Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2895 CWSA 07⧸12⧸25

00:00:00.840 Come on in here. Let's have some fun. It's Saturday, also known as Catterday, and that

00:00:11.020 means all the lazy podcasters take the day off, but not me. No, I'm here for you. I'm

00:00:23.120 here for you, and especially Beth. So Beth, this is the real show. Good morning, everyone,

00:00:39.080 and welcome to the highlight of human civilization, possibly Martian civilization, too. It's called

00:00:46.200 Coffee with Scott Adams, and you've never had a better time. But if you'd like to take

00:00:52.240 a chance on elevating this experience to levels that no one can even understand with their

00:00:59.260 tiny, shiny human brains, well, all you need for that is a cup or mug or a glass of tankard

00:01:07.200 shells with cider canteen jug or flask, a vessel of a kind, fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:01:13.820 I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day, the thing

00:01:20.700 makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. And it happens. That's right. Right

00:01:26.740 now. Go.

00:01:28.760 Oh, you feel better? You do. Yeah, you do. Well, after our show today, you might want to join

00:01:48.600 Owen Gregorian, who's going to be hosting a Spaces event right after we're done. Spaces

00:01:55.920 is the audio service on X. So just go there and look for Owen Gregorian, or you can find

00:02:04.640 the link in my X feed, as Scott Adams says. Well, I wonder if there's any news about the

00:02:14.540 health benefits of coffee. Oh, yeah. According to the Times of India, there's a new study out

00:02:24.120 of the UK somewhere. And it turns out that if you have three cups of coffee every day, you

00:02:33.780 can reduce your risk of liver disease by 49%. Right? So what I recommend is that when you drink

00:02:44.320 alcohol, you drink one cup of coffee for every drink, because the alcohol will destroy your

00:02:51.380 liver, because it's poison. But the coffee will just rejuvenate it. You'll break even. No,

00:02:59.280 do not listen to any medical advice from cartoonist podcasters. Bad idea. Bad idea.

00:03:06.140 Let's see what else is happening. Let's do some fake news. There's some fake news today on social

00:03:18.780 media. OAN is reporting that this is not true, by the way. So before I even say what it is,

00:03:28.920 according to Grok, there's no truth to this whatsoever. But the rumor is that Bridget McCrone's

00:03:37.680 plastic surgeon, who was going to give a tell-all, has been found dead, fell out a window.

00:03:49.060 But it turns out that it's probably a Russian disinformation campaign, and there's no credible source.

00:03:57.500 And there's no credible source for the story. Does Grok really know? Marcella asks. And the answer

00:04:06.160 is, well, it's pretty good at checking sources. So there's no other source that says it.

00:04:16.240 All right. Here's my favorite story. I was doing a pre-show before we went live here,

00:04:22.940 and I couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes. So Trump just published another truth social,

00:04:34.600 in which he opines that Rosie O'Donnell, who, as you know, moved to Ireland because she is so unhappy 0.81

00:04:45.480 with the United States. And Trump says that since Rosie is so bad for the United States,

00:04:51.820 he's considering removing her citizenship.

00:04:54.580 Now, I went to Grok, and I said, can a president remove somebody's citizenship?

00:05:07.980 And he said, no. No, a president does not have that power. Yeah, I think it would be in some weird

00:05:16.960 situation where they had lied on some official forms to become a citizen or something. There's a special

00:05:26.540 case. But basically, no. So the thing that makes me laugh is wondering what Trump was thinking or saying

00:05:36.900 or who was in the room when he wrote that message. Because if he wrote it alone, it wouldn't be as

00:05:49.220 funny. But I just imagine him sitting there with some of his best friends or maybe just Melania or

00:05:56.720 something like, all right, watch this. I'm going to send out a true social. This says I'm going to

00:06:03.820 take Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship away because she complained about the United States from Ireland.

00:06:14.780 I don't believe that he believes he has the power to do that. And you know that it's a slow news day.

00:06:26.040 So the last thing that Trump wants is people talking about Epstein.

00:06:30.460 So whenever the shelf of news is a little bare, Trump just comes up with something that he just

00:06:43.380 creates out of nothing. That creates a story you can't not talk about. Do you think that the news

00:06:53.080 can't ignore the fact that Trump has called for maybe removing the citizenship of a U.S. citizen for

00:07:01.280 complaining from Ireland? All right. I hope you liked it as much as I did. To me, that's just hilarious.

00:07:11.280 He obviously knows exactly what he's doing.

00:07:13.920 All right. Well, according to the Daily Mail, the New York Times is admitting their fake news from last

00:07:26.720 year where I guess they were accusing Trump of lying or exaggerating about the Venezuelan gangs

00:07:35.640 allegedly taking over a Colorado apartment building. And then the New York Times said,

00:07:43.100 we looked into it. That's not true. And then a year later, they published an article that says,

00:07:50.660 well, you know, it turns out it's a little bit complicated. And we can't really say it's not true.

00:07:56.820 It's true-ish, maybe, kind of true. Maybe it was fake news. So, you know, they might describe what

00:08:10.120 they did a little differently. But the Daily Mail is blaming them of admitting their fake news.

00:08:17.320 That was a big one. As the fake news goes, that was kind of bold, because could they

00:08:26.640 really not figure out what was going on there? Did the New York Times really? Really? Did they

00:08:34.420 really not have the resources or the talent or the time or something to look into that and find out

00:08:42.240 that, yes, there were armed gang members standing outside the apartment building? There was no way

00:08:50.060 they could have figured that out on their own for a year. Sorry. Trust in the media? Pretty low. Pretty,

00:08:59.240 pretty low. All right. Here's a story that, as far as I know, has not been debunked. But it doesn't

00:09:10.040 sound real to me. So I'm going to tell you the story. But you, we're going to play a game where

00:09:18.800 you tell me, does this sound real? Or does this sound a little too on the nose? Like a little too

00:09:26.740 perfect? All right. Here's the story. I see Ian Miller's reporting this for Outkick. But I believe

00:09:35.720 there were other outlets that are reporting it. All right. And the report is that JPMorgan Chase's CEO,

00:09:44.820 the famous Jamie Dimon, said the following while at an overseas event. He said that, quote,

00:09:55.840 I have a lot of friends who are Democrats and they're idiots. Bloomberg is reporting this.

00:10:04.940 Well, I was speaking at a foreign ministry event in Ireland. Oh, well, I guess Ireland is where you

00:10:11.060 go to say terrible things like Rosie. Then, allegedly, Jamie Dimon went on and said,

00:10:20.660 I always say, they have big hearts and little brains. They do not understand how the real world

00:10:25.960 works. Almost every single policy rolled out has failed. Doesn't that sound a little bit like me?

00:10:36.520 Or, you know, maybe Greg Goffeld? One of the things that criticize, well, one of the things that

00:10:43.860 Democrats are often criticized for is policies that don't seem to understand how human beings work,

00:10:52.260 that we have incentives and stuff like that. So, that is so on the nose that that makes me a little

00:11:00.780 suspicious. And then it goes further. And he describes how the Democrats, you know, lost their way.

00:11:10.180 And allegedly, and again, I'm not totally sure this is real. But allegedly, Jamie Dimon said,

00:11:20.040 they overdid DEI. We all were devoted to reaching out to the black community, Hispanic, and LGBT

00:11:26.660 community, the disabled. We do all of that, Dimon said. But the extent, they got to stop it. And they 1.00

00:11:34.080 got to go back to being more practical. They're very ideological. And I'm thinking to myself, all right,

00:11:40.180 well, it's sort of real-ish. But he would have known he would have been quoted. Would he really

00:11:48.800 say that all of his Democrat friends are idiots? Would he say that and then go back to New York City

00:11:57.000 where his subordinates and his friends are Democrats? Who says that? He is a little bit

00:12:06.060 too smart and too smart and too savvy to insult 75% of all of his friends, knowing that it will

00:12:15.060 get back to them. So, is that real? All right. But it goes further. I guess he was asked about Zoran

00:12:24.960 Mamdani. Who, by the way, you could call him Zoran Mamdani, or you could call him Moron Zemdani.

