Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2960 CWSA 09⧸16⧸25

00:00:00.520 Good morning. Come on in. Grab a beverage. Get a nice comfortable chair. Yeah. Let me

00:00:09.560 check your stocks for you. They are... Really? They're up? Hmm. Why does this look like these

00:00:21.920 numbers are old? Well, maybe they're up. They look like they're up. So let's get my comments

00:00:29.180 going, and then we've got a show for you. Oh, yeah. We got cats. We got news. It's just...

00:00:38.180 It's really everything. Robert Redford has passed away. He was 1,000 years old. 89, actually.

00:00:53.840 Boom, boom, boom, boom. All right. There we go.

00:00:59.180 Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization. It's called

00:01:14.420 Coffee with Scott Adams, and you've never had a better time. But if you'd like to take a chance

00:01:21.380 of elevating your experience to levels that no one can even understand with their tiny,

00:01:27.180 shiny human brains, all you need for that is a cupper mugger and glass, a tanker, 1.00

00:01:32.260 Charles Stein, a canteen, junker, flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:01:37.840 I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day,

00:01:43.340 the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.

00:01:49.480 Go. So, so good. All right. First, an announcement. I will be on Tucker Carlson's live live stream

00:02:11.880 tonight. The show starts at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. my time in California. And I'll just be there

00:02:23.340 for 20 minutes. I'm one of a few guests. Megyn Kelly's on before I am. And probably 40 minutes or so

00:02:34.820 into the show is when I will appear. I think we're going to be talking mostly about the assassination.

00:02:43.580 And I'll just be there 20 minutes. I'll do my thing. So look for that. Hey, I wonder if there's

00:02:52.220 any scientific studies that didn't need to happen because they could have just asked Scott. Oh,

00:02:58.200 here's one. Turns out that the experiment of removing cell phones from school classrooms

00:03:07.840 substantially improves grades. Now, did any of you not know that would be the case? Is there somebody

00:03:19.300 here who thought that letting kids play on their phone instead of paying attention in class was going

00:03:24.400 to be real good for their grades? No. Every one of us knew in advance that that would be the case.

00:03:32.640 Well, Stephen King's new movie, The Long Walk, apparently it flopped at the box office.

00:03:41.860 And it was like the lowest opening for a Stephen King adaptation in 33 years.

00:03:46.720 Some say it's because he said bad things about Charlie Kirk. Ah, that might be part of it.

00:03:56.200 Might be part of it. But the funny thing is, I don't believe, now I don't know this for sure,

00:04:04.720 so don't sue me, Stephen King. But I don't believe that a 77-year-old Stephen King is writing the

00:04:12.260 books himself. And I don't believe he's doing much work on the movie. So that means he had exactly one

00:04:19.360 job. What was his one job regarding the movie? All he had to do was not fuck it up.

00:04:32.260 He probably didn't have to write the book. He probably didn't have to do anything with the movie 0.67

00:04:37.600 except take, you know, cash to the check. The only thing he had to do is not destroy the entire

00:04:45.400 franchise by saying something so stupid you can't believe it. Well, it turns out the bar was too high. 1.00

00:04:56.260 And he couldn't figure out how to go a few weeks without saying something so sensationally stupid 1.00

00:05:02.000 that people would say, I can't even watch your dumbass movie. You had one job, Stephen King. 1.00

00:05:10.200 But it gets better. He decided to do a little sort of impromptu, I guess you'd call it a commercial

00:05:18.700 for the movie, in which he is walking down a long road. You know, it's just him. And that's the name

00:05:25.680 in the movie. It's a long walk. So that probably made sense to him. I would like to do my impression.

00:05:33.920 If you haven't seen it, it's pretty funny. I'd like to do my impression of Stephen King doing

00:05:40.860 the one thing he needed to do, which is try not to look pathetic. This is him walking. 0.98

00:05:55.680 He couldn't pull off the walking. Now, I don't know why. He is famously an alcoholic. But I don't

00:06:12.300 know. He's also 77. He doesn't look like he's in very good shape. So I don't know why he couldn't

00:06:19.120 pull off walking in a straight line. But you can imagine. Anyway, so I think there's a theme for

00:06:27.960 today's show. The theme is schadenfreude. There's going to be more of it coming. That's when you feel

00:06:38.820 good that something bad happened to somebody else. Because I'm a terrible person. But I try to limit it

00:06:48.220 to people who were themselves bad. So that I don't feel so bad that way. Anyway, we have some other

00:06:56.300 news. US retail sales are a lot stronger than people thought. They're 0.6% of the month. And people

00:07:06.220 thought it would only be 0.2. Probably they assumed the tariffs would knock it down. But looks like it

00:07:13.780 didn't. So that's good. The economy is definitely showing signs of strength. The stock market is at

00:07:22.500 crazy levels. I don't know if you can stay there. But it's pretty high. All right. Axios has an

00:07:31.440 exclusive survey they did. They found that half of young people are plagued by loneliness and family

00:07:39.220 problems. Loneliness and family problems. So we got two big problems in the country.

00:07:48.340 Well, the family problems I'm going to put to the side at the moment. But separately, besides massive

00:07:55.040 loneliness problems, we have a cost of housing is too high. Rents too high. Mortgage too high.

00:08:02.100 Houses cost too high. Houses cost too much. So don't you think those two problems are screaming for a

00:08:09.820 mutual solution? How could you solve loneliness at the same time as the cost of housing is too high?

