Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2872 CWSA 06⧸18⧸25

00:00:00.620 Let's find out how the stocks are doing.

00:00:05.080 S&P is up a little bit.

00:00:08.100 Tesla is up a little bit.

00:00:11.420 A little optimism this morning.

00:00:15.480 Let's make sure I got all my comments working.

00:00:20.340 And then we got a show for you.

00:00:25.320 All right.

00:00:30.000 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Coffee with Scott Adams show.

00:00:45.120 And if you'd like to take this experience up to levels that nobody could even understand

00:00:51.280 with their tidy, shiny human brains, all you need for that is a cup or a mug or a glass,

00:00:59.420 a tanker, chalice, and a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of a kind.

00:01:05.220 Fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:01:07.060 I like coffee.

00:01:08.620 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine at the end of the day,

00:01:12.820 the thing that makes everything better.

00:01:15.360 It's called the Simultaneous Sip, and it happens now.

00:01:19.380 Go.

00:01:19.660 Ah, delicious.

00:01:28.600 So, so good.

00:01:30.320 Well, what's happening?

00:01:32.320 Well, Honda, the automaker, has entered the reusable space rocket business.

00:01:41.760 And they actually demonstrated a rocket that went up and came back down and landed with

00:01:50.360 no chopsticks whatsoever, which makes me wonder, is this better than the SpaceX?

00:01:58.460 Because SpaceX needed big chopsticks. 1.00

00:02:02.360 But the Honda rocket just went up and came back down and landed the way it was.

00:02:08.140 Could it be that there's yet another advancement in space?

00:02:15.420 Could be.

00:02:16.640 So, Honda, Honda's pretty serious there.

00:02:19.820 Meanwhile, as you were expecting, Trump has extended the TikTok ban for another 90 days,

00:02:30.300 meaning they're delaying the ban for 90 days, until they can find a buyer, which I think will not happen.

00:02:41.980 I've been predicting the whole time that China will never agree.

00:02:48.520 China is not going to agree to sell TikTok.

00:02:51.200 So, either TikTok will go away, which Trump does not want, or he'll just keep extending it the whole time he's in office.

00:03:02.680 That's possible.

00:03:04.600 Apparently, sometime today, there'll be a Fed interest rate decision.

00:03:11.220 Has that already happened?

00:03:13.200 Does anybody know when that happens?

00:03:14.760 But that'll move the market a little bit.

00:03:18.740 And, of course, the markets are kind of sensitive to what's happening in Iran,

00:03:24.960 because that might affect the state of Hormuz and the oil production and all that stuff.

00:03:32.600 But so far, the world is not that jittery about oil, which is weird.

00:03:38.720 You would think they would be a little bit more uncertain.

00:03:43.240 But there's a little bit of uncertainty in the oil prices, but not as much as you think.

00:03:51.180 So, yesterday, I mentioned that I saw a drug test from Elon Musk, but I wasn't sure it was really his.

00:04:00.420 It really was his.

00:04:01.800 So, he has confirmed that was his drug test.

00:04:05.700 It was all negative.

00:04:08.720 And he's challenged his critics at the New York Times to take a drug test of their own,

00:04:16.780 which I think is hilarious, because what are the odds that the editors and reporters at the New York Times

00:04:26.820 could all pass a drug test?

00:04:30.520 I don't know.

00:04:31.520 Kind of low.

00:04:33.240 So, apparently, that was real.

00:04:35.180 Meanwhile, the Feds have nabbed seven thieves who stole $100 million worth of gold, diamonds, and rubies

00:04:46.620 out of an armored car.

00:04:51.000 So, imagine being one of those thieves.

00:04:54.720 You got $100 million worth of stuff.

00:04:58.360 And then you thought you got away with it, but you didn't spend any of it, apparently.

00:05:06.140 And got caught, eventually.

00:05:09.320 So, tough break there.

00:05:14.460 That was, they got caught three years after the heist.

00:05:18.880 I feel like you can't get away with anything, as if there's, am I allowed to appoint myself

00:05:26.800 head of the Fed?

00:05:28.280 I'll do a much better job than Powell.

00:05:30.080 Oh, Trump was to appoint himself the head of the Fed.

00:05:35.720 Like the king that he is.

00:05:37.880 Anyway.

00:05:41.520 Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem was taken to the hospital by ambulance yesterday

00:05:49.060 because of an alleged allergic reaction to food, I think.

00:05:56.840 But she's alert and recovering.

00:05:59.740 Does alert sound good?

00:06:01.240 If, if, if your only problem was an allergic reaction, would they say you're alert?

00:06:09.940 Or would they say, oh, you're fine, you're recovering fine?

00:06:13.540 Why did, why did they have to throw in alert?

00:06:16.760 Because that makes me think she was not alert.

00:06:22.100 Like, not completely alert.

00:06:24.600 Or else, why would you even mention it?

00:06:27.100 I don't know.

00:06:29.160 We'll talk about it right ahead in a minute.

00:06:31.240 Do you remember Senator Alex Padilla?

00:06:36.160 He's the one who, speaking of things that make Christy Noem sick, Alex Padilla, the senator,

00:06:43.060 he's the one who got taken down by security because he was trying to ask a loud, obnoxious question

00:06:51.000 at a Christy Noem event.

00:06:54.020 And so he got taken down and handcuffed.

00:06:56.660 And he was yelling, but I'm a senator, I'm a senator.

00:07:00.820 That didn't work.