00:12:36.240 So, it's either Zoran or Moron. Pick one. Anyway, what Jamie Dimon allegedly said, and here I'm still

00:12:45.300 a little skeptical, he really did. But allegedly, quote, he's more of a Marxist than a socialist.

00:12:54.040 And now you see these Democrats falling all over themselves saying, well, he's pointing out some

00:12:59.500 real problems, affordable housing and grocery prices. Okay, maybe. There's the same ideological

00:13:07.300 mush that means nothing in the real world. Now, again, that's the sort of thing that I would say

00:13:16.940 that is sort of a word salad, meaningless nothing. Does that sound real to you? I'm going to put a pin

00:13:27.900 in this one in this one and say, I'm not sure. Because a lot of the news today is fake or looks fake.

00:13:37.060 This one, I don't know. I'm not buying it. I'm willing to be talked into it being real if Jamie Dimon

00:13:46.780 says, yeah, I said that, or there's a video that comes out someday. But at the moment, I'm going to say

00:13:54.580 probably not. I'm leaning toward fake news on this one. But I could be wrong. I'm going to say

00:14:02.860 55% fake news, 45% real. That'll be my, that's my final answer.

00:14:09.740 Ontario, the wait is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived. Golden Nugget Online

00:14:16.980 Casino is live, bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your

00:14:22.500 fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, signing up is fast and simple. And

00:14:28.140 in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top-tier

00:14:33.120 table games. Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn

00:14:38.280 any mundane moment into a golden opportunity at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Take a spin on the

00:14:44.380 slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time

00:14:49.520 action. All from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold

00:14:54.800 at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario, 1-866-531-2600.

00:15:02.840 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See

00:15:06.880 GoldenNuggetCasino.com for details. Please play responsibly.

00:15:10.260 Well, somebody named Eddie Zhu has developed AI glasses that will be used to train robots.

00:15:19.840 And the way it will do that is they'll put these AI glasses on Chinese factory workers, 0.78

00:15:25.460 and it will watch them work. So the glasses will be on the human, and it will be watching the human

00:15:33.260 doing something with their hands that's assembling something or doing some kind of a, you know,

00:15:39.900 assembly line kind of thing. And that's how they will train robots. So they'll collect all that data

00:15:48.060 and feed it into robots, and then robots will know how to put everyone in China out of work.

00:15:54.040 I think the Chinese government is going to have to throw him out of the window,

00:16:01.460 because I don't think you can put a hundred, few hundred million Chinese factory workers

00:16:07.960 out of work with robots. But maybe. Maybe it's coming.

00:16:13.680 Well, Sam Altman was talking about a delay at ChatGPT.

00:16:19.800 And he says, they're planning to launch their open weight model next week,

00:16:26.160 but they're going to delay it for more safety testing. And you might say,

00:16:31.680 what the heck is an open weight model? Well, I didn't know. So I went to Grok.

00:16:38.220 I had to go to Grok today five times while I was reading the news. Five times the news told me

00:16:47.320 something that I just said, I don't even know what that is. Like, why don't you tell me what that means?

00:16:53.040 And then maybe I'll know what I'm looking at. But the open weight model is an AI that is a little

00:17:03.160 bit open sourced, not completely, but it allows developers to know how the model works. So if they

00:17:11.920 want to build their own product on top of it, it operates with the AI in the best way.

00:17:19.880 Now, so he's saying the tech got delayed because they want to review the high risk areas.

00:17:28.480 Now, when he's talking about a high risk, he's not really just talking about it having a bug, right?

00:17:35.100 They're talking about, well, it might be the end of all civilization. But we're going to take an extra

00:17:43.900 week to make sure that it doesn't destroy civilization. Well, it's possible that all humankind

00:17:52.220 will be eviscerated and possibly incinerated by the end of next week. But just in case,

00:18:00.100 we're going to take an extra week, we're going to take an extra week. I can't tell how much of this is

00:18:08.020 real. Because there's almost nothing I've heard about AI that I understand and also scares me. So why

00:18:21.220 is it that the people who know the most, way more than I know, why are they so scared of AI? Is it

00:18:30.100 like a mass hysteria? Is it possible that they don't want to be the one who didn't say it was

00:18:36.660 dangerous when everybody else does? So maybe they just have to take that position because it sounds

00:18:44.340 more socially responsible. If something bad happens, we'll say, well, we told you it wasn't fully safe.

00:18:52.080 Yeah, I've been saying since the beginning, good things might go wrong. And then at least you would

00:18:57.240 think, oh, well, they're not morons, but something did go wrong and now we're all dead.

00:19:05.380 So I'm a little bit worried about what the smartest people know that I don't know about AI, but

00:19:13.400 still, I'm not afraid of it. Does anybody else have that feeling? That you're watching the news,

00:19:22.980 you're hearing what the smart people say, and they tell you, you know, it might be a 10 or 20%

00:19:29.540 chance it will destroy all humankind. And I still don't worry about it. What's up with that?

00:19:39.420 How many of you actually worry about it? I don't understand the risk enough to be actually worried.

00:19:47.220 I just, it just, you know, it's like news that just passes through. But I'm going to add my own

00:19:55.280 prediction. I would say that we could say at this point, there's a hundred percent chance that human

00:20:04.240 evolution, you know, with our organic bodies will be replaced by machine evolution and robots.

00:20:13.220 And I don't mean cyborgs. I mean, just machines. And that the obvious evolutionary path is for the

00:20:24.480 organic humans to die off from one thing or another, not necessarily from AI. You know, it could be,

00:20:32.460 I don't know, it could be we last a million years and then the sun explodes and we haven't gotten to

00:20:39.200 another planet. So could be there's a new virus that comes out of a lab and kills all the humans,

00:20:48.460 but we're not there yet. But we're very close to having these, you know, artificial general

00:20:57.460 intelligence and artificial super intelligence robots that could potentially take over civilization

00:21:05.960 and keep things running after all the human organic people are gone. So if you look at the history of 0.99

00:21:16.540 other species and you look at the history of like civilizations that were here 20,000 years ago,

00:21:24.500 but somehow they all got wiped out, is it more likely that we humans will find a way to be permanent

00:21:32.720 and just keep evolving for millions of years? Is that more likely than all the organic people being

00:21:40.420 killed? Not even, not even being murdered, but just, you know, apparently if you wait long enough,

00:21:49.420 there's going to be a meteor, something's going to hit the earth, you know, something's going to go

00:21:55.300 wrong. But the robots might be capable of, you know, as long as I can get electricity of just rebuilding

00:22:04.360 civilization. So I'm going to make my prediction right now that human civilization will turn into

00:22:12.500 machine evolution and it might live forever, but as machines, maybe. All right. Trump and

00:22:25.140 Melania visited the Texas flood zone and he did his presidential thing. Trump is very good at the

00:22:34.920 empathy and, you know, meeting with people who have had tragedy and whatever, but Melania was very good

00:22:43.120 as well. She was at the table with him and, and, and Trump said, you know, Melania might have a few words.

00:22:52.260 And I wasn't sure if Melania was happy about that. I didn't know if she was prepared to speak.

00:22:59.760 I still don't know if she was prepared, but she very effortlessly went into an empathy related,

00:23:08.720 we feel your pain, I'll come back kind of a thing. And I was watching Trump because, you know,

00:23:16.380 Trump will be very careful about managing his brand and would certainly want his family members,

00:23:22.580 especially his wife to, uh, to look good in public. And I thought to myself that he was looking at her

00:23:30.340 with a lot of pride because she was really good. Very good. I, I didn't know, I don't know how much

00:23:38.480 game she has, but, uh, yeah, she nailed it. She got all the, she had all the notes and looked very

00:23:45.940 capable. And, uh, um, I think he was probably quite happy with her, uh, response.