00:08:21.420 You put multiple people in the same house. You know, people tend to not be lonely in, let's say,

00:08:27.520 a college dormitory. Even though it's not great living conditions, it feels great because you're

00:08:34.980 not lonely. There's always somebody there. So I like the idea of sometimes senior citizens will have

00:08:42.660 a big house. They don't want to leave. They can afford to stay. So you get a young person and maybe

00:08:49.380 two of them. So there's probably some way to design housing so that multiple people can be there so

00:08:58.340 nobody is lonely. Or maybe houses next to other houses so they can get together easily. But yeah,

00:09:06.940 loneliness and housing being too expensive, that's almost the same problem if you design your housing

00:09:14.940 situation right. Same solution. As I often say, it's a design problem. It's not a resource shortage.

00:09:24.440 It feels like it. It feels like, hey, we don't have enough money to buy these nice homes. But if you

00:09:30.880 design it properly, you probably can afford it.

00:09:33.640 Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke

00:09:41.840 sensors and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts,

00:09:46.620 a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web?

00:09:51.400 Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from Telus for peace of

00:09:57.980 mind at home and online. Visit telus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply.

00:10:05.460 Well, you'll be amazed and shocked to find out that a appeals court blocked something that Trump wants

00:10:11.760 to do. That would be the, what, hundredth time in the last few months. Um, and this case is blocking the

00:10:20.280 firing of, uh, fed governor, Lisa Cook. She's the one accused of, uh, cheating on her mortgages by claiming 0.89

00:10:29.740 that both of her houses are primary residence. Um, but, um, I guess the court has blocked that. 0.52

00:10:37.180 So that's not going to happen. Um, however, there's something new. Her new defense is that, uh, 0.93

00:10:45.160 she had a loan estimate that was part of her paperwork. And on the loan estimate, she declared

00:10:53.960 that her, uh, her house that was in question was a vacation home. So she's claiming, no, I, my paperwork

00:11:02.780 does show it's a vacation home. And that that's the issue, uh, that it doesn't show that it's a primary

00:11:09.120 residence. Well, apparently the document that has that is not a binding document. It's a loan

00:11:15.080 estimate, not, not binding. And, um, she also had said it was an investment property at one point,

00:11:24.880 not a second home. So some say that she even lied on the loan estimate because on the loan estimate 0.97

00:11:31.760 where she said it was a vacation home, it really wasn't. Apparently, allegedly it was always meant

00:11:39.680 to be a rental. So she may have lied a second time because her defense sounds like another lie.

00:11:49.280 Bill Pulte, who's been on the case here, um, pushing this, uh, this issue, he points out the

00:11:55.820 pattern of a liar on X. It started out with saying that the claims against her were unsubstantiated.

00:12:02.320 That's what Lisa Cook said. Uh, then she said it's baseless. Then she said it's unproven. And then

00:12:08.780 she said it happened before her nomination. So it doesn't count. Then she said it was a clerical error.

00:12:14.680 Then she said, uh, that there's not cause to fire. Then she said, Biden knew that she said,

00:12:21.000 uh, Oh, then she has some facial contradictions and she had a loan estimate that may have also been a 1.00

00:12:28.240 secondary lie. And now she says something about a Michigan tax official. I don't even know what that

00:12:34.420 is, but apparently she's been, uh, squirming quite a bit. That is your schadenfreude number two.

00:12:45.600 Well, Pam Bondi is getting a lot of heat from the right because she said something at an event 0.96

00:12:52.620 in which she said, uh, there's no place in our society for hate speech. We will target you if 0.51

00:12:59.700 you are targeting anyone with hate speech. Um, a number of people pointed out that hate speech

00:13:06.860 is specifically allowed under freedom of speech. So even though people are not terribly happy about

00:13:14.900 the hate speech, mostly the anti-Charlie Kirk stuff, they, they understand if they're conservatives,

00:13:21.480 they understand that unfortunately that's part of the price of free speech. However, there is a nuance

00:13:28.640 here that I think people missed when Pam Bondi talked about it. She said, there's no place for

00:13:34.820 hate speech, which is not a statement of it being illegal. She just says there's no place for it.

00:13:40.680 Then she follows up in the same, uh, paragraph with, we will target you if you are targeting anyone

00:13:48.420 with hate speech, which I interpreted to mean if you're using the hate speech to incite violence

00:13:55.320 against somebody, then you're in trouble because that would be illegal. The inciting violence would.

00:14:00.360 So it's not the speech per se, it's the speech in the service of inciting violence. So it does not look

00:14:08.760 like Pam Bondi believes that hate speech is illegal. It doesn't look like she ever thought that,

00:14:14.620 but a lot of people interpreted it that way, which I feel like is jumping the gun a little bit. I mean,

00:14:21.580 do you really think that Pam Bondi didn't understand that? Do you really think she

00:14:26.260 needed a lesson on freedom of speech? Really? So this is where it really comes in. She's the attorney

00:14:34.780 general. And you think she didn't understand that saying bad things is legal in free speech? You think

00:14:41.360 she didn't know that? Really? Really? You believe she didn't know that? Or is it more likely that when

00:14:50.540 she said targeting somebody with hate speech, what she meant was inciting violence, which she did later

00:14:57.920 clarify to say that's exactly what she meant. So I think that whole, uh, Pam Bondi thing, maybe,

00:15:04.100 maybe just people have a general problem with her cause they don't like, I don't know, not enough

00:15:10.900 Epstein disclosure or not enough people getting arrested or something. But I think that one's BS.

