03:45.760 That's the hypnotist frame.

00:03:48.340 If you're a hypnotist, you learn that people make decisions based on whatever hormonal soup is bubbling up in their bodies.

00:03:57.960 And then after they made the decision, they layered over it with a rationalization.

00:04:03.460 Oh, yeah, the reason I did that was this.

00:04:07.140 But it's really just chemical reaction.

00:04:10.660 So once you learn that willpower is fake and that just some people like things more than others, how hard is it for me to avoid alcohol?

00:04:20.300 It's easy because I didn't like it that much.

00:04:22.560 How hard is it, or was it, when I was more active, how hard was it for me to exercise every day?

00:04:32.560 Not hard at all because I liked it.

00:04:34.820 If I didn't like it, it probably would have been nearly impossible.

00:04:39.700 So, no, willpower doesn't exist.

00:04:41.460 There's just stuff you like and stuff you don't like.

00:04:43.540 And that's usually just chemical and cause and effect and the structure of your brain.

00:04:49.040 And it has nothing to do with anything else.

00:04:52.080 Here's some good news.

00:04:53.920 And, wow, I was worried about this for a while.

00:04:56.640 But it turns out that the new pope, Pope Leo, he's calling for peace in Gaza and Ukraine.

00:05:04.140 Yes.

00:05:05.840 I was so worried that the pope would be pro-war.

00:05:10.960 But, no.

00:05:11.740 Well, it turns out we got lucky again.

00:05:14.780 It's like, I don't know how many popes in a row, but our luck is really holding.

00:05:18.800 They all seem to be anti-war.

00:05:21.520 And every time they announce it, I say to myself,

00:05:24.920 Boy, that could have gone either way.

00:05:29.340 But it turns out that the pope has a brother.

00:05:35.080 Have you all checked out the news about the pope's brother?

00:05:37.840 This is the problem with having an American pope.

00:05:43.900 He's got an American brother.

00:05:45.580 And the American brother is super mega.

00:05:50.540 And I guess he's so mega, the Gateway Pundit's reporting, that he not too long ago shared on X, I guess,

00:05:58.860 he shared a video calling Nancy Pelosi a drunk C-word.

00:06:05.160 So, a drunken C-word.

00:06:09.540 And he mocks the, quote, crying libs with Trump derangement syndrome.

00:06:15.540 So, he's not just a little bit mega, but he's like way mega.

00:06:20.620 Now, if you don't think this is going to be fun, I immediately looked for his X account, but I couldn't find it.

00:06:28.800 So, is he posting somewhere else?

00:06:32.060 Maybe not on X.

00:06:33.860 But I want to follow him so badly.

00:06:36.740 Well, I was also interested to see if he followed me.

00:06:40.540 Because it would be fun if the pope's brother followed you on X.

00:06:44.060 But I did not see his account.

00:06:45.840 So, if anybody knows what his actual account is, I saw three that looked fake.

00:06:52.080 You know, they were too small for that.

00:06:54.580 But if somebody knows which one is his, can you alert me to it?

00:06:59.460 I'd love to follow him.

00:07:02.460 Well, let's talk about the great cocaine hoax.

00:07:05.940 Some of you saw a video of French President Macron and British Prime Minister Starmer and German Chancellor Merz.

00:07:17.900 They were all together on a table.

00:07:19.660 It looked like it was on a train, maybe, or on a, maybe some kind of a jet.

00:07:25.820 But they were sitting at a table, and the photographers came in, the videographers, I guess.

00:07:31.800 And you saw Macron grab this little rolled-up tissue and sort of take it, you know, surreptitiously away.

00:07:41.280 And then you saw Merz grab some little thing that people are calling a Coke spoon and, you know, kind of hiding it from the cameras.

00:07:52.580 Now, why in the world would you think a balled-up tissue is where somebody was holding their cocaine?

00:08:03.400 It didn't look like cocaine to me.

00:08:06.260 And that little thing that they called a cocaine spoon, you really couldn't tell what it was.

00:08:12.980 I mean, it could have been, I don't know, a straw that he was playing with or something.

00:08:19.200 But it looked to me like they were just making the table look less messy, and they were just preparing for the photo shoot, I guess.

00:08:28.760 So I would say that's fake news.

00:08:32.200 No, I'm not saying that they're not all coked up.

00:08:36.800 That might be true.

00:08:38.220 Well, I don't know, maybe.

00:08:40.220 But it didn't look like a cocaine anything to me.

00:08:44.220 So I'm going to say that's most likely a hoax.

00:08:49.640 Well, Hamas has decided to help Trump get a little distance between Israel and Trump, kind of cleverly. 0.91

00:08:59.160 Hamas is going to release the remaining living American hostage, Eden Alexander.

00:09:06.700 So that's going to happen today, I guess.

00:09:08.860 And that was Trump's victory.

00:09:12.500 So Trump gets a victory in getting the last American hostage out.

00:09:17.580 Now, the Israelis, of course, would wish that more Israelis had been released.

00:09:23.020 But I think you can see this as a clever Hamas move to put a little distance between America and Israel. 0.95

00:09:31.840 And it worked.