00:23:55.720 Uh, let's see what else. According to just the news, Ben Whedon is writing that the treasury has

00:24:03.700 announced that in June, the government will have a $27 billion surplus from tariff revenues.

00:24:13.060 Surplus meaning that after the government paid all of its bills, it would have an extra 27 billion

00:24:21.080 left over. And that happens to be the amount that came in from tariffs. Does that sound real?

00:24:29.620 Doesn't that sound a little bit too impossible? Did we just go from, uh, deficits that could never

00:24:39.800 be solved to, oh, it looks like June we spent less than we made. So I went to Grok and said,

00:24:48.800 is this true? Is it possible that even for one month of the year that we would take in more revenue

00:24:57.760 as a country, we would take in more revenue than we spent? And, uh, Grok said, yes, but it also said

00:25:08.480 that in May, uh, that we spent $316 billion more than we made. So is that a thing? Can, can the month of

00:25:21.340 May be spending over $300 billion more than you have, and yet by June, you're making $27 billion more

00:25:30.180 than you spent? Is it possible that the way budgets work in the government is that they do most of their

00:25:38.060 spending in a few months so they don't, don't necessarily smooth it out? Is that what's going on?

00:25:44.560 There's something about this story that doesn't seem like it could possibly be real. Does it?

00:25:52.400 Do you think it's real? That the government took in more revenue than it has spent, even in one month,

00:26:00.720 any one month? I don't know. I'm going to put a pin in this one and say, I don't believe it. Don't believe it.

00:26:09.280 Bank more encores when you switch to a Scotiabank banking package. Learn more at scotiabank.com

00:26:19.540 slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotiabank, you're richer than you think.

00:26:26.320 Well, Peter Navarro, um, wrote an article for Fox News, an opinion piece. He was talking about the, uh,

00:26:36.420 CBO and how their estimates were failures. Now the CBO is the entity that, um, tells the public,

00:26:47.320 if you're a Congress does this or that, this will, this will be what happens with the,

00:26:53.000 the deficit and GDP and all that. So if you have a plan to do something for the country,

00:27:00.220 you want the CBO to say that's a good plan because that's the, supposedly would be the independent

00:27:07.960 nonpartisan analysis. However, what if I told you about complicated 10 year projections of anything?

00:27:21.040 Could be, oh, something about the budget with lots of variables and lots of people in years and

00:27:28.980 assumptions, or, or, or it could be something about the climate. What do I say about all of those

00:27:37.120 situations? There's no human being who can predict any of that. Those are not predictable things.

00:27:46.480 Um, but Peter Navarro points out some specific things that the CBO does wrong. And in there,

00:27:56.920 there's a lesson. And so I wanted to share that with you. So one of the things that they, uh,

00:28:03.060 they don't do, well, I guess they, they front load spending. So they act like the spending happens

00:28:10.460 right away, which would push up maybe your, your inflation and your interest rates and then bad

00:28:17.920 things would happen. And they also don't calculate the benefit of economic growth. 0.69

00:28:26.060 That might be the whole point of your spending bill. So Trump's spending bill, whatever you want

00:28:33.420 to call it, the latest one is designed to give money back to taxpayers, which presumably they would

00:28:40.100 spend, which would be good for the GDP, um, and a bunch of other stuff, which should goose the economy.

00:28:47.740 But when the CBO does their analysis, they do not assume that the GDP goes up more than it normally

00:28:56.640 would, you know, historically. So long story short, um, whoever is ever in charge of these big,

00:29:07.120 complicated estimates of what's going to happen in the future. The result is always

00:29:14.020 based on their assumptions. It's not really based on some kind of factual thing. We like to think it

00:29:22.900 is. It's not based on facts and it's not based on math. It's based on the assumptions. So if the

00:29:30.560 people who do the analysis, make an assumption that's friendly to the Trump administration,

00:29:36.540 it might look like we made money by cutting taxes, but you can very easily make different assumptions

00:29:45.760 and make it look like it's a huge economic disaster. So Peter Navarro does a good job of simply pointing

00:29:53.980 out that these are assumption based estimates and not necessarily some kind of fact that you should

00:30:00.500 trust. And he is quite confident that the latest moves by the administration will be good for the

00:30:08.940 economy and reduce the deficit if the CBO were good at doing estimates. Well, the post-millennial

00:30:18.080 is talking about how there's a Gallup poll that says only 17% of American adults believe climate change

00:30:28.180 will impact where they live, where they live. Now, isn't that funny? As soon as you put the where you

00:30:35.660 live part on climate change, then suddenly the number of people who believe in it just drops way down

00:30:43.480 because people have usually, if they're adults, have lived wherever they lived for a number of years.

00:30:51.840 And they probably said to themselves, uh, I've been here for a long time and the weather looks the same

00:30:59.900 to me. So I've been in California for 35, 36 years, something like that. Now, how long have I been here?

00:31:10.820 Longer than that. 46 years I've been in California in roughly the same area of California. Do you know

00:31:26.060 how much the climate has changed in my 46 years of being here? Not really at all. As far as I know,

00:31:36.540 it feels and looks the same to me. We go through some periods of drought, but California always did.

00:31:46.320 And then we have some rainy years and everything's okay for a while. So is it the same where you live?

00:31:54.940 How many of you live somewhere where when you first moved there, uh, it was a different climate than it

00:32:02.340 is now? Is there anybody? No. If you have your own experience, you just look around and you go,

00:32:13.760 oh, doesn't seem like it's any different where I live. So let's see how to have an impact over time.

00:32:19.780 And, uh, people are less worried about, uh, big, horrible weather disasters, uh, than, than they used

00:32:29.500 to be. And they should, because we get better at handling weather disasters every year of human

00:32:37.040 existence. Uh, let's see. Um, according to, uh, Princeton University, Colton Poore is writing about this.

00:32:49.780 Um, did you know that, uh, geothermal energy has a lot of potential? Yes, you did because you listened

00:32:59.140 to my podcast. Now, geothermal means that if you dig a hole that's deep enough, you'll get to where the,

00:33:06.820 uh, the earth is super hot. And if you were to pump some water down there, or if there was a natural

00:33:14.040 water source, um, you could super heat that water and create energy from it. And it would be a real

00:33:21.880 clean source of energy. No, no CO2 if you, if you don't like CO2, but it's not really economical.

00:33:32.600 Um, most places don't have the ideal place where you can dig a hole that was deep enough.

00:33:38.940 And the rocks would be in the right place close to the surface and all that stuff. So if you were

00:33:46.780 to look at, should we go hog wild and geothermal right away? Well, somebody would do a CBO-like

00:33:54.540 economic analysis and they would say, hmm, doesn't look like the economics are good.

00:34:00.460 However, according to this article, which seems right to me, the thing they don't include when

00:34:09.100 they look at the economics of geothermal is that we would start by picking the ideal places.

00:34:18.220 So the, the place you put geothermal on day one is going to be where it is economical.

00:34:24.780 And then you're going to learn much more about how to do it economically. And then

00:34:30.220 you'll do the next one where there's yet another place where it's perfect for geothermal.

00:34:36.540 So the costs would be much lower than if you were in a place that's bad for it.

00:34:41.660 And so the thinking is that, uh, we're underestimating, uh, how much of an impact

00:34:48.780 geothermal will someday have because we assume that the economics will not improve that much.

00:34:55.180 But in fact, it wouldn't be hard to improve the economics.

00:34:58.780 All you have to do is make sure you're starting in the places where it's economical.

00:35:05.020 And then the rest would be sort of the, the normal decrease in technology costs over time.