00:15:20.260 Well, there are quite a people losing jobs over their free speech. You know, people are saying things

00:15:28.100 online that are, um, sort of celebrating Charlie Cook's assassination. Um, and Axios is reporting that,

00:15:37.220 uh, there's quite a bit of the people getting fired. And a lot of people are, uh, being activists and

00:15:45.700 contacting companies where they have employees who said bad things. And it looks like most of those

00:15:52.020 employers are choosing to fire the person involved rather than continue to deal with it and get

00:15:59.560 boycotted and whatever else might happen. So people are in fact getting fired. And you know what I say

00:16:05.920 about that with all these people being canceled because of their speech? I say, may you live in the

00:16:14.000 world you created. May you live in the world you created. And that is what's happening. The conservatives

00:16:23.780 are saying, how about you live in the world that you created? Where if you say stuff that we don't

00:16:29.980 like, we complain to your boss and you get canceled. Right? Turnabout is fair play. Now I don't love

00:16:39.320 when, when, uh, the left canceled somebody on the right. I got canceled. I got good and canceled. I got

00:16:47.940 as canceled as you can get. And was it because I said something illegal? Nope. Did I, did I say

00:16:57.800 anything hateful? No. In fact, I said, I would like to stay away from hateful people. Not every one of

00:17:06.000 them, but there, you know, too many, there might be too many of them more than, more than you would

00:17:11.940 want to be around hateful people. People who hate you. So you don't want to be around people who hate

00:17:16.320 you. Um, so I said that got canceled. So part of me says, uh, wouldn't it be a better world if they

00:17:26.600 didn't cancel us and we didn't cancel them? However, there's nothing that's going to stop them from

00:17:32.280 trying to cancel the right. And if that's the world they built, let them live in it. 0.92

00:17:40.140 So yes, I admit I'm enjoying some schadenfreude, schadenfreude, the feeling you get when bad things

00:17:48.000 happen to people you're not crazy about. Um, but they're living in the world they created and here's

00:17:54.400 some examples. And by the way, if you're wondering what is the right number of people to get fired,

00:18:01.820 I would recommend 1600. There's no way to keep track, but you know what I mean? There were 1600

00:18:10.780 people on January 6th that went to jail. Most of them for free of speech. Most of them. The violent

00:18:17.840 ones are a different story, of course. But if you were just wandering around and you thought you were

00:18:22.720 protesting, that's a lot closer to free speech than it is to a violent insurrection. And 1600 people

00:18:32.340 went to jail. So if you asked me how many people on the left should lose their jobs, 1600, that'd be a

00:18:40.920 good start. Because I do think there needs to be some mutually assured destruction, even if it doesn't

00:18:49.220 make anything better. Do you all understand that point? Even if it doesn't make anything better,

00:18:56.180 might even make things worse, still have to do it. Because if you're never willing to do the mutually

00:19:01.980 assured destruction, then one side can just destroy you at their leisure. So no, there needs to be some

00:19:12.300 very strong pushback and we see it happening. I don't know how many people are getting fired,

00:19:19.100 but I suspect it's hundreds at this point. Let's see. Perkins Coy, the big law firm that I think was

00:19:25.760 associated with the Democrats and Hillary Clinton, they fired an attorney for something that the attorney 0.99

00:19:33.200 said about Charlie Kirk, they rapidly fired him. Good choice for a law firm. Let's see. There was the

00:19:42.960 Long Island newspaper Newsday. They had somebody who made a offensive cartoon and they removed the

00:19:51.060 syndicated editor, editorial cartoon. So they removed the cartoon. So they removed the person who made it.

00:19:59.400 They apologized. They apologized and removed the cartoon. Well, I don't know. Maybe that's enough.

00:20:07.360 The Washington Post fired a columnist for saying bad stuff, Karen Atiyah. She was accused of gross

00:20:17.320 misconduct. The Washington Post. I didn't know anybody was left at the Washington Post. I thought

00:20:24.560 everybody quit or got fired already, but apparently they still have employees, but one less. UCLA put their

00:20:34.520 so-called race and equity director on leave because he made bad comments about Charlie Kirk. So that's UCLA.

00:20:42.820 There's a Texas Tech student who was arrested for mocking Charlie Kirk at a Charlie Kirk vigil and said some bad

00:20:56.220 things running around causing trouble. And they slapped the cuffs on her and took her away. 1.00

00:21:01.920 Another, uh, I don't know. I hate, I hate to call this good news, but it's better than, than if it didn't

00:21:13.020 happen, I guess. Charlie Kirk's podcast, the ones that have been recorded up to this point have gone to

00:21:19.940 number one on the podcast list. No surprise. I don't know if that will, um, be a continuing thing because

00:21:28.200 he's not making new content obviously. Um, or if it's just people checking in to see what he said

00:21:34.300 lately and reacquainting themselves with his content, but it's better than not being the number one

00:21:41.540 podcast. Meanwhile, a so-called popular streamer, there's a character online. I don't know if you've

00:21:50.980 seen him, but his name is Destiny. Now Destiny appears to be in some kind of competition to become

00:21:58.860 the worst personality in the, in the entire world. Just the worst person. Oh my God. And I don't know,

00:22:07.360 maybe that's part of what makes him so well-known or famous, at least online, not to the rest of the

00:22:12.540 world. But Destiny is his name. He said he refused to condemn the assassination of Charles,

00:22:19.620 Charlie Kirk, because quote, you need conservatives to be afraid of getting killed. He said that on

00:22:26.840 Piers Morgan. Um, and then Elon Musk commented to Destiny's comment that maybe some conservatives need

00:22:37.920 to be afraid of getting killed. And Elon Musk said, uh, I don't think this jackass should be banned, 0.97

00:22:43.840 but Amazon should stop paying him to incite murder. So I didn't realize there's some kind of Amazon 0.85

00:22:50.420 podcast thing. I don't know. Um, he says that's insane. Separately, incitement to murder and domestic

00:22:57.740 terrorism is a felony crime. For that, he should go to prison. He can resume streaming when he has served

00:23:04.060 his term. Do you think that was a crime? Do you think it's a crime to say you need conservatives to be

00:23:11.780 afraid of getting killed when they go to events? So they look to their leadership to turn down the