00:09:34.680 So, but you can also see that Trump seems to be willing to do things that are good for America and Americans, even if Israel doesn't love it.

00:09:45.900 So there's definitely a new world out there.

00:09:49.460 Trump is certainly going his own way and probably never appreciated all the people who said that, you know, the government is a puppet of Israel.

00:09:58.560 Because at the moment, it doesn't look like it.

00:10:01.620 At the moment, it looks like Trump's doing his own thing and Israel is going to have to do their own thing.

00:10:07.860 We'll be allies, of course.

00:10:10.160 But not singing from the same song sheet or whatever that saying is.

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00:10:33.620 So Trump gets the win just at the time he's getting ready to go to the Middle East to do some deals.

00:10:41.160 So he's looking good there.

00:10:45.520 Trump is also signing, I think today, if he hasn't already done it, might be any minute now.

00:10:50.240 He's going to sign an executive order to lower pharmaceutical costs.

00:10:56.620 And the executive order will require the drug companies to offer the pharmaceuticals to American consumers at the lowest price that they sell it anywhere.

00:11:08.680 So if the Elbonians are paying less than we are, then we get the Elbonian price.

00:11:16.340 Now, I didn't know you could do that with an executive order, but I guess he's going to try.

00:11:21.140 So this will be funny because will this cause the Democrats to be in favor of higher prices for pharmaceuticals?

00:11:30.640 And how are they going to explain that Biden couldn't do this if it works?

00:11:36.480 I mean, I imagine there'll be some kind of challenges from the pharmaceutical people.

00:11:40.300 But it turns out it gets kind of complicated because there are things called PBMs.

00:11:48.120 How many of you would even know what that is?

00:11:50.860 A PBM.

00:11:52.920 It's a pharmacy benefit manager.

00:11:55.600 And it's this big middleman entity that is between the pharmaceutical companies and the big health care companies and even the government, Medicaid and everything else.

00:12:07.460 So that these middle people, these pharmacy benefit managers or PBMs, they – I had to go to Grok to find out exactly what they do.

00:12:19.640 But they manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance plans and employers, et cetera.

00:12:28.040 And they act as a middleman between drug manufacturers, pharmacies, insurers, and patients.

00:12:33.980 And here's the key, with the goal of controlling costs and administering drug coverage.

00:12:41.420 And they play a significant role in the U.S. prescription drug supply chain.

00:12:46.040 But, but, they're often criticized for opaque practices that can inflate costs.

00:12:54.120 So the pharmaceutical companies immediately said, wait, don't blame us for these high costs.

00:13:00.440 It's because the middlemen are sort of inflating the costs.

00:13:06.280 Now, that seems to be partly true, meaning that there's no doubt that the middleman is getting a cut.

00:13:14.460 And it's also true that they're opaque, meaning that if you ask them for details of what they do or why they do it or can you show me your price sheet or – they won't show you that stuff.

00:13:25.320 So, so they operate as a big black hole.

00:13:30.460 And there does seem to be some indication that they're part of the problem of the higher prices.

00:13:38.120 Now, you might say, well, they're a middleman, so they're supposed to take their cut, which is true.

00:13:44.720 But you can't really monitor whether they're cut makes sense or it's too high because if you try to ask them questions, you would get nothing.

00:13:54.080 It's just a big black hole.

00:13:56.340 Now, this is where Mark Cuban becomes a valuable citizen.

00:14:02.740 So you might know that Mark Cuban has his own discount pharma drug company that he's been promoting lately.

00:14:11.400 I think it's Cost Plus, Cost Plus Drugs.

00:14:15.060 I hope I have the name right.

00:14:16.720 And he weighed in on this, and he had a lot to say about the PBMs, these middlemen.

00:14:22.980 Now, I won't read you his whole explanation of how bad they are, but if any of what he said about them is true, and I think it is, they're pretty bad.

00:14:35.920 And so there's some kind of fix that will be needed for these PBMs if we just let – well, I guess it's a free market, so they can do what they want.

00:14:49.960 But you should see what Mark Cuban says about them because if you're trying to understand the whole pharmaceutical, why our price is so high, he's got a lot that contributes to that.

00:15:03.820 So I think he should be – you should really pay attention to him on this topic because it's one that he knows a lot about.

00:15:15.360 Well, so that's going to make the prices come down.

00:15:20.100 So in other news, Futurism is reporting that the FDA is going to start using AI to speed up the approval of drugs.

00:15:34.820 Now, you might say to yourself, but wait, AI hallucinates.

00:15:39.200 Is AI going to say my drug is safe when it isn't?

00:15:42.100 Well, they're still going to have to check the work of the AI to make sure it's not hallucinating.

00:15:48.400 But apparently, you can speed through the analysis and do in minutes what would take days for a human to do.

00:15:56.100 So I don't know if they have a lot of wrinkles they have to iron out of this, but they seem to be very optimistic about it.

00:16:05.840 It does seem to me that it's the perfect application for AI because it's wildly complicated every time there's a new trial and a new drug and all the rest.