00:35:11.500 So they think maybe it could be the third best green source of energy until, until, uh,

00:35:20.140 until we get to better nuclear, I guess.

00:35:23.980 Um, meanwhile, over Harvard, Harvard's having a tough time because all the pressure from the

00:35:30.700 Trump administration, but according to Newsmax, um, they're thinking about creating a

00:35:37.660 conservative think tank. So would that help? Well, wouldn't be nothing because, uh, Harvard has

00:35:48.220 almost no conservatives there. So if they said, Hey, here's our big old Harvard conservative think

00:35:55.660 tank, that would maybe, you know, give them a little bit of relief from the criticism.

00:36:01.980 Um, but reportedly also the crimson, that would be the Harvard newspaper, um, is reporting that

00:36:11.020 Harvard is dismantling some, they say some of its DEI apparatus. So it looks like Harvard

00:36:20.700 is at least doing a lot of talking and scrambling and maybe trying some stuff to get back in the good

00:36:29.180 graces of the government because the government has them in a, in kind of a vice grip that says,

00:36:36.300 if you continue to be antisemitic and, uh, not open to, let's say different points of view,

00:36:43.900 such as conservative ones, uh, we will not give you the funding that you require from the government,

00:36:50.060 federal government. So Harvard, they had been trying to hang tight and not do what they're told.

00:36:59.180 But there might be a little movement there. Um, I missed part of this story. So it's a few days

00:37:08.140 old. Um, but Roger Stone, I guess, said in a post, uh, a few days ago, um, why would Bannon,

00:37:19.340 Steve Bannon meet with Jeffrey Epstein, both at his New York home and in Paris after Epstein was

00:37:25.660 convicted on sex crimes in Florida? Uh, why would he coach Epstein for his 60 minutes appearance?

00:37:33.900 And allegedly Bannon took 15 hours of film of Epstein for a documentary that never got produced.

00:37:42.060 So, um, um, here's what Elon Musk said when he saw Roger Stone's accusation. Now, I don't know,

00:37:53.740 I don't know independently if any of this is true, but you know, Roger Stone is saying it and Elon Musk,

00:38:02.140 Elon Musk, um, commented, Bannon is in the Epstein files.

00:38:09.820 Okay. Uh, now, is he just joking? Is, is, uh, Elon Musk just screwing with us because he knows we

00:38:23.100 won't believe that? Or does he know something we don't know? Or is he just guessing? I don't know.

00:38:29.260 But that would explain why Bannon is going, uh, all in on trying to destroy Musk, uh, destroy all of

00:38:39.580 his businesses, nationalize SpaceX, and then deport him, deport Musk. And I thought, I heard that the

00:38:48.060 other day and I thought, wait, is he serious? I mean, I can understand why you don't want Elon Musk to be

00:38:56.060 involved in politics. I can understand that. But do you really need to nationalize SpaceX, which would

00:39:03.820 ruin it? And do you really need to deport him? What? What? So I wondered, like, where, where was

00:39:11.980 any of this coming from? So I don't know who started the fight, but it looks like it's a, uh,

00:39:18.940 cage match to the death. Cause, um, when Elon Musk says that Bannon is in the Epstein files,

00:39:28.700 again, this is a claim, which I'm not aware of any evidence to support it. It's just a social media

00:39:34.860 claim. It feels like he's going for a kill shot. And when Bannon talks about essentially destroying

00:39:43.260 Elon Musk's, you know, us connection and deporting them, that feels like he's trying to take a kill

00:39:50.300 shot. Is that really, is that really what we want? Um, I don't, I don't want either one of them to

00:40:01.100 kill either one of them, but I don't know what's real. And I don't know how to value any of these claims.

00:40:08.140 It's just out there. Now let's follow up with the summer rumors about Bongino Patel and Bondi.

00:40:20.460 So as you know, we were supposed to get a big reveal about the Epstein files and Pam Bondi had

00:40:28.060 suggested that, you know, maybe there was something more there. And now we hear, and again, this is all

00:40:36.300 rumors. Um, I would say that the credibility of this story is about as low as you could get.

00:40:45.020 We don't really know what people are thinking, feeling said to each other privately. We don't

00:40:50.620 really know. But the rumor is that Dan Bongino, um, stopped coming to work for a few days so that he

00:41:00.220 could think about whether he would resign, presumably over the fact that Pam Bondi, uh, 0.65

00:41:07.020 either botched the Epstein reveal or they just can't work with her for some reason.

00:41:13.900 And then further, the rumor said, and I don't think the second part is real for sure,

00:41:19.020 is that, uh, Kash Patel had said that if Bongino quits because Bondi is still there,

00:41:25.660 I guess he would want her to quit first or something, uh, that he would quit. Now, how

00:41:30.860 much of that do you believe? I do believe that they probably are a little angry at each other.

00:41:39.420 I don't know who would be angry who or for what, but beyond that, how much do we really know about

00:41:46.300 what they think and why they're doing what they're doing? If you tell me that Bongino took some days off

00:41:54.860 from work, I'm going to say, you mean around the 4th of July, in the middle of July, when he's been

00:42:03.740 working like a dog for months and months and he took a few days off around a weekend and I'm supposed

00:42:10.140 to make something out of that? Uh, almost everybody in the government has taken a week off in the

00:42:17.260 summer. Does that really mean anything? Well, here's some of the other facts around this story.

00:42:26.940 Um, number one, uh, do you remember when Pam Bondi gave some influencers some special access to the

00:42:37.180 first wave of Epstein files and she invited him to the White House and had them all hold up their own

00:42:45.580 file that they had been given secret, you know, advanced knowledge of the Epstein information.

00:42:53.420 And then when they looked at it, they found out it was all public information. There was nothing new

00:42:58.620 in it whatsoever, which was some say almost like intentionally trying to embarrass the influencers.

00:43:08.220 Now I think that goes too far. I doubt anybody would have done it intentionally,

00:43:14.140 but it was a bad play and it looked like it was a little bit, you know, a blown opportunity, I guess.

00:43:21.900 So there's, uh, there's some reason to believe that some people would have a reason to be mad at

00:43:31.180 Bondi and we don't know exactly who said, um, tell everybody that there's nothing to see here,

00:43:38.220 but don't you assume it was Trump? Don't you believe that whatever, uh, Cash Patel and Bongino

00:43:47.020 and Bondi said about Epstein, don't you assume that that was all run past Trump and he said,

00:43:55.180 this is what you're going to say? Don't you believe that? Because I definitely don't believe that any of

00:44:02.300 them went rogue and said, you know, I'll just say what I think. And this is what I think. Oh, there's

00:44:09.100 nothing there. I don't buy it. So I think it's, uh, Trump's decisions, but maybe he was influenced by

00:44:18.780 one of them more than the other, something like that. But if you're, if you're going to try to bet

00:44:24.620 whether Dan Bongino is really going to quit his job over any of this Epstein stuff, um, I would give

00:44:32.380 you the following equation. So Bongino went from the top of the pile in the best job you could ever have.

00:44:42.940 What I'm doing right now. Yeah. I laugh because even though I monetize my podcast,

00:44:50.060 um, I wouldn't do it unless I sort of enjoyed it every day. Well, not even sort of, I enjoy it.

00:44:57.740 I have absolute enjoyment of doing it. Even the prep, you know, which takes hours. Absolutely enjoy it.

00:45:05.740 Now, do you think that Dan Bongino went from the top of the pile, one of the top podcasters in the

00:45:13.660 country, and the podcasting is, you know, sort of the hottest area you could be in.

00:45:19.340 And then he left there to have some government job that probably involves commuting and people hating

00:45:28.300 him and all this drama and the rumors. How much do you think he wishes he had his old job back?

00:45:37.020 Just, you know, just to use your common sense. Do you think he goes into the FBI every day and says,

00:45:43.740 man, I made a good choice? I don't think so. I think he made the patriotic choice.