00:07:01.820 So if the authorities, I'm going to start handcuffing you, don't yell, I'm a senator, because that doesn't work.

00:07:13.920 I don't know why you can yell, but don't yell, I'm a senator.

00:07:19.200 It doesn't work.

00:07:19.860 Anyway, Senator Padilla gave a speech at Congress on the Senate floor, and he started crying.

00:07:30.980 Now, do you think he would have ever been elected if the voters saw him crying over something like that?

00:07:42.000 Oh, my God.

00:07:43.980 Yeah, don't cry on the Senate floor.

00:07:48.400 It's a bad look.

00:07:49.060 But he's one of the drama-crats, and the drama-crats are looking for the best photo op and the most tearful reaction to the news.

00:08:02.960 So if you're a Republican and something bad happens to you, you say, something bad happened.

00:08:12.300 I wish that bad thing had not happened.

00:08:14.700 We'll have to do something about that to stop the bad thing from happening.

00:08:19.000 But if you're a drama-crat, you start crying about, oh, God, what about this?

00:08:26.240 What about the immigrants?

00:08:27.620 Oh, God.

00:08:29.220 Oh.

00:08:31.320 That's called drama-crats.

00:08:33.540 There's a story that seems mostly in the Just the News outlet about China and the fake ballots.

00:08:45.420 Are you following that one?

00:08:47.340 Now, I'm waiting for other news sources to pick it up and validate it because I can't tell how big a deal this is.

00:08:56.580 But the story is that Kash Patel found some documents in the FBI suggesting that the FBI had been alerted from some source that China was in 2020 trying to print a bunch of U.S. election ballots to throw the race to Joe Biden.

00:09:21.300 Now, that was about the time the Biden crime family was taking millions of dollars from China while Joe Biden was vice president.

00:09:33.820 So did China want Joe Biden to win?

00:09:38.740 Probably yes, because they had a little bit of blackmail on him because of the payments.

00:09:45.420 But that doesn't mean that China was necessarily involved in this plot.

00:09:52.040 So the story is that there was an indication that China, because they had a source, was going to do this.

00:10:01.280 And then the FBI decided that their source was not credible enough.

00:10:07.580 And so they withdrew their warning.

00:10:09.940 So they had sent out some kind of notice.

00:10:13.240 And they said, oh, get rid of that. 0.99

00:10:16.380 Never mind.

00:10:19.020 And the reason given was that the source was not confirmed.

00:10:24.760 So they weren't confident that they had the story right.

00:10:28.300 But separately, time goes by, and the U.S. Customs Border and Protection captured about 20,000 fake driver's licenses, mostly from Hong Kong and China in July of 2020.

00:10:46.780 And they were allegedly on their way to battleground states in the Midwest.

00:10:51.800 Now, the driver's licenses, the fake ones, could have been used to give fake ballots, which could have been used to rig an election.

00:11:06.680 But we don't quite have, you know, all those dots connected.

00:11:10.960 So I would say there's an allegation that China might have been involved in creating or wanting to create some fake ballots.

00:11:20.760 But we don't quite have all those dots connected.

00:11:25.900 But it looks pretty bad.

00:11:29.640 And then part of the story is why did the FBI claim they had the story and then take it back?

00:11:37.440 But that part is hard to judge because I doubt it's that unusual for something like the FBI to say, well, we think we've got some information you should know about.

00:11:52.100 And then they look into it a little bit more and find out, hmm, maybe that source isn't the best one, so we'll withdraw that.

00:11:59.120 So some of it looks like business as usual, but it's a provocative story.

00:12:05.260 So we don't know how much of this is real or if it affected the election, but it's quite a story.

00:12:13.760 When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners, I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners?

00:12:22.560 Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. 1.00

00:12:25.300 Are those from Winners?

00:12:26.840 Ooh, or those beautiful gold earrings?

00:12:29.260 Did she pay full price?

00:12:30.620 Or that leather tote?

00:12:31.620 Or that cashmere sweater?

00:12:32.840 Or those knee-high boots?

00:12:34.040 That dress?

00:12:35.120 That jacket?

00:12:35.780 Those shoes?

00:12:36.820 Is anyone paying full price for anything?

00:12:39.760 Stop wondering.

00:12:41.040 Start winning.

00:12:41.960 Winners.

00:12:42.540 Find fabulous for less.

00:12:45.920 Meanwhile, as you could imagine, Israel is striking Tehran again from the air.

00:12:53.920 And they're going after Iranian regime military targets in Tehran.

00:12:59.480 But coincidentally, some of those targets happen to be in the same part of the city that allegedly the supreme leader is hiding.

00:13:10.000 Now, I don't know if he's, you know, really hiding or where he is or anything else.

00:13:18.340 But allegedly, right after Khamenei, however you say it, their supreme leader, after he appeared on live TV, the Israeli jets struck that very area that he was in.

00:13:35.320 Not the building, but the area.

00:13:38.200 So the same neighborhood.

00:13:39.600 So were they sending him a message?

00:13:43.820 Maybe.

00:13:45.060 Maybe.

00:13:47.060 So it looks like maybe we, maybe the Israelis know where he is at all times.

00:13:55.140 But maybe we just say we know where he is so he'll move.

00:14:00.220 Did you ever think about that?

00:14:02.120 When Trump said, we know where you are, you know, he said in a truth social thing, he knew where Khamenei was, or at least Israel did.

00:14:12.020 What if they didn't?

00:14:14.580 If they didn't know where he was, but Trump said they did, what would they have to do?