00:23:17.620 temperature? So on one hand, he's asking both sides to turn down the temperature. Well, he's asking the

00:23:27.020 conservatives to turn down the temperature. Um, is asking to turn down the temperature the same as

00:23:36.740 inciting violence? Well, he kind of did both because he said that if they don't turn down the temperature,

00:23:44.260 then maybe some of this, uh, fear that people are having, uh, should be, maybe it should be maintained,

00:23:52.120 the fear. So he's talked about fear and he's talked about turning down the temperature. He didn't directly

00:23:57.360 say, wouldn't it be good if something bad happened to these people? He's right on the line. Um, I doubt that

00:24:05.360 would be actionable. I don't think he can be arrested for that, um, in my non-lawyer opinion,

00:24:10.480 but, uh, if you're Elon Musk and you've had probably countless murder attempts or, uh, or at least

00:24:18.800 threats, um, it would feel, it would feel a lot more like inciting violence. You know, if you're the

00:24:26.080 one, if you're specifically the one who might get attacked by somebody who listened to this guy,

00:24:32.640 destiny, well, it would feel like inciting violence then. So I certainly understand Elon Musk's point of

00:24:39.200 view. I don't know what the legal opinion would be there, but probably he just barely stayed in

00:24:46.920 bounds is my guess. Uh, well, there's a big drama between Candace Owens and, uh, investor Bill Ackman

00:24:56.080 over something that may or may not have happened with Charlie Kirk. So here's the situation. Um,

00:25:06.960 Candace Owens has made the claim that, uh, Charlie Kirk was threatened during some, uh, meeting that

00:25:15.040 involved Bill Ackman and the Hamptons. And I guess it was a larger event that Bill Ackman was there. And

00:25:22.000 the claim is that, uh, Charlie Kirk was, um, having some kind of change of heart about his opinions

00:25:30.400 about Israel. And I assume that would be opinions about, you know, the, the military stuff, I assume.

00:25:38.560 And, uh, there's some thought that maybe Israel wasn't happy with his point of view. So they have this

00:25:47.520 event and then Candace has claimed that, uh, that Charlie was offered a ton of money, not sure by who,

00:25:57.840 by, by who, Ackman or Israel, I don't know. Um, and that, uh, they were trying to pressure him

00:26:05.600 to not only agree with them on whatever they thought about Israel, but also to sort of avoid

00:26:13.200 contact or inviting Tucker Carlson to things. Um,

00:26:20.960 Bill Ackman has confirmed that he hosted the meeting, but, uh, that none of that happened.

00:26:27.680 He just says none of that, nothing like that happened. And there are some other witnesses who

00:26:32.800 were the people who worked, uh, with Charlie who were there for the entire time because he wasn't

00:26:39.280 really alone without them the whole time. And they said, no, nothing like that happened.

00:26:44.320 It's completely made up. Now here's the weird thing. Do you believe that, um, Candace would just 0.98

00:26:53.680 make something up? Does that sound like her? Certainly everybody could be wrong. Certainly

00:27:02.160 everybody could have a really strong suspicion about something, you know, like the,

00:27:06.240 the, the Macron stuff. She might be wrong about that, but that would be based on sort of a

00:27:12.880 statistical, you know, it's my assumption. It's not a lie. I don't believe she's lying

00:27:18.640 about any of it. She just might be wrong. And on the other hand, Bill Ackman's not a liar

00:27:26.400 as far as I know. I mean, and there were witnesses. So if he did lie, it'd be the dumbest thing in the

00:27:31.760 world. So I don't think he did. So how do you explain this situation where there really aren't 0.97

00:27:38.400 liars involved, but they have completely different impressions of what happened?

00:27:43.920 Well, I don't know. Probably since Candace wasn't there, she was hearing reports from somebody who may

00:27:51.200 have exaggerated something and turned something innocent into something it wasn't. I don't know.

00:27:58.960 Um, but there are many suspicions and we don't know. Um, and, uh, as I said, I'll be on Tucker's show

00:28:10.240 tonight sometime around sometime after 8 PM, probably 8 40 or so Eastern time. If you want to check me out.

00:28:19.440 All right. Um, there are, according to the FBI, there are seven social media accounts that appeared to

00:28:29.040 indicate advanced knowledge of the, uh, Charlie Kirk assassination. In other words, uh,

00:28:37.600 they, they joked about something like, well, wouldn't it be interesting if somebody took him out

00:28:44.960 on that date? So they, it did seem like there were too many people who knew about the upcoming attempt.

00:28:53.200 It didn't look like it. It didn't look like coincidence to me. And if you're ever planning to

00:29:00.880 assassinate somebody, my advice is don't tell your transfer friends, because it looks like 1.00

00:29:08.240 the trans community might not be the best at keeping secrets. I'm just saying they might not be the best 1.00

00:29:17.440 secret keepers. So anyway, so I don't know. We'll find out what that's about CNN. And as you know,

00:29:30.640 also MSNBC, there seems to be a push to blame Trump for not uniting the country enough and that that's

00:29:38.480 what happened to Charlie Kirk. If Trump had taken down the temperature and united the country better,

00:29:45.440 uh, then we wouldn't have this problem. Okay. All right. That's, that's what you think.

00:29:53.440 Uh, his extreme rhetoric. Now, here's my question. Wouldn't you expect Trump's extreme rhetoric

00:30:04.160 to influence conservatives to attack liberals? How in the world does his extreme rhetoric have only

00:30:13.840 one directional cause, which is people attacking conservatives? That, that's not very good extreme

00:30:21.440 rhetoric if, if the only thing it does is get you attacked. So, um, and how do you, how do you unite

00:30:31.520 people? If you're Trump, how do you unite people who are being absolutely brainwashed by their media?