00:45:53.900 I believe he took the job because he is a genuine patriot. That's my belief. Now, again, I can't read

00:46:01.420 his mind. And I don't know him personally. But, you know, we all have to be judges of character,

00:46:08.620 because you can't avoid it. My judge of his character is that he's the real deal. Meaning

00:46:15.500 that he would have only taken the job if he thought he could do something that would help

00:46:20.620 help the president and help the country. Because he was giving up a lot. Giving up the best job

00:46:30.860 for the worst job. Who does that? Well, I mean, it's like somebody joining the military because the

00:46:38.380 country got attacked. It's a really big sacrifice. And he made it. Now, suppose that he found out he

00:46:50.060 couldn't do the honest job that he thought he wanted to do. Because let's say somebody,

00:46:56.620 we don't have to know who, said, well, you know the truth, but you're not allowed to say it.

00:47:03.340 What would Dan Bongino say if somebody who had enough power to make it happen said you're not

00:47:12.220 allowed to tell the truth on this issue, let's say the Epstein issue, that your base and your fans

00:47:21.500 really, really care about. But you're not allowed to tell the truth. What would you do? Or what would

00:47:28.700 you assume that Dan Bongino would do? Well, at the very least, I would make some threats.

00:47:36.700 And I would say, look, here's the deal. I think we botched that Epstein rollout. But if we can fix it, 0.79

00:47:44.140 maybe I'll stay. But if we can't fix it, I don't want to be part of a fraud.

00:47:50.700 And I'm going to go back to my perfect job. Now, if he quit, and even if he didn't tell you all the

00:48:01.100 details, so this will be hypothetical. If Bongino quits, and the only public statement he makes

00:48:08.940 is something like, my ethics were incompatible with the job I was asked to do.

00:48:15.500 I suppose that's it. No details. My ethics, my moral center was incompatible with the job I was

00:48:24.940 being asked to do. So I'm going to go back to podcasting. Would he retain his audience?

00:48:32.380 Because it would be a little bit like admitting that he lied, but telling you that he was asked to do it,

00:48:40.940 and then you would be noticing that he quit his job in protest, which is a very clean way to tell you

00:48:47.740 that he didn't mean what he said, and that he's not in favor of it. Would you then say, you know what,

00:48:55.980 I really respect that guy, because he resigned? You know, we always say, if you really believe that,

00:49:03.660 why didn't you resign? We say that all the time about other people. So if we thought that he was

00:49:11.660 forced to be a little disingenuous, and then you saw him quit, and then he said, I'm not going to give

00:49:19.740 you details, but, you know, let's be honest, you probably know exactly why I quit. Now, going back to

00:49:26.140 my podcasting job, what would his audience do? I think they would go back, wouldn't they? I think

00:49:34.700 they would say, you're an honest man who got caught in a bad situation. You did the best you could. It

00:49:41.420 doesn't make sense for you to stay there any longer. Glad you're back to podcasting. And then his family

00:49:47.500 would say, oh, finally, you're back to doing what you love. You're not commuting to Washington.

00:49:55.740 Wouldn't this be the very best time for him to quit, if he wanted to quit anyway? Do you think

00:50:02.700 he wanted to quit anyway? Probably. And I'm only saying that because he left the best job you could

00:50:10.460 ever have, podcasting, to go to the worst job you could ever have, which is you have to do what you're

00:50:17.900 told and you can't do what you think is right. The worst. So I don't believe he's made a decision

00:50:27.820 because, you know, he probably is going to wait to the last minute to make one. But if he decided

00:50:34.460 to go back to podcasting with just a general statement about why he's leaving, I would fully

00:50:41.900 respect that. Now, I would also respect if he stayed because I don't have any negative knowledge

00:50:50.220 about him at all. But I wouldn't believe anything about this story until it's really confirmed.

00:51:00.220 I don't believe all the who's mad at whom and why they're mad and who thinks who botched or whatever

00:51:06.860 and who's talking to who. I don't know if I believe any of that. But let's watch him. So Bungino's kind of

00:51:14.860 the canary in the coal mine because we just assume he's going to do whatever is the right thing.

00:51:23.340 And we don't know what that is because we don't know what pressure he's under or anything like that.

00:51:28.460 But I do think I'd expect him to do the right thing. And given that his own personal interest

00:51:37.260 would suggest that quitting kind of soon and making this the reason for quitting,

00:51:44.780 that might kill two birds with one stone. One bird would be he could get back to his awesome career

00:51:51.900 without destroying his reputation. And the other is, it would tell you exactly what was going on there.

00:52:00.300 Yeah. At that point, you would know for sure that there's something going on with the Epstein files.

00:52:10.300 So anyway, so we'll keep an eye on that. I like all three of them. I like Bondi, I like Bongino,

00:52:20.700 and I like Kash Patel. So I'll tell you what I'm not going to do is take sides. Unless some new information

00:52:30.220 comes up comes up that I've never heard. To me, they all look like they're loyal, Trump, mega-compatible people.

00:52:38.780 And, you know, I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to any of them.

00:52:47.900 Anyway, Bill O'Reilly is pretty sure that the president is behind whatever happened.

00:53:00.380 He had the Epstein file release. He thinks that the president was behind how it was handled.

00:53:09.260 And then, let's see.

00:53:13.500 All right.

00:53:15.740 According to Glenn Beck at The Blaze,

00:53:22.380 his team has filed a FOIA request, freedom of information request,

00:53:26.780 to get all of Dan Bongino's texts and emails regarding Epstein to Pam Bondi.

00:53:34.460 Now, that's something you could do? Are you telling me that the Freedom of Information Act

00:53:41.580 would allow any citizen to just file some paperwork, and then we could see the private emails

00:53:49.740 of two people who are currently in the government?

00:53:52.620 What? Is that real? Well, when did that become real? Has that always been real?

00:54:01.660 Now, I understand if people were not in government anymore, or, you know, maybe time had gone by or

00:54:07.740 something, or maybe it was part of a, you know, let's say, part of a legal action or something.

00:54:13.340 But, oh, with the redactions. With the redactions. Okay. So, that's the catch. So, as long as the

00:54:21.660 government can redact anything they want, I'm just gleaning this from the comments. As long as the

00:54:28.860 government has the option of redacting whatever they want, then I guess the citizens can ask for

00:54:35.260 whatever they want. Doesn't mean they'll get it. But, interesting play. It's an interesting play.

00:54:45.820 All right. Here's some more fake news, maybe. I saw a claim on social media that Epstein gave all of his

00:54:58.220 money to his brother right before he died, like two days before he died. Grok says that's not

00:55:06.780 technically true, but that Epstein did. He put all of his money in a trust. I think it was an overseas

00:55:15.500 trust. Virgin Islands. Oh, U.S. Virgin Islands. And we assume that the trust beneficiary was his only

00:55:24.620 relative, which was his brother. So, in a way, he did sign over his money to his brother. But probably,

00:55:33.900 probably through the mechanism of the trust, we don't know the details.

00:55:41.500 And then, allegedly, the brother claimed his brother's body and buried it in an unmarked grave

00:55:49.980 next to his parents in Palm Beach. Unmarked grave. So, if you were Jeffrey Epstein and you wanted to

00:56:03.020 fake your own death, would you make sure that your body could not be examined? Check. And would you

00:56:14.380 make sure that all of your money went to a trusted person so you still had access to it after you're

00:56:20.460 dead? You know, allegedly dead. Yeah. Now, I don't have a belief that he's still alive.

00:56:31.740 I have a belief that if you rule that out, I don't know if we could rule that out. Can we? I'm not

00:56:41.900 going to say I believe it, that he's still alive. I'm just going to say, if you're asking me to rule

00:56:49.100 it out, I don't have any basis upon which to rule it out either. It looks like, coincidentally,

00:56:56.700 he did the very things you would do if you were trying to fake your own death and still have resources

00:57:04.140 when you're done. So, keep an eye on that. I saw a post on X by Patrick Byrne about John Brennan.