00:16:18.500 So, yeah, AI to accelerate the FDA approvals.

00:16:22.640 Probably there's going to be some problems, you know, because it's such a big change.

00:16:28.120 But I feel like we have to get there.

00:16:30.740 I mean, it seems like that's exactly the place AI should make a difference.

00:16:34.600 Breitbart is reporting that Trump signed four bills on Friday where he's rolling back some Biden regulations on appliances like water heaters and refrigerators and walk-in coolers and some other household appliances.

00:16:51.620 Now, the Biden regulations were, of course, to reduce energy consumption, I believe.

00:16:58.240 And so Trump's rolling that back.

00:17:01.340 So that would lower the cost of those devices.

00:17:04.600 So now we've got Trump lowering the cost of big pharma, lowering the cost of household appliances, lowering the cost of eggs, gas, and a lot of other things.

00:17:20.900 So, and energy, I guess.

00:17:23.960 So it's going to be hard to ignore that.

00:17:27.700 So Trump is having the week of all weeks.

00:17:33.020 I mean, I'm just still going.

00:17:35.020 The list gets longer.

00:17:36.720 But I don't think any president has ever had this good a week because he's really nailing it this week.

00:17:43.960 But I'll tell you what isn't working is the Republicans are trying to wrap up their big, beautiful bill, the budget.

00:17:55.220 Everything about this budget effort looks fake and theatrical and performative.

00:18:01.180 I don't believe anything that's coming out of them.

00:18:04.760 I don't think they're going to give Trump half of or even three quarters.

00:18:09.580 Well, I don't think they'll give him a quarter of what he wants.

00:18:14.880 I think that they'll just kick the can down the road, add to the budget deficit, and lead us toward doom.

00:18:22.180 I don't know what's going to stop it.

00:18:23.780 But they're pretending to have this mark-up session in which they're going to do a bunch of good things.

00:18:28.860 It's all theater.

00:18:30.280 I just don't believe any of it.

00:18:33.320 But at least one subset of the Republicans, I guess this would be, I forget which group it is,

00:18:43.220 but they're looking at steep cuts to Medicaid.

00:18:47.360 And so I said to myself, what?

00:18:49.580 Trump said no cuts to Medicaid.

00:18:51.280 Why are they going to ruin his big bill and the biggest thing he said, which is no cuts to Medicaid?

00:18:58.660 So it looks like they've got all these weasel freaking tricks to lower the cost of Medicaid

00:19:06.020 by finding clever ways to deny it to people, basically.

00:19:11.880 So one of the clever ways to deny it to people, now this is not a done deal.

00:19:17.660 These are just proposals that we think we're going to see.

00:19:21.280 One of them would be a work requirement.

00:19:24.340 So you couldn't get Medicaid unless you were in school or doing some public service of some kind or working.

00:19:32.100 And that alone would deny it to, they think, six million people.

00:19:38.180 So the Democrats will say, accurately, wait a minute.

00:19:42.220 You've just installed some clever trick to deny six million people Medicaid.

00:19:49.160 Republicans will say, all we ask is that they do something useful for the country so that the country can do something useful for them.

00:19:58.500 So it's not a terrible argument, but it's going to look like they cut Medicaid.

00:20:04.520 So can Republicans survive that?

00:20:08.400 An obvious trick to cut Medicaid?

00:20:11.160 Because you know those people aren't all going to work.

00:20:13.700 What are they going to do?

00:20:15.340 Go to the hospital and still get medical care and have the hospital cover it?

00:20:20.320 So there's that.

00:20:23.820 And then apparently the bill, and again, this is just first drafts.

00:20:29.520 It doesn't mean it's real.

00:20:31.200 It would require some beneficiaries to pay more for their care.

00:20:35.640 I guess that would be income-based.

00:20:37.660 And there were some other clever tricks in there. 0.99

00:20:39.920 All of it just looks like pure weasel theatrics bullshit. 0.99

00:20:46.340 I am completely disappointed in the Republicans. 0.99

00:20:51.780 Just completely disappointed.

00:20:54.060 To me, the most important thing we had to get right was cutting the budget.

00:20:58.420 And it looks like nothing like that's going to happen.

00:21:00.860 Because I don't think that Trump's going to sign off on something that definitely looks like cutting Medicaid.

00:21:07.040 You know, you could argue all day, well, we have reasons.

00:21:12.040 And no, no, no, we're not cutting it.

00:21:14.240 Because anybody can get it.

00:21:15.740 They just have to do some public service.

00:21:18.420 But, you know, the bottom line will be the Democrats will accurately say he's cutting Medicaid for some people.

00:21:28.140 It'll be a lot of people.

00:21:29.320 It'll be millions.

00:21:31.320 I don't have a better idea, by the way.

00:21:33.320 But it's their job to do the budget, not mine.

00:21:37.940 So I think we're all going to be disappointed with whatever the Republicans have.

00:21:42.820 I'm not even sure that they're going to have no tax on tips and no tax on Social Security and all those other things Trump wanted.

00:21:50.900 I don't think he'll get any of that.

00:21:53.120 I think that they're just going to say no on all of that.