00:30:39.520 Is it really his fault? If the entire media is brainwashing people to, to say that he's some

00:30:46.240 Hitler character, is it really his fault that he can't get past that? I don't know how you wouldn't 1.00

00:30:52.880 get past it. All right. I'm going to give you the, the frame and the filter that I'm seeing this, uh,

00:31:00.160 situation. Um, the way I see it is through my lens as a, uh, trained hypnotist. Most of you know that

00:31:09.520 because I say it too often. So I'm a trained hypnotist, literally. And so when I look at things,

00:31:15.120 I see it through a persuasion slash, you know, mental phenomena kind of a filter. Here's what I

00:31:22.640 see. There was a whole bunch of Hitler messaging ever since 2015. There's been all this Trump is

00:31:29.600 Hitler stuff and that that caused a mass hysteria because enough people took that to be literal,

00:31:37.600 that they actually believed they were living in a country in which a Hitlerian character was taking

00:31:43.840 over. And what that did was it formed a bubble and there were all these people. It wasn't every

00:31:49.680 Democrat, of course, it never works that way, but there was a lot of them, probably tens of millions

00:31:55.600 of people who got locked in a propaganda created Hitlerian bubble where they thought they were in

00:32:03.280 this, just the worst situation ever. And the country's going down the drain and, uh, it's all going to be

00:32:09.200 prison camps and all that. Now that would be a classic mass hysteria. If you haven't studied

00:32:16.800 mass hysterias, you really should. Because one of the features of it is that when people see other

00:32:22.720 people act in the same way, it reinforces that they must be right. Wait a minute. I think there's

00:32:28.480 a monster under my bed. And you think there's a monster under my bed. And wait a minute. Somebody

00:32:33.920 else thinks there's a monster under my bed. My God, there's a monster under my bed. There's no monster

00:32:39.200 under the bed. That's a mass hysteria. Now the word we use for it is TDS. But I would argue that TDS

00:32:47.440 would be the right word for one person. You know, if you're dealing with one person, they have Trump

00:32:53.360 derangement syndrome. If you're talking about a body of people who have all been propagandized and

00:32:59.840 hypnotized, that's closer to a mass hysteria. If the false thing they've been, they've come to believe

00:33:07.440 is, uh, also dangerous. So that's what the hysteria part is. You know, you don't get a hysteria

00:33:13.680 unless the false belief is also scary. So their false belief is very scary. Hitler is coming. 0.60

00:33:22.880 And the people living in that Hitlerian fantasy, um, there's not really any quick way to fix that.

00:33:34.400 That's not really fixable in the short run. And because if you were to point out that they're wrong,

00:33:42.640 they would be triggered into cognitive dissonance. Now, cognitive dissonance is where your brain

00:33:47.840 basically misfires, because you saw something that was incompatible with who you believe you are.

00:33:55.760 For example, if you believe you're smart, but there's strong evidence that you did something 1.00

00:34:01.920 really stupid, will you say, oh, I guess I'm actually stupid? Almost never. If you believe you're smart, 1.00

00:34:10.160 you'll say, huh, well, it didn't work out, but it was really smart anyway. And for these reasons,

00:34:17.440 and people listening to your reasons will say, are you, are you drunk? I mean, those don't even sound

00:34:22.800 like reasons, but like the things you say are just word salad. And that's the tell for cognitive

00:34:28.320 dissonance that, that, that when they explain their position, people who are not in cognitive

00:34:34.160 dissonance, listen to it and go, uh, I don't think that made sense. That didn't even make logical

00:34:40.560 sense. So that's how you tell. So let's take the, uh, Charlie Kirk situation. So Charlie Kirk,

00:34:50.720 because he was associated with Trump was demonized as stupid because that's what the left thinks of 1.00

00:34:57.920 the right, right? They think they're stupid, uninformed, ignorant, and that they're, they're just plain 1.00

00:35:04.320 evil, just evil, like they're killers. Now, what would happen if that was your belief about Trump 1.00

00:35:11.840 and therefore by definition about Charlie? Um, and then you see a clip in which he is being friendly

00:35:19.920 and open and listening to other people's opinions and then giving very well-informed answers.

00:35:26.720 And you realize he's not dumb. He thought he was, he's actually like really smart, like really smart.

00:35:35.360 And then you realize that he's not evil. He's actually a really nice person. And 100% of the

00:35:41.640 people who know him, knew him, um, all say the same thing. It's, it's not like there's somebody who

00:35:49.200 came out and said, you know, I keep hearing these good things about Charlie, but that wasn't my

00:35:54.400 experience. I had a bad experience. Nobody, none, not a single person. Every single person who knew him

00:36:02.560 left and right, left and right, say he was a nice guy. Now he was a genuinely generous, he's generous,

00:36:13.280 smart, and nice to a fault. Now what, what happens to you if you think he was a stupid Hitler, 1.00

00:36:22.800 but then you observe through all the clips of him interacting with the other side in his debates on 0.99

00:36:29.680 campus, you observe that he's very clearly the opposite of everything you held to be true.

00:36:36.480 What would be your mental experience? Would you say, oh, I changed my mind. It looks like the evidence

00:36:45.600 evidence is opposite of what I've been told. So I'm going to go with the evidence. Some people will,

00:36:51.760 but not many. Far more people will be triggered into cognitive dissonance and they'll have to find

00:36:58.400 something terrible about him. And they will simply imagine things that didn't happen.

00:37:04.320 That's what happened. If you ask people, well, what is it you didn't like about Charlie Kirk?

00:37:09.440 They will tell you that they know somebody who knows something that was really terrible,

00:37:15.680 and they're just sort of going after what their friends say. Or they'll say, well, he said,

00:37:21.600 and then what follows is something he didn't say, ever, anywhere. Or they'll say, he said X,

00:37:29.360 and maybe the quote is correct, but the context is completely incorrect and it changed the meaning of

00:37:35.680 what he said. Sometimes he's talking about what other people said, not even agreeing with him.