00:57:16.780 John Brennan. Apparently, Patrick has some inside information that says John Brennan is abroad,

00:57:23.980 operating from a recreated MSNBC set somewhere, and that at one point he was operating from a

00:57:32.780 SCIF in Australia, continuing to coordinate against Trump. So, do you think that John Brennan

00:57:40.220 left the country because he's worried about consequences? I don't know. Maybe.

00:57:53.820 Apparently, some more, seven more people who had worked with the Jack Smith team that was working on

00:58:01.820 the cases against Trump. They have been let go. And I guess there were already a whole bunch of them

00:58:09.500 who had been fired for the same reason that they worked with Jack Smith as part of the prosecution

00:58:16.380 attempt or the attempt to lawfare Trump. And what's interesting is these are not even lawyers.

00:58:24.460 They were support staff. Now, does that seem like going a little too far?

00:58:30.860 I can totally understand why Trump would get rid of the lawyers who were acting against him for years. Of

00:58:38.780 course. But the support staff? Really? That's going a little deep. But, you know, it would be fair to

00:58:49.660 assume that the support staff was not pro-Trump. So, maybe that's all he needs. He doesn't need a reason.

00:58:55.740 Um, so he's cutting pretty deep there. Um, Hillary Clinton was on Smirkanish on CNN with a big old 1.00

00:59:07.660 Hillary Clinton pumpkin smile. And she says, quote, if social media platforms don't moderate content,

00:59:15.260 then we lose total control. Well, I guess that's saying it directly, isn't it? You could interpret

00:59:24.060 that sentence two different ways. One is just that bad things will happen. The other way is exactly what

00:59:30.780 she said. We will lose total control. We? Who's we? Now, what kind of total control are they going to lose?

00:59:40.780 No. Did Hillary say it exactly the way she meant it? That the Democrats and her posse would lose total

00:59:52.460 control of the narrative if they let social media just do what it does? Unbelievable.

01:00:00.380 So, yeah. And you wouldn't believe if you didn't see the video of her talking about this. She could not

01:00:08.460 get the smile off her face when she talked about the need to censor people on social media. I mean, 0.70

01:00:15.340 she seemed so genuinely happy. It's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, we're gonna lose control unless we censor the

01:00:23.660 hell out of them. Yeah. Yeah. Can't wait. Oh, she says she's the personification of evil. 1.00

01:00:33.340 The State Department, Marco Rubio, I guess it got 1,300 staffers as part of a big overhaul of the

01:00:42.620 State Department. And when I see something like that, 1,300 people have been downsized.

01:00:53.100 What were those 1,300 people doing? How could you take any organization? I mean, I know the answer,

01:01:01.020 but it's still mind-boggling. That there were 1,300 people that, according to management,

01:01:09.100 were unnecessary. And they were all being paid. They're all commuting to work. How would you like

01:01:16.140 to be one of the 1,300 when you'd been working every day for, you know, maybe years and years?

01:01:23.420 And then somebody says, oh, we just realized, you know, all that work that you did for decades

01:01:30.060 probably didn't need any of it. That was my corporate experience that gave birth to Dilbert.

01:01:38.940 One day I realized in my corporate jobs that if I had never existed in my job,

01:01:48.380 nothing would be different. Nothing about the company would be different.

01:01:53.100 Nothing about the stock price.

01:01:56.540 Every day I was going to work and getting paid, putting all the, in these hours.

01:02:01.500 And I was completely aware that none of it made any difference to anybody.

01:02:05.900 And you could just take me away from history.

01:02:10.700 I think comedian Nate Bargatze, he has this little, little joke. He says that if he went back in time,

01:02:19.260 was that if he goes back in time, that nothing would change.

01:02:29.340 I forget his exact punchline, but it was something like,

01:02:33.180 oh, so how do you make a nuclear power plant? And he'd be like, I don't really know.

01:02:43.500 That wasn't his punchline. He had a better one.

01:02:45.980 But the idea was that he wouldn't be able to affect history because he doesn't know enough

01:02:51.020 about even our current time. That's pretty funny. All right.

01:03:01.100 So what about this story that after lots of investigation, several of the agents who were

01:03:10.220 protecting Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania event where he got shot in the air,

01:03:14.620 that several of the agents were suspended now only for days or weeks, right? Not a permanent

01:03:21.500 suspension. But here's my question. How could there be so many agents who on the same day

01:03:31.500 and at the same time and in the same place, all of them independently were doing something worthy of

01:03:39.420 suspension? What? How is that even possible? What the hell were they doing that several of them

01:03:51.100 were worthy of suspension? Now, if they said to me, well, you know, one of these people should have kept

01:03:59.340 the door locked. Or one of these people should have said, make sure there's somebody on the roof.

01:04:07.420 Or one of these people should have said, hey, there's a guy walking around with a range finder

01:04:14.860 and a drone. Maybe we should stop what we're doing and check this out. Now, you could easily understand

01:04:21.820 how there'd be one or two people there who did something that was sketchy enough

01:04:29.020 that you think they should be suspended for temporarily. But how could there be several?

01:04:35.900 Like, how could you have a handful of people who all independently did something so non-standard to

01:04:43.660 their job? At the same time that they all get suspended? I would love to know what their particular

01:04:52.780 crimes were. Because it does get to the question of, were they doing it intentionally? Now, I doubt it

01:05:02.060 was a big, well-organized anything. Because if you're going to do an assassination like that,

01:05:09.900 you're not going to have a dozen people in on it. And this would assume that, you know,

01:05:15.820 something like a dozen people did all the wrong things to get him killed. It doesn't feel like

01:05:23.980 that would be the way anybody would do a plot to have too many people involved in it. But anyway.

01:05:30.780 So, as you know, the border enforcement people, ICE, they raided two different cannabis farms in

01:05:42.300 California on Thursday. And collectively, they got 300 people detained for deportation. 300?

01:05:53.580 So, these were two businesses. They were both pop farms. And collectively, they had 300 people who were

01:06:01.420 undocumented and working there. What kind of pop farm these 300 people? 0.84

01:06:06.540 And I would say that's a dead and robot situation. So, eventually, robots.

01:06:16.700 But apparently, one person died in the process of these raids. I didn't see the details of how

01:06:22.940 they died or what they died of. But that's tragic. And I guess one of the cannabis farms had been

01:06:32.700 donating to Governor Newsom.

01:06:41.020 So, but that doesn't mean anything.

01:06:45.340 The thing that bothered me is that the price of weed in California is going to go up now.

01:06:50.700 Hey, I thought Trump was going to reduce the price of my essentials. But no. No.

01:06:59.340 Apparently, the supply of marijuana will go down quite a bit. And prices might go higher.

01:07:06.700 I don't know if you know this, but the prices for marijuana have dropped quite a bit

01:07:12.540 in recent years since it was legal. When it was first legalized, I think an ounce cost

01:07:23.500 would be $200. So, the price of weed did, in fact, respond to supply and demand. And

01:07:41.020 at least there was no inflation on weed. But maybe there will be.

01:07:52.060 There's a new poll that says Democrats look out of touch and awoke and weak. We may have talked about

01:07:59.500 this one. And there was a super PAC who did the poll. And they've decided that the Democrats focusing on

01:08:10.780 fighting for democracy. It was still popular within the party, but not in the general electorate.

01:08:18.780 How much do you surprise? Remember how many times I told you that it was ridiculous? That the Democrats

01:08:26.940 thought that fighting to maintain your democracy was not going to resonate with the public?

01:08:36.380 That's just something that news geeks say. But I don't know anybody who's just living their life,

01:08:45.180 who's worried about democracy being taken away by Trump.