00:21:56.540 We'll see.

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00:22:44.560 Well, Apple is apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, thinking about raising the price of their iPhones, but without blaming tariffs.

00:23:08.480 Apple is kind of a clever company in terms of how they cover their public relations.

00:23:16.820 They've always been good at it.

00:23:19.020 But they don't want to blame China, because that would be trouble.

00:23:22.540 And they don't want to blame Trump, because that would be trouble.

00:23:26.080 So they want to raise their prices because of tariffs, but they want to make it look like it's not because of tariffs.

00:23:32.620 So the only way to do that would be if you somehow added some extra features.

00:23:39.840 And you go, oh, yeah, these extra features are worth, I don't know, a few hundred dollars more.

00:23:45.640 So we'll see what they do.

00:23:47.180 But my big question would be, what would Steve Jobs do in this situation?

00:23:51.920 Would Steve Jobs be handling this completely differently in some out-of-the-box way that we can't imagine?

00:23:58.100 I feel like he would, but of course I can't guess what he would have done, because that's what made him Steve Jobs, and we're not Steve Jobs.

00:24:09.200 But I feel like he would have handled this whole tariff China stuff differently.

00:24:14.880 I just don't know how.

00:24:17.820 Well, Democrats are continuing their lame approach to politics.

00:24:23.480 Now they've added to their oligarchs that they want to keep habeas corpus. 1.00

00:24:33.220 Now, if you were to do a survey of people on the street and say, are you a Democrat?

00:24:39.540 Yes.

00:24:40.940 What's an oligarch?

00:24:42.820 Well, I don't know.

00:24:44.720 What's habeas corpus?

00:24:46.480 I never heard of it.

00:24:47.680 So they're betting on words that their base doesn't even know what they mean.

00:24:55.840 So I love this.

00:24:57.360 Let's do more oligarch and habeas corpus. 1.00

00:25:01.620 If you can get them to talk about that all day long, and then look at Trump.

00:25:06.360 I cut your pharmaceutical costs.

00:25:09.620 I freed a hostage.

00:25:10.840 I'm going to bring a trillion dollars back in investments from the Middle East.

00:25:17.460 What part of that don't you understand?

00:25:19.980 It's just so simple.

00:25:22.500 And then you go to the Democrats, and you're like, well, we oppose the oligarchs, and we

00:25:27.880 want to make sure that we keep habeas corpus for the MS-13 guys.

00:25:33.100 Well, and everybody else.

00:25:36.280 It's so lame.

00:25:37.580 And then what about the chaos?

00:25:40.980 If you were to ask the person in the street, where's the chaos happening?

00:25:45.700 Now, they might say doge, but have you noticed that Elon Musk has quite cleverly removed himself

00:25:53.020 from all political conversation?

00:25:55.820 It used to be that every time I got on X, there would be very political pro-Trump posts

00:26:04.360 pretty much every day.

00:26:05.900 But I think he's completely pulled himself out of politics, and he's just doing Tesla-related

00:26:14.520 posts and stuff.

00:26:16.680 And Tesla stock is way up, based on the fact that he's focusing on the nuts and bolts that

00:26:25.500 he's getting out of politics.

00:26:27.040 So that's good.

00:26:29.340 That's good.

00:26:30.380 Meanwhile, James Carville and Ro Khanna, they're trying to distance themselves from some comments

00:26:42.160 made by, what's her name? 0.52

00:26:48.660 Ilhan Omar.

00:26:49.780 So I guess in 2018, she made some comments about white people, and that video has reemerged.

00:27:00.180 And I guess the comments were originally in an interview with Mehdi Hassan.

00:27:05.160 And Omar stated, I would say our country should be more fearful of white men across our country, 0.94

00:27:11.660 because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country.

00:27:18.040 And then Carville is trying to distance himself and say we need less of that, and blah, blah, blah.

00:27:25.460 And I'm thinking to myself, look at what Trump is talking about.

00:27:30.680 Even if he doesn't get it done, he's talking about cutting your taxes and freeing hostages

00:27:37.180 and ending wars and lowering pharma costs.

00:27:41.620 That's what Trump's talking about, sealing the border.

00:27:46.840 And Carville's talking about a 2018 video where somebody on his team was being a racist.

00:27:55.040 That's the biggest difference you can even imagine between the two parties.

00:28:02.720 But at least Ilhan Omar finally explained to me why people hide when I enter the room.

00:28:10.680 I didn't realize I was that scary.

00:28:12.560 But apparently, as a white man, I am one of the scariest people in the country.

00:28:17.920 So that explains why people get under tables and run away when I enter.

00:28:23.580 I was wondering about that.

00:28:25.480 Here's some more bad news for Democrats.

00:28:29.700 Apparently, the House Judiciary Committee is going to interview Jack Smith's lead prosecutor

00:28:36.960 who did the Mar-a-Lago box gate, you know, when Trump was accused of having all these boxes of stuff.

00:28:47.500 And, you know, we've heard enough about that story to believe that there's something there.

00:28:57.500 There's something sketchy there.