00:37:41.680 And it gets quoted as what he said, the thing he's disagreed with. So that's how I understand this.

00:37:50.400 It's a mass hysteria, because it's a collection of people. Each of them individually has TDS,

00:37:57.600 because that's the one person having a problem. But collectively, it's a mass hysteria.

00:38:04.480 And then on top of that, there was so much counter evidence that it absolutely triggered people into

00:38:12.080 cognitive dissonance. Not everybody, right? Remember, none of this is ever everybody. It's always

00:38:18.800 just too many people. All right. So that's my take.

00:38:23.760 Melania Trump just lawyer whipped the Daily Beast. Apparently, they'd said some things that she made 1.00

00:38:35.600 them retract. They tried to link her to Jeffrey Epstein. What assholes, the Daily Beast. And none of it was

00:38:45.600 true. And so her lawyers made them delete those lies. They would have had to dish out millions if they

00:38:54.000 had kept with their story. But they immediately said, we made that up, I guess. I don't know what

00:39:00.080 they said. But in effect, they admitted it wasn't true. And at the same time, Trump is suing the New York

00:39:06.720 Times for $15 billion, calling it a virtual mouthpiece for the Democrats and said it's defaming him over and

00:39:16.160 over over the Epstein coverage. Do you think you'll win that? I doubt it. But you might make the New York

00:39:26.160 Times change how they treat him because they don't want another one, another lawsuit.

00:39:38.800 Here's the potential bad news. So Harry Enten of CNN points out that there's a very strong correlation

00:39:48.320 for midterm elections where the team that has the fewest number of retirements within their ranks

00:39:59.520 usually wins the midterm. So in other words, there are planned 17 Republican retirements in Congress,

00:40:08.240 but only 10 Democrats are planning to retire. If things are razor close, you know, razor thin,

00:40:15.920 razor close. The difference in just people who retired probably would put Democrats in charge of the

00:40:23.520 House. That's not cool. So there's something like a seven out of nine chance that Democrats will win

00:40:33.200 back the House and not because they did anything right. And not because that's the way votes work,

00:40:41.760 not because of any of that, not because they ran good races, not because their policies were popular,

00:40:48.640 none of that. It might be only the luck of the draw that there were 17 Republicans looking to retire.

00:40:59.040 And that might be the only thing that matters to the outcome of the midterms.

00:41:03.600 So even the redistricting, you know, might not, is that even going to be in time? I don't know,

00:41:13.040 but it probably won't be enough to change the result, but this, these retirements might.

00:41:18.400 So why am I only hearing about that now? I think I had heard about it, but I didn't know the numbers.

00:41:23.440 Well, Tim Urban is reporting on X that there was a Harvard survey that 32% of students say using

00:41:34.240 violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases. Well,

00:41:41.040 I'm glad they had the rare part. They're using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus

00:41:48.720 is acceptable. 32%. Oh, but only in rare cases. Do you know what would qualify as a rare case?

00:41:58.400 Whatever you didn't like. Well, I don't like that. Well, looks like we got a rare case.

00:42:04.320 I guess we can go attack them. 32%? Really? Do you know how unlikely it is that I would ever speak

00:42:14.800 at a college ever again? No way. There's no way I would ever speak at a college. Oh my God. You know,

00:42:25.120 this is just Harvard, of course, but do you think that this is so different from other colleges if you

00:42:31.840 did the same survey? I don't know. I mean, I'd love to think it's, it's a real outlier. And if you

00:42:40.560 looked at any other college, they'd be like, oh no, you know, violence is never called for. But Harvard,

00:42:49.440 I don't know. What would you do if you knew a body of people, 32% of them thought that maybe

00:42:56.640 violence was appropriate because of something you could say? Well, that's right. You get the F away from

00:43:04.720 them. Exactly. See, you're learning. I'm here to teach. A reporter asked Trump,

00:43:15.520 was he planning to make Antifa a domestic terror organization? And he said, it's something I would 0.98

00:43:21.760 do, yeah, if I have support from the people back here. I mean, there's an administration,

00:43:27.200 specifically the Department of Justice, probably, and the FBI. Whoever was standing behind him, it was

00:43:32.720 the right people. He said, I would do that 100%. And others also, by the way. But Antifa is terrible.

00:43:41.680 Is Antifa a terror organization? I don't know. It would depend exactly what they're saying and what

00:43:52.560 they've done so far, I guess. That would be sort of an edge case. But I'm in favor of trying.

00:44:00.400 Antifa has, by its nature, by its design and by its very charter, is to destroy the United States.

00:44:13.040 So why would we put up with that? If Antifa destroyed, let's say they succeeded in what we

00:44:19.520 know they want to do, which is essentially destroy all civilization or some version of that,

00:44:26.000 wouldn't that look like terrorism? Because people would be dying in the streets and cannibals would 1.00

00:44:31.840 be running wild if the economy just got destroyed or the government got destroyed. So it's not terrorism

00:44:38.800 like making a lot of things blow up. Although I bet they've done that. I'll bet they've blown up some

00:44:46.400 things. I just don't know my Antifa history. But they don't need to. If what they're going to do is

00:44:53.360 dismantle the system, which we know would result in starvation and conquest and massive death,

00:45:02.080 it feels a little bit terrorist to me, even if that's not what they intend to do. The effect of it would be that.

00:45:09.120 Well, I guess the US military blew up another Venezuelan drug boat. We've got more exciting video 1.00

00:45:19.760 if you'd like to watch people blowing up. I remind you that as much as I like the canceling of the

00:45:28.240 people on the left, there are a lot of people who may have showed some joy over the bombing and death of,

00:45:37.680 in this case, three male terrorists. I don't think any of us are beyond the temptation to act happy when

00:45:47.120 somebody who's genuinely terrible meets a bad end. The problem with the Charlie Kirk stuff is that by no

00:45:58.000 measure, by no measure, was he a terrible person. There's nobody who knew him who thought that.

00:46:04.960 Nobody on the left, nobody on the right, nobody who knew him thought he was a terrible person. Only

00:46:10.480 the people who were in the Hitlerian bubble who had been convinced that he said all the things that he

00:46:16.080 did not say. All right. In other news, Israel launched a ground offensive to take over Gaza City.

00:46:26.480 So they seem to be very done with negotiating for the return of hostages. And it seems like,

00:46:35.760 I mean, I'm sure that if a reasonable offer were made, they'd take it. But at the moment,

00:46:40.960 it looks like they're not waiting. They're just going to take over Gaza City. And it's going to get 0.96

00:46:47.920 probably bloodier than it ever has, unless what Israel does is warn people to leave. 0.63

00:46:54.480 And then if they don't, blow up the buildings anyway. I mean, it's war. I'm not saying they should.

00:47:03.360 I'm not approving of it. I'm just observing. I don't know what options they have. What option do

00:47:12.480 they have if people don't want to leave the buildings? They can't really do it door to door

00:47:19.520 because it'd be insanely dangerous for them. And they don't really have to take that. They don't

00:47:23.840 have to take that risk if they don't want to. There's no requirement for them to take a high level of

00:47:30.560 risk when they can say, here's the deal. There's zero chance that we will bomb you if you leave.

00:47:38.640 Here's the area. There's no chance that you'll get bombed. Now you have to deal with the fact

00:47:42.800 that you've been displaced, but you're going to get displaced either way. If you stay,

00:47:48.400 we're going to bomb the house you're in. I'm just making this up. So to make a point, 1.00

00:47:52.960 that's not what Israel said. If you leave, we're going to bomb the house because it might be booby

00:47:59.440 trapped and it's too hard to figure it out. So under all scenarios, the house is going to disappear

00:48:06.240 or the building. So the, the residents have a 100% chance of avoiding blowing up simply by not being

00:48:16.080 in the house and not being in that neighborhood that they very clearly specified. You don't want to

00:48:21.680 be in this neighborhood. But only 40% of the people who lived in that neighborhood have left.

00:48:28.720 What is up with that? Is that because they believe that they have a better chance

00:48:35.200 staying in their building than they would if they went on foot and tried to find food wherever they

00:48:42.080 could get fed? I don't know. It's pretty hard to get people to leave their home. There are still

00:48:48.240 people in the Ukraine front line who are like old guys who still live in the house. They just don't 1.00

00:48:54.560 want to leave. Like, well, you know, I lived a good life. I'm just going to stay here, see what happens.

00:49:01.040 So there's always somebody who wants to stay, but 60%? It doesn't sound like they understand

00:49:08.000 that the play is to flatten everything. I don't think you wouldn't stay if you understood that,

00:49:14.400 would you? I don't know.

00:49:19.200 So over in Ukraine overnight, I guess there was one of the biggest or described as massive,

00:49:27.360 a attack from the sky, a relentless aerial terror, some say. And, you know, Zelensky is looking for,

00:49:40.480 you know, more resources to fight him. But here's my question. What would a massive overnight

00:49:47.040 aerial assault look like? It would be a lot of drones, right? It would be missiles, maybe other

00:49:52.640 stuff, but a lot of drones. And here's where I'm wondering. What is the upside limit of how many

00:50:00.080 drones each side is going to field before this is over? Is there a theoretical number of drones

00:50:08.080 that one side could have that would end the war? You know, if tomorrow Ukraine had 10 million drones

00:50:17.680 and they all worked together and they attacked Russia, would 10 million drones be enough to change

00:50:27.120 the fate of the war? And who could get to 10 million drones, just picking a number, faster, Ukraine or Russia?

00:50:39.120 Because they both seem to be able to get a lot of drones. I mean, that's a lot of drones.

00:50:45.120 So I don't know. But my guess is that the number of drones in each swarm attack will continue to increase.

00:50:55.440 And it might continue to increase for a long time. So I wouldn't be surprised to see drone attacks with 0.98

00:51:03.520 100,000 drones. I feel like that's coming, not too long. Well, a bunch of Canadian supermarkets got busted

00:51:13.600 for covering up the made in America, made in USA labels and Daily Mail's reporting. So Canada, they want

00:51:23.040 their food, but they don't want to act like it came from the US. They're still mad at us. So they've been covering

00:51:30.800 up. But the phenomenon of covering up the US label with a Canadian label is called maple washing,

00:51:37.760 which is a pretty good name. We maple washed it.

00:51:44.720 There is, according to Newsmax, David Kaplan's writing that there's a watchdog,

00:51:50.640 so-called watchdog, non-profit watchdog, that's going after the Soros Foundation.

00:51:58.960 So the chair of the National Legal and Policy Center, it's a non-profit watchdog, sent a

00:52:04.560 strongly worded letter to the open society, that's Soros' organization, asking them to cease and

00:52:14.160 desist their funding of various organizations that the watchdog thinks are dangerous.

00:52:21.200 And stop funding events that, quote, have been marked by persistent and dominant messaging 0.95

00:52:29.760 that Trump and his supporters are Nazis, fascists, authoritarians, white supremacists, and worse. 0.67

00:52:34.640 So the idea is, if you know the gathering is going to say that kind of stuff, which is, 0.96

00:52:42.800 seems like inciting violence to me, then he wants Soros to stop funding them.

00:52:49.040 Well, as you know, the Trump administration plans to look into RICO of the Soros organization.

00:52:56.960 So, finally, after years of people like me complaining, why don't you go after the money,

00:53:06.720 and at least understand where it's going and how it's being used.

00:53:10.880 And it looks like that might be happening.

00:53:14.320 All right, you want a little bit, a little bit extra, uh, schadenfreude?

00:53:20.000 Did you, did you get a good dose yet?

00:53:22.480 That, that, uh, creepy feeling of feeling good because somebody else is having a bad time?

00:53:28.640 Ideally, somebody that's, you know, evil, that would be better.

00:53:33.360 Well, here's another one. You ready?

00:53:35.680 This is my favorite one of the day.

00:53:38.080 Uh, you know, Zoran Mamdani, he's, uh, running for mayor of New York and he's, uh,

00:53:43.520 the communist slash socialist.

00:53:46.720 And he was endorsed by the governor of New York, Hockel, Kathy Hockel.

00:53:53.360 So, that's a pretty good endorsement, right?

00:53:55.280 You get, you got the governor in the state that you're the biggest state.

00:54:00.080 That is one heck of a good endorsement.

00:54:04.640 So, uh, what do you think?

00:54:07.040 Did Zoran Mamdani return the favor and endorse Kathy Hockel?

00:54:12.000 Nope.

00:54:16.400 So, Kathy Hockel goes out on a limb, which is probably expensive in terms of her, her

00:54:23.280 credibility, endorses this guy, Zoran, and he does not endorse her back.

00:54:29.120 Ouch.

00:54:32.080 All right.

00:54:32.560 Admit it.

00:54:33.040 How much do you love that?

00:54:35.040 You love it.

00:54:37.840 You love it a little bit.

00:54:41.840 That was my best laugh of the day.

00:54:45.120 So, here's what I think about how Republicans and Democrats see each other.

00:54:51.840 Correct me if I'm wrong.

00:54:53.120 This is my take.

00:54:54.560 The Democrats look at Republicans and they believe they're looking at monsters.

00:55:01.680 You know, the Hitlers and fascists and, but, but they think they're looking at monsters.

00:55:07.120 Right?

00:55:07.760 Would you agree so far?

00:55:09.280 That's what the Hitlerian bubble is. 0.98

00:55:11.520 They believe they're looking at monsters.

00:55:13.200 They're just ordinary conservatives.

00:55:15.840 But Republicans, when Republicans look at Democrats, correct me if I'm wrong. 0.99

00:55:22.480 We look at them like clowns. 0.95

00:55:25.760 And we look for what's funny about it. 0.91

00:55:29.520 Because, you know, I just covered all the news today.

00:55:33.600 And did you notice how many of the things were funny about Democrats?

00:55:38.960 Do I think that Stephen King is a Hitler monster?

00:55:43.200 No.

00:55:44.160 No. 1.00

00:55:45.200 But he's a clown. 0.99

00:55:46.160 Do I think that Zoran is a monster? 0.99

00:55:52.560 Well, no.

00:55:53.120 I, you know, I think his policies would be unproductive.

00:55:58.000 But when I see him not endorse the governor that endorsed him, it feels like a clown show, doesn't it?

00:56:03.920 And it's pretty funny.

00:56:05.440 Well, I don't hate the governor.

00:56:07.440 I don't hate the governor.

00:56:09.040 I don't want anything bad to happen to her.

00:56:11.200 I don't want anything bad to happen to Zoran Mamdami. 0.97

00:56:14.720 I just like the clown show. 0.97

00:56:18.160 All right. 0.76

00:56:18.560 So that's one of the most powerful reframes you'll hear. 0.91

00:56:25.680 Because once the Democrats realize that they see us as monsters because they're in the bubble, and we say them as clowns because we can see them in the bubble, and it all looks weird and crazy and funny.

00:56:42.580 Well, how many times have I told you that there's a new breakthrough coming out of China or North Korea, or not North, but South Korea, about batteries?

00:56:58.460 There's literally one of these stories every day.

00:57:01.360 Well, here's another one.

00:57:02.860 There's a big breakthrough in sodium batteries where you can get a full charge in just six minutes.

00:57:08.600 Now, I don't know for sure, but it seems to me that if the only change you're making is sodium and some component of the battery, otherwise, I think it's the same battery, I think.

00:57:22.120 That looks like something you might be able to implement, you know, once they've tested it and stuff.

00:57:27.380 But if you can get down to a six-minute charge, well, I don't know.

00:57:32.460 How long does it take to put gas in your gas tank?

00:57:35.880 About the same, right?

00:57:36.860 So that would be pretty awesome.

00:57:39.580 All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for you today.

00:57:44.700 I'll remind you that I'll be on Tucker Carlson's show tonight.

00:57:49.820 He's got a rare, rare as in he's never done it before, a rare internet-only live show.

00:57:57.800 So he'll have a monologue, and he'll have a couple of guests.

00:58:01.060 Megyn Kelly will be on before I'm on.

00:58:03.160 So if you turn it on and you see Megyn, stay tuned, because I'll be after that.

00:58:09.500 All right?

00:58:10.780 And locals, I'll be talking to you privately in a moment.

00:58:16.820 The rest of you, thanks for joining.

00:58:19.020 I always appreciate it, even if I forget to say it.

00:58:22.260 And I hope you come back tomorrow.

00:58:24.380 Let's do this again.

00:58:26.100 Locals, I'll come at you privately in 30 seconds. 1.00

00:58:28.760 Let's do this.

00:58:58.760 Thank you.

00:59:28.760 Thank you.

00:59:58.760 Thank you.

01:00:28.760 Thank you.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - September 16, 2025

Episode 2960 CWSA 09⧸16⧸25

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