01:08:49.740 And here's the poll that supports my hunch that the public didn't really care about the stealing

01:08:56.540 democracy part because they didn't see it as real. They also didn't care about the oligarchy.

01:09:01.340 I'm seeing in the comments. Yeah, they didn't care about the oligarchy either.

01:09:08.620 If you're really into politics, that's the stuff you debate. But if you're just a casual citizen,

01:09:17.260 and somebody said maybe your biggest problems, how many just soccer moms and dads who are not paying

01:09:24.380 attention to politics, how many of them would say, well, I'm worried about the oligarchy,

01:09:30.380 or I'm worried about the attack on democracy? Probably none. But when you see that Mondani guy, 0.95

01:09:40.220 when he gets all this purchase and all this attention, because he said the right thing,

01:09:45.580 which is we're going to work on affordability. Affordability was really a good kill shot.

01:09:52.540 You know, I'm not a Mondani fan because he's a socialist. But when he found a message, he just

01:10:02.140 said energy and the right policy message. He didn't even have solutions, really. I mean,

01:10:08.540 not practical ones. But it reminded me of Trump. When people looked at Trump in the very beginning,

01:10:15.900 they just said, oh, there's no way. I mean, we see that he's exciting. He's bringing a lot of energy.

01:10:23.180 We get it. And yeah, yeah, when he talks about the border and the wall, those are popular with his base,

01:10:30.860 but that's not enough. You know, you're going to have to be an experienced politician to win an election.

01:10:37.340 That's what people said. But it turns out that Trump needed two things, the right policies

01:10:46.060 and the right amount of energy. And everything else we were willing to forgive or just enjoy as a show,

01:10:54.780 in my case. And I think that Mondani is another example of that. He definitely got the right policy,

01:11:02.460 affordability, better than I've seen anybody do it, really. So he nailed the policy, not the solutions,

01:11:12.940 but at least he said, I feel your pain, you know, sort of the Bill Clinton thing. I feel your pain.

01:11:17.820 It's affordability. And then he brought the energy. Now, you could talk about, you know,

01:11:25.260 all different things that he did that you might like in both cases, Trump and Mondani. But I feel

01:11:33.100 like it just came down to that. Do you have the right policy? I mean, have you even identified the

01:11:39.260 problem? And then do you have the energy to make it happen? And they both fit that energy plus the

01:11:47.420 right policy according to their base.

01:11:49.740 When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners, I started wondering,

01:11:56.140 is every fabulous item I see from Winners? Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. 1.00

01:12:01.580 Are those from Winners? Ooh, or those beautiful gold earrings? Did she pay full price? Or that leather

01:12:07.740 tote? Or that cashmere sweater? Or those knee-high boots? That dress? That jacket? Those shoes? Is anyone

01:12:14.220 paying full price for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners.

01:12:18.940 Find fabulous for less. Anyway, Jen Psaki and her TV show on MSNBC that replaced Rachel Maddow's 1.00

01:12:31.740 time slot is doing terrible in the ratings. Lost 44% of her audience. You know, I'm always surprised.

01:12:42.540 Was Rachel Maddow was Rachel Maddow so popular that if you replace her with somebody who's,

01:12:50.700 in my opinion, a bit of a clone? You know, it's not like Jen Psaki is a completely different person 0.99

01:12:59.740 than Rachel Maddow. So why would the viewership go down so much? It doesn't seem like that much of a change. But

01:13:11.260 one of my favorite hobbies is looking at Fox News and what they do right and comparing it to MSNBC and what

01:13:21.980 they do wrong. MSNBC and CNN appear to be under the impression that news is something informing people,

01:13:33.980 especially about the bad news. So if you turn on CNN or you turn on MSNBC, you're mostly going to get some

01:13:43.020 bad news. And it's not all political. You know, some of it might be natural disasters and stuff.

01:13:51.340 And those will be on every network. But the thing that Fox News has been getting right for a long time

01:13:58.940 is the understanding that people watch news as entertainment. How many of you are in that category?

01:14:06.300 When I turn on the news, I'm sort of a little bit trying to find out what's new.

01:14:11.820 But mostly I'm looking to be entertained. And when I'm watching Fox News, I'm often entertained,

01:14:20.780 depending on what show I'm watching. And if I turn on CNN or MSNBC, because I do cycle through the three

01:14:27.500 of them, they're not trying to entertain. They're trying to get you worked up or angry. And I can feel the

01:14:35.100 difference. But I also note that Greg Gutfeld completely changes the nature of Fox News in a way

01:14:47.020 that's made them dominant. I think he's, more than anybody else, he's proven that people will watch for

01:14:54.940 the entertainment, which is why he has two shows. You know, he's on The Five, which is the top ratings

01:15:02.300 thing at that time slot. And then he's got his own show, Gutfeld, which again is, you know,

01:15:09.660 tops in the ratings. So he's now got, you know, two important time slots in which it's very clear to

01:15:17.740 the viewer that, you know, entertainment is why you turned it on. You learn some stuff because,

01:15:25.660 you know, they're dealing with the same news that the other networks are. So it's not like you're

01:15:29.500 going to be uninformed. But the intent is to make it entertaining. And then I realized the other day

01:15:36.860 that Jesse Waters is a similar kind of vibe. When you watch him on The Five, he's playing it for laughs,

01:15:45.420 and he does a great job. And now he has his own show. So he's got his own hour, is it? In which,

01:15:53.020 you know, he plays it a little bit more seriously, but you know, you can tell he's always got a smile

01:15:59.580 on his face. So they have something like, you know, three hours every night during the week,

01:16:08.380 in which it's unambiguously true that, you know, you're going to get entertained if you watch either

01:16:13.900 those or any of those shows. And it's amazing to me that CNN and MSNBC have not taken any kind of a

01:16:23.100 learning from that. CNN, I think they're still doing it. Maybe they, maybe not. But they launched

01:16:32.460 that show that was like a game show in which they would make fun of the news. And Michael Ian Black was

01:16:41.260 on that and some other people. And I never found it funny because it was a little too forced.

01:16:48.140 So I don't know if that's even still on, but they tried.

01:16:55.340 Let's see, what else?

01:16:59.580 There's some crypto executive orders that are expected from the White House.

01:17:06.140 And I always have trouble following this topic. But the reason that Bitcoin is going up in value,

01:17:15.820 it had a good run this week. I didn't know why. But apparently, it's in anticipation

01:17:22.460 of it becoming a better, I don't know if I want to call it an investment. I guess I would.

01:17:28.140 Because of the upcoming executive orders. And they would do, among other things, ban a central bank

01:17:36.060 digital currency. I guess that would be taking away a competitor to Bitcoin. It would protect

01:17:43.100 self-custody so you don't have to keep it in the bank. And stable coins, which are coins that are

01:17:50.940 pegged to the dollar, meaning if the dollar goes up, they go up in the same amount, would be backed by

01:17:58.380 the treasuries. And then there'd be some market structure, blah, blah, blah. So some of it I don't

01:18:06.140 understand, but OAN is reporting this. So there might be something big coming with crypto.

01:18:14.060 If you're watching the Trump and Jerome Powell saga, which is always fun. So of course, you know,

01:18:26.220 Trump wants Jerome Powell to quit as soon as possible, or better yet, just lower interest rates,

01:18:33.100 because that's what he really wants. But the Gateway Pundit is reporting that

01:18:37.740 Jerome Powell is getting some pressure now. And that, according to Bill Pulte, who's the chairman

01:18:47.820 of the board of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bill Pulte posted on X, quote, I'm encouraged by reports

01:18:55.900 that Jerome Powell is considering residing. I think this will be the right decision for America,

01:19:01.420 and the economy will boom. Now, I don't know what those rumors are. I'm not sure that rumors can

01:19:11.980 necessarily be trusted. But there's quite a push. And I think Bill Pulte is the right person to be

01:19:20.780 pushing this, because he's in the domain where the interest rates are going to affect affordability

01:19:27.660 of housing in a big way. So he certainly has a dog in this fight. Intel's CEO was talking to his own

01:19:38.300 company and told them it's too late for Intel to catch up in AI chips. What? Can you imagine your CEO

01:19:47.020 of a chip company saying, yeah, it's too late, and that the big companies like AMD and Nvidia

01:19:53.820 basically have already captured the market? And he says, on training, I think it is too late for us.