00:29:00.560 It could be that it was being directed by the White House.

00:29:03.800 It could be that it wasn't a purely, let's say, legal problem.

00:29:11.520 It could be that there were politics pushing it.

00:29:14.420 So the lead prosecutor probably knows where all the bodies are buried on this story and will be under oath.

00:29:23.980 And we might find out some really interesting things about the Biden administration.

00:29:29.180 Now, I don't know for sure.

00:29:32.860 And if it's like everything else, nobody's going to go to jail.

00:29:35.740 But it's going to be yet another bad news cycle for Democrats because there's nothing good that can come out of that story except for Republicans.

00:29:45.940 According to the Rasmussen poll, Trump's overall approval rating is 50% with likely voters.

00:29:56.600 But here are some subcategories on that poll that are mind-blowing.

00:30:02.460 He's got, according to Rasmussen, Hispanic supporters at 62% and Black at 39%.

00:30:10.000 If those numbers are real, and I'm kind of skeptical about that, that would be just mind-blowing.

00:30:19.900 It could be real.

00:30:21.860 But do you think Hispanic support for Trump is 62%?

00:30:25.380 Now, this would be likely voters, so it wouldn't count any immigrant communities.

00:30:31.320 Could be.

00:30:32.480 You know, I've been telling you for a while that if you didn't think that the Hispanics would back Trump,

00:30:39.460 then you haven't been involved or you haven't had exposure to the Hispanic community.

00:30:45.760 If you have exposure to the Hispanic community, no surprise at all.

00:30:50.620 It's totally non-surprising if you've had any conversations with that group.

00:30:55.680 Well, speaking of Tesla, Tesla's robo-taxi, which is where a Tesla with full self-driving, can become a taxi.

00:31:09.120 I guess it's called Project Alicorn.

00:31:12.580 And this feature will quietly appear on Tesla's mobile app code.

00:31:18.680 And so they're looking at a June rollout.

00:31:25.000 So listen to this.

00:31:29.300 That your car, if you had a Tesla and you wanted to have it double as a taxi,

00:31:35.640 you could come home from work, if your car is charged up, I guess,

00:31:39.880 and just activate the app and park your car on the street.

00:31:46.480 And it would act like a robo-taxi.

00:31:48.940 So it would just take off from its parking space, go pick somebody up,

00:31:54.160 deliver them to their location, and I guess go back and park where it was.

00:32:00.780 And you can make $10,000 to $30,000 a year just while your car is working for you.

00:32:06.620 So now, apparently, the initial fleet will launch in Austin with 10 to 20 cars.

00:32:14.580 But it's going to scale up really fast.

00:32:18.280 And here's some of the – I saw this was on a Mario Knopfel post.

00:32:23.620 I guess the source was a user called the G Filch.

00:32:28.020 Now, I can't vouch for these numbers.

00:32:32.600 But here's what one person estimated.

00:32:35.440 So here's the math of it, that if you look at Waymo, the competitor,

00:32:41.880 they've got 1,500 robo-taxis, and they already generate $250 million in revenue.

00:32:48.400 I guess that's per year.

00:32:49.700 But that's not enough for Waymo to make money.

00:32:53.080 I guess they have higher costs.

00:32:54.480 And now, if you were to look at Tesla, if they can get up to 100,000 robo-taxis,

00:33:04.220 based on the likely charge that there would be for a ride, et cetera,

00:33:10.660 they would make $2.9 billion in pure profit annually.

00:33:14.680 And that's just the start.

00:33:16.520 So the number of billions of dollars that these robo-taxis could make,

00:33:21.960 it's a big number.

00:33:25.900 Because you could easily get to millions.

00:33:29.240 So you're looking at, you know, $20, $50 billion a year just for the robo-taxis.

00:33:36.960 That's amazing.

00:33:39.720 We'll see if that happens.

00:33:41.420 Meanwhile, as you know, Trump's going to the Middle East to talk to a bunch of countries.

00:33:47.200 But as the news is reporting, the Trump family has a number of business deals over in the Middle East.

00:33:56.160 Trump thinks he'll come back with a trillion dollars in commitments to invest in the United States from the Middle East.

00:34:06.000 If he does, that's going to be pretty impressive.

00:34:09.740 We'll see.

00:34:10.800 Axios is reporting that.

00:34:13.060 But the Wall Street Journal is talking about the Trump family business connections to the Middle East.

00:34:20.420 And I think this is important because these do feel like it should at least be fully transparent,

00:34:30.480 which I think it is.

00:34:31.720 I think it's fully transparent.

00:34:33.800 So I'd worry more if, you know, if we didn't know something about it.

00:34:38.700 But, for example, in the past year, some Trump-branded residential towers have been launched in Dubai and Jeddah.

00:34:48.640 And then there's also a Trump luxury golf resort that's being launched in Qatar.

00:34:59.120 Now, here's what you need to know.

00:35:02.100 These are Trump-branded properties, meaning that he just licenses his name.

00:35:07.820 But the ownership of the property is whoever built it, I guess.

00:35:13.720 So Trump does two kinds of business.

00:35:15.900 One is he does build his own resorts and stuff, but he also just licenses his name to other people who are going to do it.

00:35:24.840 So are you comfortable with him doing business as a president with these same countries where there are very large investments that benefit the Trump family?

00:35:36.120 I'm not fully comfortable with that.

00:35:40.340 But on the other hand, should they be denied the ability to do what they normally do?

00:35:46.180 Because this is completely normal business for them.

00:35:49.560 They license their name.

00:35:52.340 Do you think that there would be this many Trump-branded properties if he were not president of the United States?

00:35:58.460 I kind of doubt it.

00:36:02.220 I doubt it.

00:36:04.920 So you have to worry about that.

00:36:08.400 And there's something about the UAE and the Royal Family Fund and something about Trump-related crypto stablecoins that I don't understand.

00:36:19.000 But it looks like something to worry about, something to keep an eye on.

00:36:25.680 And then on top of that, the Qataris have offered to, I won't say give, yeah, I guess it's a gift,

00:36:37.160 a gift to the United States of a plane that would replace Air Force One.

00:36:42.920 Now, you might say to yourself, why do you need to do that?

00:36:46.700 Well, the Air Force Ones that we have, I think there might be two of them, but they're like 35 to 40 years old.

00:36:54.080 And Trump has had an order in for a new one for a long time, but it looks like it'll be seven to 10 years before the new ones get built,

00:37:03.300 so you'd never be able to see the benefits.

00:37:05.580 But the Qataris have a plane that apparently they're willing to part with, a new one.

00:37:10.140 And they said, why don't we give it to the Air Force?

00:37:15.980 So it's not Trump's gift exactly, it'd be given to the Air Force.

00:37:19.980 And then somehow later it would be donated to the Trump Library for his use.

00:37:27.000 So that seems a little sketchy.

00:37:29.260 So it feels a little like you'd be getting a free airplane.

00:37:34.800 And so you got that going on.

00:37:37.340 So I'm going to say the same thing about all these Trump deals.

00:37:43.180 They all make me uncomfortable.

00:37:46.180 The Qatari plane definitely makes me uncomfortable.

00:37:52.560 And on top of that, as you know, Jared Kushner is doing his own investing,

00:37:58.700 and he's gotten some co-investors from three of the Middle East countries, three states.

00:38:08.320 I guess three states have committed more than $3.5 billion to his private equity fund.

00:38:14.160 So that makes me uncomfortable.

00:38:16.760 But it's all transparent.

00:38:19.340 It's all completely legal.

00:38:21.120 It just makes me uncomfortable.

00:38:27.280 And then, sort of semi-related things, there are some investments that would be good for Elon Musk,

00:38:36.500 such as the Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talley, Al Saud,

00:38:41.920 who's a nephew of the king, is an investor in XAI, which is Elon Musk's AI company.

00:38:48.960 So, but that's normal.

00:38:52.860 He's just a gigantic investor who does a lot of investing in American companies.

00:38:58.980 So, again, completely transparent, but makes me uncomfortable.

00:39:04.420 Now, the only thing I can say that would be softening all these deals

00:39:09.620 is that Trump is the one person who can take your money and then screw you if he needs to.

00:39:18.960 So, if he were anyone but Trump, you would have to worry more that they just bought his cooperation.

00:39:27.520 But I think Trump could take their money and still throw them under the bus

00:39:31.900 if they did something that required that.

00:39:33.880 But you can't guarantee it.

00:39:37.860 So, in terms of buying influence, I do think they're buying influence.

00:39:42.420 But there are also countries that we have a lot of influence on as well.

00:39:48.840 So, I don't know.

00:39:51.060 I'll just say that any Democrat criticism on this domain probably makes sense.

00:40:02.580 But there's no smoking gun or anything that he's done wrong.

00:40:06.260 There's nothing that looks illegal.

00:40:08.960 And it's all completely transparent.

00:40:10.900 And it's business as usual, for the most part.

00:40:13.340 It's stuff that they would be doing as normal business,

00:40:17.040 you know, licensing the Trump name, etc.

00:40:18.780 But like I said, they probably get more offers because he's president.

00:40:24.960 That's not a coincidence.

00:40:26.840 When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners,

00:40:30.900 I started wondering,

00:40:32.620 is every fabulous item I see from Winners?

00:40:35.520 Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. 1.00

00:40:38.480 Are those from Winners?

00:40:40.000 Ooh, or those beautiful gold earrings?

00:40:42.460 Did she pay full price?

00:40:43.780 Or that leather tote?

00:40:44.760 Or that cashmere sweater?

00:40:45.980 Or those knee-high boots?

00:40:47.180 That dress?

00:40:48.280 That jacket?

00:40:48.940 Those shoes?

00:40:49.980 Is anyone paying full price for anything?

00:40:52.920 Stop wondering.

00:40:54.180 Start winning.

00:40:55.120 Winners find fabulous for less.

00:40:58.380 So we're going to hear a lot more about this Qatari plane.

00:41:01.860 I think Congress says they have to approve it.

00:41:03.960 I think the Democrats are going to complain so much that it gets killed.

00:41:07.740 If I had to guess, it's not more than a 50% chance that that Qatari plane will actually become something that Trump's riding on.

00:41:18.580 I think there'll be enough screaming and kicking from Democrats, or maybe even Republicans would think it looks wrong.

00:41:25.980 In another news, you know what birthright citizenship is, right?

00:41:34.320 So that question is coming to the Supreme Court.

00:41:37.780 Now, birthright citizenship is in the Constitution, and it means that if you're born in this country, with very rare exceptions, you are a citizen automatically.

00:41:50.360 You just have to be born here. 1.00

00:41:52.280 Now, Trump wanted to end that, so you've got some legal challenges to the ending of it, and it's going to go to the Supreme Court.

00:42:02.420 Now, if you're like me, you say, and you've read the actual language of the Constitution, it doesn't look like there's any wiggle room at all.

00:42:14.340 To me, it looks like the Constitution is super clear.

00:42:18.700 If you're born here, you know, with some exceptions that aren't relevant to this, if you're born here, you're a citizen.

00:42:27.080 Now, I'm not saying that's good or bad.

00:42:28.960 I'm just saying that when I read the Constitution, it looks kind of cut and dried, like there's no way you could challenge it.

00:42:37.740 But, of course, that's what lawyers are for.

00:42:40.960 They always have a way to challenge everything.

00:42:43.400 And here's the way they're going to challenge it.

00:42:46.740 So the Citizenship Clause says it applies to children born in the USA who are, quote, subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

00:42:57.960 Now, that would disqualify, for example, a diplomat's child.

00:43:05.420 So if there were a diplomat working in the United States, the diplomats are not subject to our laws.

00:43:11.620 So a diplomat can break a law in America, and we don't do anything about it because they're not subject to our laws.

00:43:17.920 But their child is also, therefore, since it's not subject to our jurisdiction, their child is not automatically American.

00:43:27.240 And I think there's some Native American exceptions, et cetera.

00:43:31.160 But here's how they're trying to argue that this subject to the jurisdiction thereof applies to the immigrant population.

00:43:41.000 And they say it's analogous to Native Americans.

00:43:46.340 And you know what I always say about analogies.

00:43:50.060 Analogies are not arguments.

00:43:52.880 So if all you have is analogous, you don't have anything.

00:43:57.140 So forget about analogous.

00:43:59.080 Let's go to the stronger part.

00:44:00.620 And they're saying that the non-citizens are, I guess this would be the babies, too, are intentionally entered the country without authorization and likewise refused to, quote, formally present themselves to American authorities.

00:44:18.760 So, does that make you subject to the jurisdiction thereof?

00:44:26.760 Well, to me, this is the worst argument ever, and I'm not even a lawyer.

00:44:31.360 Because the subject to the jurisdiction thereof is more about America thinks you're subject to our jurisdiction.

00:44:39.460 It's not about what the immigrant thinks.

00:44:41.440 If the immigrant comes in and they act like they're not subject to our jurisdiction or they think they're not, that has nothing to do with anything. 0.97

00:44:51.260 They don't get a vote.

00:44:53.660 It's up to America.

00:44:55.780 So if we say you are subject to our jurisdiction and if we catch you doing illegal things, we're going to put you in jail, I think that's the end of the story.

00:45:05.520 Right?

00:45:05.800 It's not up to them if they're subject to our jurisdiction.

00:45:09.740 So, to me, it looks like there's no chance that Trump can prevail in the birthright citizenship.

00:45:16.700 And, again, I'm not giving you an opinion on whether they should or should not.

00:45:20.940 It just looks like the argument is terrible.

00:45:25.800 And, you know, again, I'm not a lawyer, so I could be wrong.

00:45:30.240 But it looks terrible to me.

00:45:31.480 According to Elon Musk, Doge has discovered 100,000 active federal employees who are also collecting unemployment insurance.

00:45:43.000 Jim Hoft and the Gateway Pundits writing about that.

00:45:45.800 Now, I think I've told you before that my current view is that I'm not going to believe any of the Doge claims.

00:45:56.620 I'll just tell you that that claim is out there.

00:45:59.340 But probably it's not exactly what it looks like.

00:46:03.520 I don't know.

00:46:04.520 So I think it's better.

00:46:05.760 And this is not something brand new.

00:46:07.700 It's something that Musk said a little while ago.

00:46:12.620 So I think that Musk is smart to stay quiet on all the political stuff, which he's been doing.

00:46:20.960 But I'm skeptical of all the Doge claims that sound a little too clever.

00:46:26.100 You know, that one's just a little too on the nose, you know.

00:46:28.960 So it might be true, but there have been so many of the Doge claims that sort of didn't pan out that I'm just going to say, well, that's what he claims.

00:46:43.360 Apparently, India and Pakistan, their ceasefire seems to be holding.

00:46:47.740 It didn't hold at first, but now it is.

00:46:49.660 That would look like a victory for Trump because the American, I think Marco Rubio and his team, were working on making sure that India and Pakistan didn't blow each other up.

00:47:04.380 Now, the thing I would say about India and Pakistan is they really didn't want to be in a war.

00:47:12.100 They really, really didn't want to be in a war because there's just no way that that's going to be good for either one of them.

00:47:18.900 But what they needed was the fake because.

00:47:22.260 They needed some external thing to, you know, talk them off the roof so it didn't look like they were backing down.

00:47:28.720 So America just comes in with its big footprint and says, hey, you guys, knock it off.

00:47:35.280 We'll help you, you know, hold this ceasefire or something.

00:47:39.000 So this is where America can really be useful. 0.75

00:47:43.300 It was just something that Pakistan and India both needed.

00:47:46.740 They just needed somebody who wasn't either Pakistan or Indian to come in and put a big boot on it and say, you know, cut it out. 1.00

00:47:58.240 Now, that's not exactly what we did.

00:48:00.120 We were being helpful.

00:48:01.640 But that's just a win.

00:48:03.680 If the peace holds, I'd say that's an American win as well as obviously a bigger win for India and Pakistan.

00:48:09.840 Speaking of war, apparently President Zelensky says he's ready to meet Putin in Turkey.

00:48:20.040 So I don't know if there'll be any ceasefiring before then or during then.

00:48:25.460 But Zelensky and Putin are going to meet.

00:48:29.100 And that, of course, would be good for America and certainly something that Trump has been pushing for, get them to talk.

00:48:38.900 And it gets America out of the conversation, which is sort of perfect, you know, because I think we would just complicate things at this point.

00:48:49.260 So those two just need to work it out.

00:48:52.240 I guess Germany's new government is already threatening Russia that if they don't do a ceasefire, they're going to put new sanctions on them.

00:49:03.080 So Germany is trying to be helpful there.

00:49:05.320 And, of course, the Ukrainians and the Russians are just full-on drone war on the front. 0.77

00:49:21.560 So, ladies and gentlemen, I think you can see that this is one of the best weeks that Trump has ever had.

00:49:28.980 And if half of these things go in the right direction, you know, if the wars look like they're winding down, the prices of stuff look like they're winding down.

00:49:41.160 And did I mention, did I mention that China and the United States have agreed to delay for 90 days the big tariffs?

00:49:51.640 So both countries have pulled back their tariffs.

00:49:54.840 Now, that's probably the big reason the market is up.

00:49:57.200 And that's exactly what we wanted. 0.99

00:50:04.020 I always say the stupidest people in the comments are the ones who just say, I don't understand the topic. 1.00

00:50:13.360 Like you couldn't fit a reason in there. 1.00

00:50:18.560 So, anyway.

00:50:22.180 Zelensky had his pants on backwards.

00:50:24.180 Yeah, it looked like that in one of the pictures.

00:50:25.720 But I think Scott Besant probably did some good work.

00:50:32.000 I think the main thing is just to get China and the United States to think that they're negotiating productively.

00:50:39.540 Will that lead to anything good?

00:50:41.280 I don't know.

00:50:42.740 I saw Joel Pollack mention that it'll save Christmas because there'll be enough toys for Christmas from China.

00:50:50.280 But it also puts us in a stronger negotiating position than we've been in.

00:50:56.140 So we have China's full attention.

00:50:59.200 They know that Trump would be willing to tariff the hell out of them.

00:51:04.000 But one of the things that Scott Besant said, and maybe this is the thing that China wanted the most,

00:51:10.360 is that neither China nor the United States want to decouple.

00:51:14.020 So I wonder if China was just really afraid of decoupling.

00:51:23.900 Because there are a lot of people in the United States who do want to decouple, such as me.

00:51:29.100 But there are a number of industries, et cetera, like the high-end Apple phones.

00:51:38.260 There's nobody else who can make them.

00:51:40.440 So the low-end ones I guess you could make in India.

00:51:43.480 But the high-end ones require more special processes or whatever.

00:51:47.940 And so it looks like we're stuck with China, and China's stuck with us on a bunch of different levels.

00:51:59.760 You know, we can't really quickly get all the pharmaceutical products.

00:52:06.200 We can't quickly get all the tech stuff, the assembly.

00:52:10.700 We can't quickly get all the rare earth minerals, et cetera.

00:52:15.260 So we're kind of stuck with each other for a while.

00:52:19.580 And it looks like maybe we're heading in the right direction.

00:52:23.640 So everything's looking good.

00:52:26.380 Probably the best week that Trump has ever had, is my guess.

00:52:32.300 And that's all I got for today.

00:52:34.380 I'm going to say a few words to the locals' people privately.

00:52:39.000 And the rest of you, I will see you tomorrow.

00:52:42.900 Same time, same place, I hope.

00:52:45.260 For more good news.

00:53:15.260 Thank you.

00:53:16.260 Thank you.

00:53:45.260 Thank you.

00:53:46.260 Thank you.

00:54:15.260 Thank you.

00:54:16.260 Thank you.

00:54:17.260 Thank you.

00:54:18.260 Thank you.

00:54:19.180 Thank you.

00:54:49.180 Thank you.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - May 12, 2025

Episode 2837 CWSA 05⧸12⧸25

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