00:14:22.360 They'd have to move him.

00:14:24.260 Because even if they didn't believe it, they'd still have to move him.

00:14:29.780 And then maybe they could detect the movement.

00:14:33.220 So it could be a trick.

00:14:35.620 I'm just speculating.

00:14:37.900 It could be that they didn't know where he was, but if they say they know where he is, maybe he'll act differently.

00:14:45.460 But also maybe it'll create some action that they can track and then they can find him.

00:14:51.640 So that might be coming.

00:14:54.260 Meanwhile, there's a worry that Iran will try to block the Straits of Hormuz, where a lot of the world's oil goes through.

00:15:06.880 But I was looking at the Amuse account on X, and he says that China buys about one-sixth of all the seaborne crude from Iran.

00:15:19.420 And Grok, she backed that up about one-sixth of all the seaborne, and China is responsible for nearly all of Iran's oil exports.

00:15:32.000 They buy about 90% of it.

00:15:33.480 So what would happen to China if Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?

00:15:43.380 And the answer is, even if Iran wanted to punish the Western world, it doesn't look like they could do it with the Straits of Hormuz unless they punish their biggest supporter, which would be China. 0.64

00:16:00.500 So do you think Iran would take out that much oil from China by closing the Straits of Hormuz?

00:16:14.120 Because once they close it, I don't know how long it would ever take to open it up again.

00:16:20.080 So I'm curious whether Iran will go after the Straits of Hormuz, because I feel like China would be tapping them on the shoulder and saying,

00:16:32.400 you know, that would be the one thing maybe you shouldn't go after, because that would hurt us pretty directly.

00:16:42.780 Anyway, I guess there are a couple of oil tankers that are on fire in the strait, but only because they crashed into each other.

00:16:52.260 I don't know how that happens.

00:16:54.560 How does an oil tanker crash into another oil tanker?

00:16:58.820 Like, you couldn't see that coming?

00:17:02.740 There's a reason.

00:17:04.660 Anyway, let's see what Trump has been saying about Iran.

00:17:10.700 Apparently, the reporting is that Trump is considering, quote, a range of options.

00:17:18.400 So that feels like news.

00:17:20.920 He's considering a range of options.

00:17:23.600 But it's not really news, because that's what everybody does all the time.

00:17:28.820 You wake up in the morning and you consider a range of options.

00:17:34.020 It doesn't mean anything, but it sounds like news.

00:17:38.840 Trump has also signaled on social media that he wants from Iran unconditional surrender.

00:17:47.400 Now, is that the way you talk about Iran?

00:17:56.920 Do you think that gets him to the negotiating table, if you say unconditional surrender?

00:18:03.560 That feels like exactly the opposite of what you would say if he wanted to talk.

00:18:09.640 Well, that's pretty much the end of talking.

00:18:14.260 So what did the Supreme Leader say about that?

00:18:17.620 Well, and also that Trump said that we know where the Supreme Leader is, and we don't plan to kill him, quote, at least for now.

00:18:24.760 Imagine being the Supreme Leader of Iran, and the people who have taken out all of your generals.

00:18:35.480 Basically, they found a way to get to all the generals, and they say, well, we're not going to kill you, at least not for now.

00:18:43.980 Well, how would you ever sleep?

00:18:47.580 Because you would expect this to happen at any moment then.

00:18:51.560 Anyway, so you would not be surprised that the Supreme Leader of Iran says that Iran won't surrender.

00:19:00.420 So apparently no unconditional surrender is imminent.

00:19:07.400 And he says that any U.S. military intervention will bring irreparable consequences.

00:19:13.760 Irreparable, I say.

00:19:16.220 And he says the Iranian nation is not one to surrender, which I believe I told you.

00:19:23.220 And he says about Trump's comments, he goes, those who are wise never speak to this nation in the language of threats.

00:19:36.580 And I think that's right, in the sense that if you ever wanted to make a deal with Iran, 0.85

00:19:43.420 you would never talk to them with words like unconditional surrender.

00:19:47.900 You know, you'd say stuff like, well, we just have this one problem with the nuclear program and maybe some of your ballistic missiles.

00:19:57.460 So let's talk about that.

00:20:00.100 But if you say unconditional surrender, you're sort of signaling that you're not going to talk.

00:20:07.960 And Iran is signaling back that they're not going to talk either.

00:20:12.080 So I wouldn't expect any kind of, you know, peace deal, ceasefire breakthrough.

00:20:18.620 That's not happening.

00:20:21.780 And Iran says that U.S. involvement will lead to all-out war, whatever that means.

00:20:29.900 So our cyber experts are worried that Iran might try a cyber attack on the U.S.

00:20:36.520 And the question that I have about that is, if it were so easy to do a cyber attack on the U.S., wouldn't we see a lot more of it?

00:20:46.960 I feel like maybe it's sort of hard to attack the U.S. infrastructure.

00:20:53.520 You know, maybe China has some, we hear that China has penetrated basically everything. 0.85

00:20:59.600 But as Iran, would China help them and say, here's the keys to the car, go take down the grid? 0.94

00:21:11.120 I don't know.

00:21:12.340 I think China will do what China normally does, which is try to stay out of it. 0.93

00:21:19.960 That's the way I'd play it.

00:21:21.420 Just stay out of it.

00:21:22.640 Meanwhile, the Hindustan Times, I saw this in a Mario Noffel post, the Hindustan Times is speculating who might take over if the Supreme Leader were to, let's say, have an accident.

00:21:42.800 If something happened to him, who would take over?

00:21:45.680 And they always show pictures of the top people who might take over looking exactly like the guy they would take over for.

00:21:55.740 Like they have the same beard, they've got the same outfit on, they're wearing the same wire-rimmed glasses.

00:22:02.240 I feel like if you took out the Supreme Leader, they would replace the Supreme Leader with another Supreme Leader that was so similar to the one that you just had that you wouldn't even know the difference.

00:22:19.660 Like you could go down like five deep into, you know, who's next in line, and the fifth person would just look like the person who just left and all the people above them.

00:22:32.240 Just a gray-bearded guy with the same kind of hat and the same kind of look and the same attitude and would say all the same things.

00:22:41.080 So if you think that taking out the top domestic leader would get you a good result, I don't think there's any evidence of that.

00:22:53.180 It just looks like you would get a younger, madder, more angry, you know, terrorist.

00:23:00.940 It just seems like it would get worse.

00:23:04.260 So I can see why Trump would not want to be rushing to take out the top guy.

00:23:10.740 Meanwhile, both sides are talking about the military action like it's a movie sequel.

00:23:19.360 They're using movie sequel language like, and I've never seen so much marketing talk about a war.

00:23:27.540 So the Israelis are saying that very soon, like maybe today or tomorrow, we're going to see an operation from Mossad that makes the pager deal they did with Hezbollah look like child's play.

00:23:45.400 So do you believe that in the next 24 hours, Mossad will have done some gigantic, you know, effective attack that nobody saw coming and it's more impressive than the pagers blowing up on Hezbollah?

00:24:04.840 Well, maybe, maybe, maybe not.

00:24:09.580 Maybe it's just to scare the Iranians. 1.00

00:24:13.220 And meanwhile, the Iranians say, oh, so what Mossad said is, quote, when the dust settles, you're going to see some surprises on Thursday night and Friday that will make the beeper operation almost seem simple.

00:24:33.480 And then Iran says that Israel is going to have a, quote, great surprise that the world will remember for centuries. 0.79

00:24:42.840 Really?

00:24:44.880 Is there really going to be a great surprise that the world will remember for centuries?

00:24:50.860 And will the Mossad really have a new op that's even better than the pagers?

00:24:56.920 I don't know.

00:24:58.540 Sounds a little bit marketing-like.

00:25:01.520 Well, the ongoing conversation about Tulsi Gabbard and Trump is continuing.

00:25:13.800 That's what makes it ongoing.

00:25:16.540 But Tulsi Gabbard had apparently said not too long ago that the intelligence community believed that Iran was not intending to build a nuclear weapon.

00:25:31.100 Any time soon.

00:25:32.660 But Trump had been saying that their capability was that they could have it very soon.

00:25:39.620 And so the news said, hey, you guys are disagreeing.

00:25:43.520 It looks like we found some disagreements in the administration that we'll talk about.

00:25:48.060 But I don't think they were exactly talking about the same thing.

00:25:54.420 So my take is that Tulsi Gabbard was talking about their decision that they had not decided to go nuclear, which might be true, might not be true, but it was about the decision.

00:26:10.380 Whereas Trump's comment was about their ability.

00:26:13.940 So I think Tulsi Gabbard would agree that they have the ability to build a nuclear weapon maybe within a year or months or something.

00:26:27.220 But that when they did their original analysis, they didn't see the intention.

00:26:34.920 Now, I'm not sure if he can measure intention.

00:26:38.860 So it does make sense that you would worry a little bit more about their ability.

00:26:45.180 Do they have the ability to do it?

00:26:47.120 And so I think Trump is a little bit closer on what matters, you know, which is the ability.

00:26:54.400 Because, you know, if you're depending on their intention, they could change their intention any minute.

00:27:00.900 And we also don't know what's happening inside that Fordow underground facility.

00:27:06.820 How would we know what their intention was?

00:27:09.840 And even if their intention was to not build a bomb, is it possible that their intention is to go right up to the line where they could build one any minute now?

00:27:22.800 Because that would look a lot like intending to build it, but not tactically.

00:27:27.600 So I think Trump's on more solid ground by just talking about, you know, whether they could or not.

00:27:36.440 Meanwhile, we're looking at the range of options that the U.S. might be involved in.

00:27:45.500 And at the top of the list is the use of these bunker buster bombs that they say only the U.S. can deliver with their special bombers.

00:27:57.420 And they're called MOPS, or Massive Ordnance Penetrators.

00:28:02.460 Now, I've never heard of any weapon that sounded more sexual than that.

00:28:08.600 Hey, hey, baby.

00:28:11.080 You want to see my Massive Ordnance Penetrator?

00:28:15.040 So, but that's neither here nor there.

00:28:18.560 But I saw today some experts saying that it might take half a dozen of those MOPs,

00:28:25.460 those Massive Ordnance Penetrators, for each of the facilities.

00:28:33.000 Now, allegedly, the U.S. has about 20 of them.

00:28:37.740 And then there's one expert, and who knows how many, you know, who knows if the experts really know.

00:28:43.880 But what if it took half a dozen for each of the underground facilities?

00:28:50.140 I think there are two that they're worrying about especially.

00:28:53.860 It might be more.

00:28:56.520 You know what I hear?

00:28:58.500 When somebody says it might take me six of these bombs, what do you hear?

00:29:05.480 What I hear is it might not work.

00:29:08.980 Is that what you hear?

00:29:10.040 Because if it takes six for each of those facilities, that's a whole lot like they don't know if it'll work.

00:29:21.220 They don't know if it'll take 20.

00:29:23.360 They don't know if it'll take 100.

00:29:24.940 They don't know if it'll take one.

00:29:27.580 Six.

00:29:28.480 If they'd said, had they said it might take two, then I would think, oh, they know what they're talking about.

00:29:36.320 That, you know, one will almost certainly get it done, but you might need to have a second one.

00:29:42.500 But when they say it might take six for each of those underground facilities, what I hear is, we don't know if this'll work.

00:29:52.420 So is it possible that the worst-case scenario is that you destroy the front door of the underground facility, but you don't destroy anything that's under there?

00:30:08.240 And then whenever you're done, Iran just digs out the front door, and then they go right back to work. 0.97

00:30:15.960 How would we know exactly if we had collapsed the underground facility?

00:30:20.420 Would we know?

00:30:24.260 We could tell what the bomb damage was on the top of the ground, but how would you really know if it got this stuff underground, especially after dropping six of those, you know, mother-of-all bombs on it?

00:30:40.240 I don't know.

00:30:40.700 So suddenly my confidence that all you need is the U.S. to say yes, and those facilities will go away, I'm not so sure.

00:30:53.600 I feel like the U.S. involvement would be maybe, you know, maybe we could destroy them, maybe we couldn't.

00:31:01.360 So it might be worse if we try and fail, because that would also tell them exactly how deep they have to build it next time.

00:31:13.260 If we use up six bombs and four now is still operational, then we're going to have to really rethink things.

00:31:23.920 Well, Israel says they've destroyed 40% of Iran's missile launchers, and that might be true because the number of missiles that Iran has launched toward Israel has gone down each night.

00:31:43.180 And I guess last night, and I guess last night there were only 30, if I have that right.

00:31:47.800 So they went from a few hundred to a hundred to 30.

00:31:52.780 That would sort of suggest that Iran is running out of usable, good missiles.

00:32:00.960 So they started with what were estimated as 2,000 ballistic missiles, and allegedly they fired around 400 so far.

00:32:09.560 But you wonder why they're not firing the rest of them.

00:32:15.240 Are they saving them?

00:32:16.960 Is it because they're going to save them for one big hit somewhere?

00:32:21.640 Or have their rocket launchers been so degraded that they don't even want to load one on a rocket launcher because it means the rocket launcher will disappear?

00:32:32.740 So we don't know what they're thinking.

00:32:34.760 But it does look like their capabilities have been degraded, but they might have plenty left.

00:32:43.500 Claudia was leaving for her pickleball tournament.

00:32:45.780 I've been visualizing my match all week.

00:32:48.300 She was so focused on visualizing that she didn't see the column behind her car on her backhand side.

00:32:54.340 Good thing Claudia's with Intact, the insurer with the largest network of auto service centers in the country.

00:33:00.020 Everything was taken care of under one roof, and she was on her way in a rental car in no time.

00:33:04.340 I made it to my tournament and lost in the first round.

00:33:07.680 But you got there on time.

00:33:09.840 Intact Insurance, your auto service ace.

00:33:12.420 Certain conditions apply.

00:33:14.860 According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel is running low on their defensive aero interceptors.

00:33:24.900 That would be a certain kind of missile that intercepts the incoming missiles from Iran.

00:33:30.180 So you might have Iran is running out of offensive missiles while maybe Israel is running out of defensive missiles,

00:33:39.200 but you really can't tell in either case because it's the fog of war.

00:33:44.500 So we don't know what's real and what isn't.

00:33:47.660 Well, Tucker Carlson had a tense conversation with Ted Cruz on Tucker's podcast.

00:33:54.140 And I guess Ted Cruz is in the camp of wanting the U.S. to be militarily involved with the attack on Iran.

00:34:06.860 And Tucker is very much against that.

00:34:10.060 So Tucker got a real good gotcha on Ted Cruz when he asked him, does he know the population of Iran?

00:34:19.160 And Ted Cruz said he did not.

00:34:23.780 And then Tucker mocked him mercilessly for wanting to bomb a country and not knowing anything about it.

00:34:30.740 The answer is 92 million people. 0.97

00:34:34.920 So Iran is a big-ass country. 0.59

00:34:37.180 So it's about a third the size of the United States, which is really big.

00:34:41.020 And then Tucker asked him if he knew how many ethnicities are in Iran.

00:34:49.000 And I think the right answer is there are around a dozen major ones and probably infinite smaller varieties.

00:34:58.540 But Ted Cruz did not know the answer to either of those questions, but also didn't seem to think it was terribly important.

00:35:06.760 And I'm not sure he's wrong, because if I said to you Iran has 50 million people, or I said to you they have 150 million people, would you have a different idea of what to do?

00:35:23.860 I mean, in both cases, you would still, if you were Ted Cruz, in both cases, no matter what that population center was, you'd still say, you know, should we take out the underground facilities?

00:35:38.360 So I'm a little bit on Ted Cruz's side that he really didn't need to know the details, because if you know that there are two or three underground nuclear sites, and you know the history of Iran and Israel, and you know what the current military situation is, you really need to know that the best estimate is they have 92 million people.

00:36:06.160 Well, it'd be better if you did, but does it make that much difference?

00:36:13.040 I'm going to say it was a really good gotcha.

00:36:16.220 So it was, you know, it embarrassed Ted Cruz, but I don't think it made that much difference.

00:36:21.580 I feel like he knew enough to be part of the conversation.

00:36:27.360 Meanwhile, the news loves reporting on whether the Trump allies are splintered.

00:36:33.400 So it looks like Charlie Kirk and J.D. Vance are on the side of Trump has earned the freedom and flexibility to make the decisions, and that we would trust whatever Trump does to be America first.

00:36:51.800 That's not a bad opinion, but Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and some other notable people, comic Dave Smith, are very much, you know, don't get militarily involved.

00:37:08.240 Now, I criticize them, not because I disagree, but because I think their opinions are incomplete.

00:37:17.520 They need to tell us what they think it would look like if we allowed the nuclear facilities to remain and didn't get involved.

00:37:28.100 Now, I don't have an opinion.

00:37:30.280 I'm just observing and predicting.

00:37:34.400 But I do note that the people who pretend they do have an opinion, they're incomplete.

00:37:41.420 You need to say, I want to walk away and not be involved, and I want Iran to reconstitute its nuclear capabilities. 0.99

00:37:52.620 Well, they're way more mad at us than they were before.

00:37:55.800 However, if that's your opinion, then you should proudly put it out there.

00:38:02.980 But it's not really enough just to say we've been wrong every time we try to do regime change or nation building, because this is a little bit less than that.

00:38:15.440 It's very specific to get rid of the nuclear and the missile programs.

00:38:21.180 So I don't know if that's enough difference.

00:38:23.420 I do respect those opinions, by the way.

00:38:27.140 I do respect the opinion that says every time we've tried to do this, it's been a disaster.

00:38:33.620 That's not crazy.

00:38:37.260 It's hard for me to think of a counterexample where we got all involved militarily in the Middle East and everything worked out great.

00:38:45.120 Does that ever happen?

00:38:48.420 It feels like it's just a sticky, horrible situation that no matter what you do is bad, so you might as well not do anything.

00:38:56.540 So I get it.

00:38:58.040 I understand their point.

00:38:59.200 Meanwhile, a bipartisan group is trying to limit Trump's ability to make war.

00:39:09.540 So Thomas Massey said this is not our war and reminds us that the Constitution does not make it a Trump one-man show.

00:39:20.840 And Tim Kaine, Democrat, is on the same team that he wants Congress to decide if we go to war.

00:39:31.240 And Lindsey Graham is on the other side, saying that we should be flying with Israel if necessary.

00:39:38.940 In other words, if Iran doesn't give us, doesn't give Israel and the U.S. everything we want, he thinks we should go in hard militarily.

00:39:51.400 Who's right?

00:39:52.940 I don't know.

00:39:54.620 I don't know.

00:39:55.200 I'm not smart enough to know who's right.

00:39:57.480 Because it depends a lot on the implementation.

00:40:00.560 If it were true that one bunker buster apiece would solve the whole nuclear program question, if that were true, that would be a reasonable argument that you should go ahead and do it. 0.98

00:40:19.440 But as soon as you say we might need six apiece, it just doesn't sound doable to me, even with our technology.

00:40:27.740 So in that case, it's hard to know what would work out.

00:40:36.280 Meanwhile, Iran is asking its people to delete the WhatsApp app from their devices, because I'm sure the Iranians are at this point wondering,

00:40:48.720 how is Israel finding us so easily and killing all our generals? 0.90

00:40:53.960 Is it because they're trying to communicate on WhatsApp?

00:40:56.700 Well, do you believe that the U.S. and or Israel is reading WhatsApp messages out of Iran?

00:41:08.980 Do you think that's happening?

00:41:11.080 Here's what WhatsApp says.

00:41:12.780 This is from the corporate WhatsApp.

00:41:15.820 Quote, we, and now listen to how specific this is.

00:41:19.460 So my question would be, are they denying that the U.S. and or Israel have a back door?

00:41:28.400 Are they denying it?

00:41:30.100 All right.

00:41:31.120 WhatsApp says, we do not track your precise location.

00:41:35.300 We don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging.

00:41:39.180 And we do not track the personal messages people are sending one another.

00:41:43.120 And we do not provide bulk information to any government.

00:41:49.980 Does that seem to you like being a little bit too specific about what they don't do?

00:41:55.780 And was there anywhere in that where it said, we don't provide a back door to the United States CIA, which, of course, the United States would require, right?

00:42:09.640 Is there any chance that the CIA doesn't have a back door to all of the messaging platforms?

00:42:17.340 Is there really any chance of that?

00:42:19.420 I would say no.

00:42:22.560 But I look at WhatsApp's denial.

00:42:26.460 And now you know what you're looking for.

00:42:28.560 So they're not denying that there's a back door.

00:42:32.660 Here's what they're denying.

00:42:34.180 We don't track your precise location.

00:42:37.800 Maybe true.

00:42:39.480 But do they track anybody else's precise location?

00:42:44.960 I believe they don't track mine.

00:42:47.600 But they're not interested.

00:42:49.420 Does that mean they couldn't if they wanted to?

00:42:53.260 Hmm, I don't know.

00:42:54.320 It's kind of specific.

00:42:56.100 We don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging.

00:42:59.680 Well, we're not asking about everyone.

00:43:03.540 We're asking if there's a back door that allows them to look at the things that they know they want to look at.

00:43:09.880 That's not everyone's.

00:43:12.120 That's not a log of what everyone is messaging.

00:43:14.700 We do not track the personal messages people are sending one another.

00:43:21.380 We don't track them.

00:43:23.820 But do they read them?

00:43:26.080 What does it mean to not track them?

00:43:28.040 We do not provide bulk information to any government.

00:43:33.560 Well, it's not really about bulk information.

00:43:37.880 It's about knowing if these specific generals are in a specific place.

00:43:42.740 So, I'm going to say that their denial is a little bit too specific.

00:43:49.760 So, the Iranians probably have a good argument for getting rid of that app. 1.00

00:43:56.460 Well, who knows how many other apps on their phone are tracking them.

00:44:00.020 So, it might be one or several apps that's tracking them.

00:44:03.220 What are they going to do?

00:44:04.460 Use Telegram or something?

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00:45:11.540 In other news, the big thing that the Iranian military stuff has done is it makes us forget about Gaza. 0.95

00:45:22.920 Do you remember when Gaza was, you know, all we talked about?

00:45:26.560 And then time went by, and we talked less about Gaza, and I don't think there's that much news out of Gaza.

00:45:37.960 Well, there's probably news, but I don't think the news organizations have that much access to Gaza.

00:45:44.620 Probably less than they've had.

00:45:45.940 But there's some Reuters report that Israeli tanks killed 59 people in Gaza, a crowd trying to get food and aid.

00:45:55.040 Does that sound real?

00:45:57.680 Do you believe that Israeli tanks killed 59 people in Gaza who were just trying to get food and aid?

00:46:06.420 And food and aid?

00:46:09.600 Does that sound real?

00:46:11.380 I don't know.

00:46:12.640 I don't trust it.

00:46:14.000 But my larger point is that Gaza is now in the back burner, which probably works to Israel's benefit, 0.99

00:46:24.760 so they can do what they want with less criticism.

00:46:29.540 According to The Hill, Democrats have a little bit of optimism for the first time lately,

00:46:36.280 because their No Kings event was so successful.

00:46:42.820 Now, is that as funny to you as it is to me?

00:46:46.740 The No Kings event was literally trying to stop an imaginary thing from happening,

00:46:54.420 which is Trump becoming a king.

00:46:58.620 It's literally imaginary.

00:47:00.280 It's not like he's ignoring the courts.

00:47:04.100 If the courts say you can't do that or, you know, I mean, he's as aggressive as he could possibly be.

00:47:12.580 But as Trump has said, it's so hard to get anything done.

00:47:16.740 It's hard to imagine him as a king.

00:47:19.380 But that's enough to make the Democrats feel positive.

00:47:23.380 They got that No Kings thing working.

00:47:26.220 That's all they got.

00:47:27.240 Well, also, according to Reuters, Trump has now increased the number of active-duty troops

00:47:37.600 on the U.S.-Mexico border from 2,500 to 80,000.

00:47:41.880 And the new thing that the Trump administration is doing at the border

00:47:47.140 is they've got these military zones.

00:47:50.800 So they've designated that this little sliver of land when you first come over our border

00:47:56.240 are actually military zones.

00:48:00.060 And that allows the military to arrest people and detain them.

00:48:05.080 Not arrest them forever, but detain them for the border patrol.

00:48:10.060 So apparently that's working.

00:48:11.820 So that was pretty clever.

00:48:13.160 Another thing that Biden didn't think of.

00:48:15.280 On the subject of the big, beautiful bill, according to the Hill,

00:48:22.860 looks like there might be a little trouble because the House passed their version,

00:48:28.300 but then the Senate gets to mark it up and make their changes

00:48:32.320 before they send it back to the House.

00:48:34.340 And apparently the Republicans are not in agreement on how much to cut Medicaid.

00:48:42.600 And I feel under-informed on this topic because the Democrats have been saying,

00:48:50.120 you Republicans are going to cut Medicaid.

00:48:53.020 And then the Republicans would say, no, we're not.

00:48:56.260 Trump doesn't want to do that.

00:48:57.620 And then I read the news that the Senate is trying to cut Medicaid.

00:49:04.920 And apparently that's what the current version of the bill does.

00:49:08.760 It cuts Medicaid, like quite a bit.

00:49:12.780 So my question would be, what exactly are they cutting?

00:49:17.980 Does that mean that somebody who should be covered is not covered?

00:49:21.340 Or is it just, what does it do?

00:49:24.920 Is it just paying the medical professionals less?

00:49:28.880 Is it just saying that if you're not a citizen, you can't get covered?

00:49:35.080 We're missing the main part of the story.

00:49:37.840 The story just says they're going to cut Medicaid.

00:49:41.020 Does that really tell you anything?

00:49:44.340 Don't you kind of need to know who are they cutting and why?

00:49:48.680 Are they cutting everybody 5%?

00:49:52.040 So, you know, the hospital has to take less money?

00:49:55.560 Or are they saying you people can't be on it and you're citizens?

00:50:00.720 I don't know.

00:50:02.080 So that's a big question.

00:50:05.800 Well, according to Reclaim the Net, the X platform is suing New York

00:50:11.440 because New York wants to force some kind of moderation disclosure.

00:50:17.740 So they want the X corporation and presumably other platforms to define how they moderate politically

00:50:26.380 sensitive content, such as hate speech, misinformation, and extremism.

00:50:31.380 Now, you might say to yourself, why does X care so much about these labeled categories?

00:50:39.520 And the answer is that it would give New York State some control over how X categorize things.

00:50:49.420 So basically it would be like a clever way to censor X content without doing it directly.

00:50:59.300 So X is taking them to court.

00:51:03.260 Over in LA, there's a report from Fox News that over 100 LA looters ransacked an auto zone.

00:51:15.440 And what the story says is they wonder if it's a street takeover.

00:51:24.480 Street takeover?

00:51:26.800 Is that a thing?

00:51:28.180 So now there's such a thing as a street takeover, which is so well understood that you can just

00:51:37.780 mention it in a news story without defining it?

00:51:41.020 Because I don't know exactly what a street takeover is, but I'm assuming it's a mob that's so big

00:51:48.540 that they can kind of take over the street and loot it.

00:51:52.000 Is that what it is?

00:51:52.860 Because as soon as something like that has a name, where you can say, oh, it looks like

00:51:58.660 we're planning a street takeover on Thursday.

00:52:03.000 Well, you're going to get a lot more of it if it has a name.

00:52:07.560 So that's bad.

00:52:10.920 Kraft Heinz says it's going to remove the artificial dyes from its U.S. products by the end of 2027,

00:52:18.420 according to CBS News.

00:52:19.920 And my question would be this.

00:52:24.220 Are the artificial dyes the things that make the Kraft Heinz products unhealthy?

00:52:31.620 Isn't it the food itself?

00:52:36.020 Now, I suppose it depends which food you're talking about.

00:52:39.880 But is Kraft Heinz notable for creating healthy food, and the only problem was a couple of

00:52:48.920 food dyes are banned?

00:52:51.180 Hmm.

00:52:52.180 I feel like they're getting way easy if all they do is get rid of the food coloring.

00:52:58.780 But it's better than nothing.

00:53:01.320 So get rid of that food coloring. 0.99

00:53:03.080 Apparently, it only applies to 10% of their products.

00:53:09.600 Microsoft and OpenAI, according to Futurism, are having a little problem negotiating.

00:53:17.980 And you can understand why, because OpenAI and Microsoft have this really sort of complicated

00:53:25.400 relationship, and they're trying to adjust it.

00:53:30.260 And, you know, both companies have, you know, massive interests because the money is,

00:53:35.060 the dollar amounts are so big.

00:53:36.640 But the one thing that stood out as one of their disagreements is apparently Microsoft

00:53:47.420 signed a deal with OpenAI that if OpenAI ever achieved artificial general intelligence,

00:53:56.440 AGI, that would be the better kind of AI than the kind we have.

00:54:00.680 Right now, we have these large language models, but they hallucinate, and they don't reason

00:54:06.460 so well.

00:54:07.600 But if it gets to the point where it can do the theoretical higher level of thinking, that

00:54:15.060 would end the agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI.

00:54:19.660 Now, can you believe that Microsoft has signed that deal?

00:54:24.800 So that's their current deal.

00:54:26.560 And knowing that OpenAI and all the other AI companies are running as fast as they can

00:54:35.240 to get to AGI, why would Microsoft ever sign a deal that says if they get to the really

00:54:43.280 valuable part of AI, that that's when the deal falls apart and it just disappears?

00:54:50.900 No wonder they want to renegotiate that.

00:54:53.340 That just looks like a contract error, you know, in my opinion.

00:54:59.540 Unless Microsoft believed that nobody could ever get to that point, but they wouldn't be

00:55:05.280 asking to renegotiate it if they didn't think OpenAI could get there.

00:55:12.040 So that might be the biggest mistake I've ever seen in a contract, to say that it would be

00:55:19.100 the contract would end if they reached this higher level of AI.

00:55:23.640 Why in the world?

00:55:25.800 Why would they agree to that?

00:55:27.740 It's crazy.

00:55:30.600 According to Zero Hedge, there's a survey that says by Public Square and Red Balloon that

00:55:39.880 only 13% of California's small businesses say they're happy with their current location.

00:55:47.140 13%.

00:55:47.700 So how bad is my state?

00:55:50.860 It's so bad that it's 40% lower than the national average.

00:55:57.080 So a lot of small businesses wish they were somewhere else.

00:56:00.360 But not as bad as California.

00:56:05.300 But they also have no ability to relocate because it'd be too expensive and blah, blah, blah.

00:56:11.740 So in California, 67% of small businesses say they're either planning a move or considering

00:56:19.780 one or they feel stuck and want to move, but they can't afford it.

00:56:23.580 Oh, my God. 0.99

00:56:27.500 California is just garbage at the moment. 1.00

00:56:32.280 All right. 0.99

00:56:33.280 Ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for today.

00:56:36.540 I have to run and do something.

00:56:38.740 So normally, I say some words to the locals' people afterwards.

00:56:43.580 But if you don't mind, today I have to run.

00:56:48.160 And thanks for joining.

00:56:50.880 And I will see you tomorrow, same time, same place.

00:56:54.740 And we'll work out all this Iran, Israel stuff. 0.82

00:56:58.700 So look out according to the marketing.

00:57:01.800 There's going to be big surprises coming today and tomorrow and maybe Friday night.

00:57:07.680 Big, big surprises.

00:57:09.860 So you got that to look forward to.

00:57:13.580 All right, everybody.

00:57:15.540 Stay so long.

00:57:17.820 See you later.

00:57:20.880 All right.

00:57:24.740 Bye.

00:57:25.300 Bye.

00:57:29.620 Bye.

00:57:48.480 Bye.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - June 18, 2025

Episode 2872 CWSA 06⧸18⧸25

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