01:20:02.540 So Intel, that's a little too honest. He must have been an engineer before he was a CEO.

01:20:09.740 That's a little bit too honest. Yeah, it's too late for us. We'll never catch up.

01:20:14.620 So we're doomed. He didn't say they're doomed, but it feels like it.

01:20:19.500 Well, in good news, the U.S. is opening its first rare earth mine in more than 70 years.

01:20:33.580 And apparently it will provide six of the 17 rare earth materials and has tons and tons of supply.

01:20:42.220 Now, it's supposed to be refined. I don't know who's going to do that or if we've solved that.

01:20:46.780 But if you're wondering, is the U.S. moving in a useful way to be free of China's 1.00

01:20:56.060 control of rare earth minerals, the answer is yes, at least for six of 17.

01:21:02.620 And I expect we'll see more movement there. All right, let me give you a lesson in economics

01:21:10.060 so that I can say that you were smarter when you left.

01:21:16.140 I had made the observation that if it's true that Trump has decided that Russia and Ukraine

01:21:23.340 will never agree to a ceasefire, and it does look true. I don't know that that's true,

01:21:28.860 but from my perspective, it looks very much like Trump has given up and probably should,

01:21:36.860 that at least for now, Russia and Ukraine prefer to fight.

01:21:43.420 Now, a bunch of people said to me, Scott, you stupid freaking idiot. Ukraine isn't choosing to fight. 0.65

01:21:51.900 To which I say, did they stop? If they didn't stop, they choose to fight.

01:21:59.020 Now, what you really mean is they have a good reason to fight. I'm not talking about the reason,

01:22:05.660 and I'm not arguing that they don't have a good reason. I'm just saying that neither side has made

01:22:11.740 a decision to stop, and they would prefer fighting over whatever they see as the reasonable alternatives.

01:22:20.380 So, as long as they both want to fight, what would be the best thing for the greatest president

01:22:27.100 in our history to do? Let me tell you, if you know you can't fix it, you should monetize it.

01:22:41.020 And it looks like Trump might be doing that. So, what he's done is he's providing weapons to Ukraine,

01:22:50.300 but he's making NATO pay for it. Now, what's the next thing you're going to say to me? Scott,

01:22:57.100 you idiot. I thought you understood things like this. You know that we're one of the biggest funders

01:23:03.900 of NATO, so it's not like it's free. We're putting the money into NATO and then taking it right back out

01:23:12.620 to buy our weapons. So, it's not really monetizing it, right? It's not monetizing it,

01:23:19.980 because a lot of it's our own money. Here's why you're wrong about that.

01:23:25.660 It's a concept called sunk costs. Here's how you should do that analysis.

01:23:34.060 Were we going to pay our 5% to NATO, like the other countries are supposed to? Yes.

01:23:40.780 We were going to give NATO money no matter what they did with it. That's called a sunk cost,

01:23:48.060 meaning that part's not going to change. The money will come out of our pockets and it will go to NATO.

01:23:54.220 Nothing will change that. That's the most public agreed upon thing, that all of the countries will

01:24:02.060 try to get to their 5%, you know, not right away, but there's a schedule for that.

01:24:07.660 But the United States most certainly is signed up for a certain amount of money that we will

01:24:14.940 definitely take out of our pockets and definitely give to NATO. If you know that that won't change

01:24:21.660 and can't change in any reasonable way, then that doesn't count in the analysis. So, in other words,

01:24:29.820 if we're going to give NATO money anyway, the only question is, do we want some of it back in the form

01:24:36.620 of buying weapons from the US? And that's apparently what Trump's doing. So, if you understand the

01:24:43.580 concept of sunk costs, the money we give to NATO is just going to be there no matter what,

01:24:49.580 no matter what they do with it. Wouldn't it make more sense for us to have as much of that as possible

01:24:56.540 come right back to the United States in terms of purchasing American products, in this case,

01:25:01.580 war fighting products? Of course it would. Of course it would. So, we may have created a situation,

01:25:12.780 or Trump may have, in which we don't have to solve the problem at all, because the two sides that are

01:25:20.060 fighting prefer the war. And again, when I say they prefer the war, they would both like the other side to

01:25:30.140 stop fighting, and for their side to get everything they wanted out of it. But that's not going to

01:25:35.500 happen. So, instead, they don't prefer stopping, because that would give the other one the win.

01:25:43.660 So, they prefer to fight. So, Trump monetized it.

01:25:52.060 I could not be more proud of my president. If that's what's really happening, and you know, I'm

01:25:59.580 getting ahead of it a little bit. Maybe that's not what's happening. But if that's what he came up

01:26:04.620 with, well, we can't stop it. We might as well monetize it. I would be so impressed. I mean, I would

01:26:12.540 just be so, so impressed if he monetized it. Anyway. Russian President Vladimir Putin

01:26:22.700 allegedly is in favor of an Iran nuclear deal in which Iran would not be allowed to enrich uranium on

01:26:33.260 their own. But since Putin is a weasel, do we think he's just trying to be useful for world peace?

01:26:41.180 Or is it more likely that if Iran is not allowed to enrich, that they would have to depend on other

01:26:51.420 countries, such as Russia, to provide them with the uranium that's already enriched for their medical

01:27:00.700 use and for their domestic nuclear energy use? And that would give Russia some leverage over Iran.

01:27:11.100 So, I feel like this is more about Russia having some leverage over Iran.

01:27:16.140 Iran. But I doubt it's because he's trying to be useful. 0.98

01:27:23.420 In Great Britain, according to the Telegraph,

01:27:26.860 there's some serious people who think that Britain should build more bomb shelters because they expect

01:27:35.340 to be in a war with Russia. Are you following that? That the UK is acting like it's preparing for war

01:27:44.460 with Russia? Why would the UK want to have a war with Russia? That seems like the worst idea in the

01:27:52.220 world for both teams. Anyway, that's all I got for today. As I reminded you, Owen Gregorian will have

01:28:00.860 a Spaces event in a few minutes as soon as we're done here. And you can continue talking about this

01:28:07.580 stuff or maybe some other stuff if you want. But go to X and look for Owen Gregorian and you'll find

01:28:15.980 a link to the link to the spaces, which will begin pretty soon. All right.

01:28:24.540 And I'm going to say a few words privately to the people on Locals, my beloveds.

01:28:30.780 Subscribers, I will see you. Thanks for joining. And I will see you tomorrow. Same time, same place.

01:28:37.980 I hope. Bye for now. Oh, no, it's not working again. All right. For reasons which I cannot determine.

01:28:49.340 I can't go private without turning off the studio and getting back in. So I'll just see you on Locals

01:28:57.340 or I'll see you on Spaces. All right, everybody. Say, see you later. I probably have to end it a different way.

01:29:07.340 All right. I'm going to have to close it and reopen it.

01:29:37.340 And video.

01:29:38.940 Let's see you later.

01:29:39.500 Next, please do it again.

01:29:40.300 Anywhere I have to give a video?

01:29:42.300 No doubt.

01:29:43.260 Please do it again.

01:29:44.060 Let's do it again.

01:29:48.420 Thank you.

01:29:50.580 Please, I'll think so much.

01:29:56.260 Every week, we'll be at next.

01:29:59.820 And then we will be at next.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - July 12, 2025

Episode 2895 CWSA 07⧸12⧸25

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript