Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2998 CWSA 10⧸24⧸25

00:00:00.000 I'll be right with you.

00:00:11.980 Just got to make this work.

00:00:17.400 There we go.

00:00:20.540 How's everybody doing?

00:00:22.160 Good morning, good morning.

00:00:25.300 Well, we're going to have quite the show today.

00:00:30.000 Better than anything you've ever seen in your life, probably.

00:00:34.600 Stocks are up.

00:00:36.560 Good for you.

00:00:38.080 Good for you, Ifione.

00:00:43.020 I know what you're going to say.

00:00:44.900 Put that microphone in front of you, Scott.

00:00:48.080 I can't hear a thing you're saying.

00:00:54.720 Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of humans.

00:01:00.840 It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and you've never had a better time.

00:01:04.860 But if you'd like to take a chance on elevating your experience up to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny, shiny human brains,

00:01:12.720 all you need for that would be a cup or mug or a glass of tanker, chelsea, stein, a canteen jugger flask, a vessel of any kind.

00:01:21.640 Fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:01:23.400 I like coffee.

00:01:24.740 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day.

00:01:28.740 The thing that makes everything better.

00:01:30.000 It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens right now.

00:01:34.180 Go.

00:01:34.340 It is the best day ever.

00:01:42.160 You're right.

00:01:42.860 Well, as tradition requires, we're going to do a reframe first from my book, Reframe Your Brain, the best book that's ever been written.

00:01:54.740 Everybody says so.

00:01:55.760 So if we do one a day, you will have a superpower by the time we're done here.

00:02:03.220 How about this?

00:02:07.340 Here's a usual frame that a lot of people have.

00:02:10.120 Never give somebody something for nothing.

00:02:13.980 Do you know anybody like that who says, why would I do that for somebody?

00:02:17.520 I'm not getting anything in return.

00:02:21.320 That would be a normal frame, right?

00:02:23.700 Don't give up something for nothing.

00:02:26.560 Here's the reframe.

00:02:29.060 Giving triggers reciprocity.

00:02:31.300 If you want somebody to give something to you, the best way to do that is to give something to them.

00:02:39.160 And it turns out that if you approach life from a selfish perspective, as in, what have you done for me?

00:02:47.520 Why would I do something for you?

00:02:49.780 That might work in some contexts.

00:02:51.960 But if you approach it from a generous perspective, you might find that in the long term, people like you better and want to work with you and want to marry you and want to have sex with you.

00:03:03.680 And it's all because you're a generous person. 0.99

00:03:06.520 Don't be a sucker. 0.97

00:03:08.440 You don't want to be too generous. 0.97

00:03:11.120 But just remember that if you want something from somebody else, it is a transactional world.

00:03:19.560 So do something for them first.

00:03:21.960 If it doesn't cost you too much.

00:03:24.080 And you might be surprised how much you get back.

00:03:28.620 Well, there's some so far still anonymous donor who apparently has, I don't know if he's loaned or given $130 million to pay the military salaries.

00:03:39.260 Is that even enough?

00:03:41.520 $130 million?

00:03:42.880 I don't know.

00:03:44.040 But that's a weird thing that's actually happening.

00:03:46.400 Apparently, the military is now being paid by some billionaire.

00:03:50.760 At least temporarily.

00:03:51.960 The Disney theme parks are not doing so well.

00:03:56.920 I guess they're down, according to Brabant News, Warner Todd Houston selling us.

00:04:03.120 It's down 26% in popularity over the last five years.

00:04:06.940 Do you know what's the most surprising thing about the news that the Disney theme parks are down 26%?

00:04:15.460 The most surprising part is they're still in business.

00:04:19.000 What young person would be impressed by Disney in 2025?

00:04:27.800 They have video games.

00:04:28.780 Way better.

00:04:29.660 The Disney park experience is just one of the worst things that I've ever had.

00:04:36.620 Have any of you had the horror of going to any of the Disney parks?

00:04:39.820 There was a time in my, you know, many years ago where that was like a real destination trip, but it just looks old and lame and, you know, you have to wait too long and it's way too expensive and too many people and it's hot.

00:04:59.400 But it really is not, it really is not, I don't know why anybody goes.

00:05:02.800 It's sort of a miracle that their reputation has carried them as long as it has.

00:05:10.840 Anyway, so I guess Warner Brothers is for sale and rumored that Netflix, Amazon, and Apple might be looking at parts of it.

00:05:20.600 And I guess, who was it, that other big studio bid on it, but was rejected.

00:05:34.200 Here's my question.

00:05:35.920 What value does Warner Brothers have?

00:05:39.340 Why would you buy it?

00:05:40.500 Is it for its film catalog that nobody seems to watch anymore?

00:05:45.100 Is it because you could use it to train your, train your AI?

00:05:51.740 Is that why they want it?

00:05:53.120 Because I can't, I can't imagine anybody would buy a traditional old studio when AI is going to make all of that obsolete in a few years.

00:06:04.020 How long would you own a regular studio?

00:06:07.960 I mean, I don't even know why you need it.

00:06:09.540 Why would you even need space?

00:06:11.260 You would just need computers, right?

00:06:12.660 So, it seems like a tough sale because I don't, I just don't know how you'd put a value on an old style studio when that's going to just not even be a thing in a few years.

00:06:28.820 Apparently, two of the big meat, what are they?

00:06:33.560 They're beef companies.

00:06:35.220 Tyson and Cargill, they both agreed to pay collectively $87.5 million settlement.

00:06:42.660 For conspiring to keep beef prices high.

00:06:47.680 Terrific.

00:06:48.580 So, it's a class action suit.

00:06:50.200 I guess they've acknowledged some culpability.

00:06:54.860 And they've agreed to pay money because they did, in fact, conspire to keep prices up and not compete.

00:07:02.940 Unbelievable.

00:07:04.500 Have I ever told you how to identify what industries are corrupt?

00:07:09.560 It's not hard.

00:07:11.240 Just tell me the industry and I'll tell you if it's corrupt.

00:07:13.980 You want to try it?

00:07:16.680 This will be like a magic to you.

00:07:18.400 Watch.

00:07:19.180 So, in the comments, just name an industry, any industry.

00:07:23.520 In this case, it would be the meat, the beef industry.

00:07:26.220 But name an industry, and I'll tell you accurately if it's corrupt.

00:07:31.300 Go.

00:07:32.540 Yep, that's corrupt.

00:07:33.880 Uh-huh.

00:07:34.380 Yep.

00:07:35.200 That one, too.

00:07:36.140 Uh-huh.

00:07:36.440 That one.

00:07:36.820 Yep.

00:07:37.320 Yep.

00:07:38.120 Yes, that's corrupt. 0.63

00:07:39.300 That's corrupt. 0.97

00:07:40.160 That's corrupt. 0.74

00:07:41.760 Anyway, I think you get the picture.

00:07:43.440 Here, everything that can be corrupted is.

00:07:48.380 There's no exception to that.

00:07:50.940 If there's something that was designed in a way that it couldn't be corrupted, and maybe somebody's done that somewhere, then maybe not.

00:08:00.040 But almost all industries are designed from the bottom up in a way that they will eventually become corrupted.

00:08:08.420 And the beef industry is no exception.

00:08:11.340 Apparently, Trump pardoned one of the, or the founder of Binance, which is a crypto exchange.

00:08:24.040 And his name is CZ.

00:08:25.940 I didn't know he was in jail.

00:08:27.960 So, CZ is somebody who was on X and Twitter a lot.

00:08:31.900 So, I think I followed him.

00:08:34.600 But he got locked up, allegedly, for what?

00:08:40.660 Oh, I guess his crime was he did not implement government-required controls on his financial work.

00:08:48.640 Because if you're doing big financial stuff, like a crypto exchange, you're apparently obligated to do a bunch of things that would make it harder for people to use it for crime.

00:09:00.000 But he did the opposite.

00:09:03.380 Instead of making it harder for crime, he made it really easy for people to do crime.

00:09:08.700 And I guess that was enough to get him locked up.

00:09:11.420 But when Trump was asked, why would you pardon him?

00:09:15.180 Is it because he has some connection to your crypto world that you're making money from?

00:09:21.300 I guess Trump has made billions of dollars recently.

00:09:25.560 His family has made billions, a few billion from crypto.

00:09:29.740 Is that real?

00:09:30.720 Well, it's not real money, right?

00:09:33.580 It's just some crypto they value artificially at billions of dollars.

00:09:37.840 But if he tried to sell it, it wouldn't be necessarily anybody buying it.

00:09:43.020 So, is it really worth anything?

00:09:46.000 Or they just say it's worth a billion on paper, but it's not really worth anything.

00:09:50.640 I don't know.

00:09:51.540 But the accusations are that he did it just for his own family business reasons.

00:09:57.580 There's no direct evidence of that that I'm aware of.

00:10:01.440 But here's an explanation of why he did it, is that the smart people in Silicon Valley suggested that he had done nothing wrong.

00:10:09.820 Now, suppose that the nothing he did wrong was he had not been aggressive enough in putting these controls in place so that he could stop money laundering and cartel stuff and like that.

00:10:26.100 Is that a crime?

00:10:28.220 Well, it might technically be a crime.

00:10:30.320 But I could see that the crypto people would say, leave our crypto alone.

00:10:35.360 Don't put any unnecessary burdens or regulations on crypto.

00:10:40.680 It'll cripple it. 0.85

00:10:42.180 So, I could imagine somebody arguing that even though it does allow money laundering and even though it does allow crime, that they'd rather have that world because it's a free world.

00:10:55.900 So, that might have been the argument.

00:10:57.480 I don't know.

00:10:58.040 I'm just speculating.

00:10:59.520 Don't know.

00:11:00.120 Well, there's a giant gambling scandal that involves the NBA and the mafia.

00:11:10.100 Here's one I did not see coming at all.

00:11:14.020 Cash Patel announced that, I guess there are 30 NBA hotshots, they're calling them, and mafia members have been arrested.

00:11:22.420 It involved all four of the main mafia families that are still operating, the big ones, the big four, and four or five.

00:11:32.540 I can't remember.

00:11:33.300 But it's, so the mafia was involved and the NBA ex-players mostly.

00:11:39.440 And what they were doing is, it was more than one thing.

00:11:43.840 So, but part of it was they would organize these really expensive poker games and they would invite people who did not know that every other person there was in on the con.

00:11:53.840 So, they'd get some rich, you know, ex-NBA player or something.

00:11:59.280 And that would be the only person who knew that it wasn't a real card game.

00:12:04.640 And apparently they've been doing it for years.

00:12:06.800 And the way that they would guarantee that their side won and the mark would lose, I guess they had all this technology that I didn't know about.

00:12:14.780 So, they have a card counter that has a camera in it so that somebody would always know who has what cards.

00:12:24.160 Did you know that existed?

00:12:26.040 A card counter with a camera in it?

00:12:28.540 So, you would know for sure everybody's cards just the way they were dealt.

00:12:33.040 So, that's a thing.

00:12:34.520 Apparently, there are also special glasses that can identify marks on the back of cards that would not be seen with the naked eyes.

00:12:43.720 And also, apparently, you could put that same tech on contact lenses.

00:12:50.460 So, you could have contact lenses that allowed you to know what other people's cards are.

00:12:56.100 Have you ever heard of that?

00:12:57.940 Apparently, that's a real thing.

00:12:59.880 And then they had other, like an x-ray table.

00:13:03.800 They could x-ray the cards when they're face down or something like that.

00:13:08.140 So, apparently, they had several ways that they could determine who had what cards.

00:13:15.180 And they were running this elaborate multi-year, many people involved, gambling ring that was just a scam against rich people.

00:13:26.160 So, apparently, it is involved.

00:13:30.580 And then, somehow, this is involved.

00:13:33.300 This Damon Jones guy, former teammate and assistant coach.

00:13:37.200 And I guess he's a friend of LeBron James for a long time.

00:13:41.040 There was also a problem where some of the insiders knew about injuries.

00:13:46.940 So, I guess one of the LeBron people knew about a LeBron injury and, therefore, could somewhat accurately predict that his team would lose the next game, which they did.

00:13:59.980 So, they placed bets on it.

00:14:02.400 So, some of it was bets on insider trading.

00:14:05.460 You could call it insider stuff, I guess.

00:14:07.580 I don't even know if that's illegal.

00:14:08.900 So, some of it was these fake poker games, which I think they had at people's houses sometimes, maybe at casinos sometimes.

00:14:17.160 I'm not sure.

00:14:19.080 Anyway, so that's supposedly a real big deal.

00:14:22.240 But the craziest thing that came out of it is commentator Stephen A. Smith.

00:14:28.020 He believes that Trump and his team going after this gambling thing is a way that Trump is coming for you in sports.

00:14:36.920 So, Stephen A. Smith says, Trump is coming.

00:14:41.560 He's coming for you.

00:14:43.760 Meaning that Trump has some kind of a score to settle with professional athletes, sort of in general.

00:14:53.880 Does that make sense to you?

00:14:55.900 Do you think Trump would have a score to settle with any professional athletes?

00:15:02.240 Not that I know of.

00:15:03.400 So, no, I don't think he's using this as a lawfare to go after his enemies.

00:15:09.740 I don't think he necessarily even knows many of these people.

00:15:12.820 Do you think this is how he's going after, what, LeBron or something?

00:15:16.940 Well, here's my comment on Stephen A. Smith.

00:15:19.680 You ready for this?

00:15:20.400 Fortunately, my footprint is too small for him to come after me because he likes to respond when people talk about him.

00:15:31.660 And he's talking about Jasmine, Crockett, and he's talking about Trump and talking about people.

00:15:36.820 So, I feel like it's fair to talk about him.

00:15:45.740 I'll start by saying he's very good at his job.

00:15:49.560 That's sort of my best compliment.

00:15:52.020 He's really good at his job.

00:15:53.700 He's so good on video.

00:15:56.420 And he obviously knows his domain.

00:15:59.940 He knows his sports, et cetera.

00:16:01.640 But when he crossed over into politics, what happened was he managed to say something that was compatible with how people were thinking.

00:16:12.940 And because he's very good on TV, he said it in a way that got people's attention.

00:16:17.980 And he's just great on TV.

00:16:20.920 So, he gets a lot of attention.

00:16:23.920 But here's the problem.

00:16:27.840 Once he got a lot of attention for talking about politics, but I think he said some sort of obvious things, like, why doesn't Trump get credit for closing the border?

00:16:39.840 Or why doesn't Trump give some credit for Gaza, even if you don't like other things he's doing?

00:16:46.400 Now, those are the safest things you could have ever said.

00:16:52.860 They require no real penetrating analysis or background or historical understanding or context or almost anything.

00:17:02.240 Those are really easy opinions.

00:17:04.300 Now, what's easier about it is that since he was not known as a political commentator, he had a little more freedom that nobody would think it was too weird if he said, well, you know, you have to give Trump some credit for the things he did right.

00:17:22.100 But you don't have to like all the things he does.

00:17:23.960 Now, he just happened to be in the perfect place.

00:17:28.060 He was the perfect messenger for a thing that people wanted to hear, especially people on the right.

00:17:35.160 They wanted to hear somebody say, all right, I admit it.

00:17:38.780 I admit it.

00:17:39.460 Trump did a good thing there.

00:17:41.080 It just felt so good to hear it.

00:17:42.540 So he starts out with maybe two or three home runs in a row.

00:17:49.780 I mean, just frozen ropes.

00:17:52.900 But they were easy.

00:17:56.540 The topics were just easy for somebody who is in exactly his situation, which is great communicator, has a big platform.

00:18:05.920 People weren't expecting him to talk on this topic.

00:18:09.100 So it hit all the notes, hit every note.

00:18:11.500 Now, what happens when you get a little bit addicted to that level of credibility?

00:18:17.780 People even ask them to run for president.

00:18:20.460 They ask them to run for president.

00:18:23.120 How would you feel if you sort of, you know, you thought, I'm going to speak out on this topic, and you didn't realize that it would be such a big hit, that it would be so viral, so viral that people ask you to be president?

00:18:36.820 What are you going to do now?

00:18:37.940 Well, don't you feel like you sort of have to try to make big, important political pronouncements every day?

00:18:47.680 Because it worked so well when you did it before.

00:18:51.320 But the problem is, they're not all easy.

00:18:54.840 They're not all just waiting for you.

00:18:57.220 They're not all just the perfect thing for the perfect person at the perfect time.

00:19:01.380 If he goes any deeper than he's going, he's going to reveal how much or how little he knows about politics, and it's not going to be popular.

00:19:11.580 Because, you know, there's just this very thin, you know, thin layer of things that you know would be popular, no matter who said it.

00:19:19.600 So he's got to say stuff, because he's now in that domain.

00:19:26.260 He can't suddenly say, ah, I decided not to talk about politics.

00:19:29.680 It's probably a little bit addictive, a little bit addictive.

00:19:33.160 And he's getting attention.

00:19:34.880 And he's in the attention business.

00:19:36.300 There's nothing wrong with that.

00:19:37.760 The more attention he gets, the better he's doing.

00:19:39.960 So I'm fully complimentary on his skill.

00:19:44.540 His skill is tremendous.

00:19:46.960 So what you should see is that the things he's concerned about start out being pretty smart, and you agree with them, and you're like, yes, yes, Stephen A. Smith.

00:19:57.540 But through no fault of his own, just because every topic is not perfectly suited for his messaging,

00:20:04.280 he should get to less and less interesting and even smart.

00:20:12.960 So you should see the quality of his commentary like going way down, and it has nothing to do with him.

00:20:19.720 It has nothing to do with how smart or well-informed he is.

00:20:22.240 It's just that not every topic is a home-run topic.

00:20:26.160 So now he's coming up with some kind of weird opinion about Trump is coming for sports people,

00:20:36.640 and he might be coming for the WNBA next.

00:20:41.360 Like, these are just sort of very close to crazy town.

00:20:45.000 So he went from opinions that were so strong that people were literally asking him to run for president

00:20:53.960 to an opinion that's so weak that I look at it and go, were you drunk?

00:21:00.280 Who would even say any of that stuff?

00:21:03.300 It looks like you're drunk.

00:21:05.160 He's not drunk.

00:21:06.680 It just looks like he is.

00:21:07.740 Anyway, here's another story that I hate it when the stories that really matter,

00:21:16.380 they start to age, and then even though you find out more about these stories that really do matter,

00:21:23.460 you sort of lose the path.

00:21:28.080 So here's one.

00:21:30.480 Do you remember Arctic Frost?

00:21:32.120 So that was the probe that, who was it, Jack whatever was going to do.

00:21:40.940 And now we know that A.G. Garland and his deputy, Lisa Monaco, according to Catherine Herridge,

00:21:48.680 and even director Christopher Wray, they signed off on Arctic Frost.

00:21:54.000 Now, apparently that's new information.

00:21:56.120 Is it new to you that it was signed off by the people whose job it is to sign off on it?

00:22:05.120 I don't know.

00:22:06.160 It doesn't feel like even new information, but I think it is.

00:22:09.100 There's a document now that shows that they all signed off on it.

00:22:12.920 Why did we need a document to know that they signed off on it?

00:22:16.060 Haven't they all testified?

00:22:17.840 So there's something about this story that's just sort of detailed and boring,

00:22:22.640 but it's probably important.

00:22:26.120 If I understood what was going on and remembered the context, it's probably important.

00:22:32.520 I don't know if it's going to mean anybody's in jail or anything,

00:22:35.780 but it kind of looks sort of important.

00:22:39.400 I just don't really know how to tie all the parts together.

00:22:43.840 It's too long.

00:22:45.360 All right, let's talk about Trump's ballroom.

00:22:49.000 Now, I don't think there's anything funnier than the way Trump is playing this ballroom thing.

00:22:54.420 He's got his critics exactly where he wants them, and he's just making them dance like marionettes.

00:23:01.060 The fact that he's making them care about this construction project, that's pretty normal.

00:23:08.320 The White House has had a number of construction projects over the years,

00:23:12.940 not much different than this in type.

00:23:16.340 Upgrades are pretty normal, and they're useful.

00:23:21.100 It's not like there's nobody who argues that they don't need a ballroom, right?

00:23:26.560 I think everybody agrees that a country like ours needs a proper ballroom,

00:23:31.500 and nobody's saying that we don't need it.

00:23:34.660 But they've got to make a thing out of it.

00:23:36.500 So they're trying desperately to make something out of a nothing, the ballroom.

00:23:41.760 And they've actually demonstrated to us that they can make their base get mad about literally anything.

00:23:50.020 All they have to do is say it over and over.

00:23:52.800 So you've got people like, oh, what's his name?

00:23:56.960 What's that advisor on the Democrat side with the big glasses?

00:24:03.520 I'll think of his name.

00:24:04.780 But anyway, he was on and he was saying that Trump's destroying the White House.

00:24:10.540 Okay, one small part of the White House is being torn down because they're building a new one right away.

00:24:20.200 Is that destroying the White House?

00:24:23.360 And it's a metaphor for the way he governs.

00:24:26.960 It's a metaphor.

00:24:28.120 Oh, no.

00:24:29.580 Oh, no.

00:24:31.160 I didn't realize it was a metaphor for the way he governs.

00:24:36.360 I was thinking it was just a construction project and I had nothing to worry about.

00:24:40.680 But now that I know it's a metaphor, oh, run.

00:24:44.220 Run, everybody.

00:24:45.540 Save yourself from the metaphor.

00:24:50.740 He's also disregarding norms.

00:24:54.560 Yeah.

00:24:55.000 Yeah, you thought you were safe?

00:24:57.500 No.

00:24:58.380 No, Trump is disregarding some norms that involve construction on the White House.

00:25:03.540 A week ago, you would have said to yourself, you know, if somebody violated the norms regarding construction processes for the White House, God, I'd be in trouble.

00:25:17.460 And here it is.

00:25:18.760 Here it is.

00:25:19.240 It's your worst case scenario.

00:25:21.640 That the president's ignoring some norms about construction for the White House.

00:25:27.440 See if you can find a way to live.

00:25:31.680 All right.

00:25:34.340 Well, one of the things that Trump knows is that if you get approval or nobody's stopping you from doing your project, you should start right away.

00:25:43.500 Why do you have to start right away if you get a construction thing greenlit?

00:25:49.360 You got to do it right away because something's going to try to stop it.

00:25:53.000 There's going to be some environmentalist.

00:25:56.300 You're going to, I don't know, a banker, some partner.

00:25:59.780 There's going to be a lawsuit.

00:26:01.900 So if you're a construction person and you get approval to do a thing, you do that thing right away.

00:26:08.000 Because the sooner you do that thing, the better your chances of getting through it before the inevitable challenges do it.

00:26:15.740 So Trump's doing that.

00:26:16.740 Anyway, I don't know how we're all going to survive this ballroom scandal.

00:26:24.640 But I have one word to describe the good people, the Democrats, who are going to try to get through this as best they can.

00:26:36.100 Now, nobody asked them to take on this challenge.

00:26:40.040 Nobody asked the Democrats to take on this challenge.

00:26:42.400 So I think you should respect that the Democrats are willingly taking on the challenge of living in a country where there is a building being renovated.

00:26:54.240 I know, I know.

00:26:56.080 It's brave.

00:26:57.280 So the word for them is heroes.

00:26:59.800 They're heroes.

00:27:01.080 Because they live in a country in which there's one building in one place that's being renovated to be a little bit better building for the benefit of the country.

00:27:11.620 And they're going to survive that.

00:27:15.520 They're going to survive it.

00:27:17.200 Not everybody, of course.

00:27:19.560 Obviously, there will be victims.

00:27:21.780 There will probably be people who are, you know, those big machines clawing down that building.

00:27:26.620 You don't think those big machines have grabbed a Democrat off the sidewalk and crushed them up and put them into the debris?

00:27:33.320 Well, I haven't heard about it, but I assume that that's happened.

00:27:36.180 Because this ballroom is not just disregarding norms.

00:27:44.440 And it's not just a metaphor for the way he governs.

00:27:49.020 It's bloody dangerous.

00:27:52.480 Have you even seen what it looks like now that they took the side out of the east?

00:27:56.700 It looks like a big mouth.

00:27:58.780 It looks like a giant mouth.

00:28:00.240 And it's going to come after the Democrats.

00:28:05.820 Now, if I were you, at least until the danger passes, I would wear a MAGA hat so that when the east wing comes chomping at you, that big mouth,

00:28:20.080 that once it sees you, it's going to be like, oh, MAGA, okay, you may pass.

00:28:25.780 But if it sees a Democrat, whoa, it's going to get bloody.

00:28:33.360 And it's just going to be like, hurr, hurr, hurr, hurr.

00:28:37.600 Would you like me to act that out for you with a doll?

00:28:42.060 You would, right?

00:28:43.200 You'd like me to act it out.

00:28:44.240 Hold on.

00:28:44.820 I'll be right back.

00:28:45.460 This would be just a Democrat walking down the street in Washington, D.C.

00:29:02.540 Not a trouble in the world.

00:29:04.740 Hey, nice day.

00:29:06.860 How you doing?

00:29:07.760 How you doing, stranger?

00:29:09.520 Good to see you.

00:29:10.500 You in town just to look at the sights?

00:29:12.620 Yeah, good to see you.

00:29:13.380 Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

00:29:15.440 And then suddenly, the east wing.

00:29:28.980 Sorry, Gary.

00:29:32.800 Yeah, that's what it's going to look like.

00:29:34.460 Now, could you spare a moment for some sympathy for the poor Democrats who were in mortal danger

00:29:42.220 from the east wing, which is disregarding norms?

00:29:48.020 And worse, it's a metaphor for the way he governs.

00:29:52.280 My God, my God, how are we going to get through this?

00:29:55.940 Hang on.

00:29:56.500 What we need more than anything is T-shirts.

00:30:00.220 We need T-shirts.

00:30:01.760 And the T-shirts should be, I survived the White House Ballroom Construction Project.

00:30:10.260 Because we need to know how many of you are survivors.

00:30:16.780 Probably have some kind of an event for the survivors.

00:30:20.420 You know, we do a 9-11 event, and nobody has a problem with that.

00:30:25.980 So I feel like we should probably have some event to commemorate the victims of the construction project.

00:30:34.920 There will be some.

00:30:36.340 There will be deaths.

00:30:37.140 So, just to make it even funnier, apparently there's, on the website for the White House,

00:30:44.300 there's a major events timeline page that shows major events that happened with the physical White House.

00:30:53.660 And I can't even believe this is real.

00:30:59.060 If you don't know about this story, I promise you it's real.

00:31:02.980 Everything I say is real.

00:31:04.020 I think.

00:31:04.460 Like, maybe I'm being fooled, but I think this is real.

00:31:09.380 So there's a major events timeline on the website for the White House.

00:31:13.060 And it used to have just ordinary things, like, you know, White House is built.

00:31:18.520 White House is renovated.

00:31:20.900 A pool is added to the White House.

00:31:23.900 Obama adds a basketball court.

00:31:27.200 So it's just real things that happen to the White House.

00:31:29.780 But the Trump administration has added in.

00:31:36.720 They just recently added in some new key events.

00:31:40.920 And one of them is Bill Clinton standing with Monica Lewinsky.

00:31:44.400 And it just says the Bill Clinton scandal.

00:31:46.860 And they just include that.

00:31:48.380 They include that in a story about the building.

00:31:53.880 It's a story about the building.

00:31:56.360 And they want you to know what happened in that building.

00:31:59.880 Bill Clinton scandal.

00:32:01.500 And then they have the Muslim Brotherhood visit.

00:32:05.560 But they use a photo of Obama from, I think, maybe his teen years or something, where he's wearing a traditional Muslim garb and a turban.

00:32:15.620 And, again, it has nothing to do with the White House except that they visited it.

00:32:23.400 But it's embarrassing to the Democrats, so they put it up.

00:32:26.680 And then it has a picture of Hunter Biden in just his face.

00:32:30.580 And it says, cocaine discovered in the White House.

00:32:34.820 So the story is about cocaine being discovered in the White House with a picture of Hunter Biden.

00:32:39.740 And, you know, the good news is that the demolition of the East Wing, they've already discovered so much of Hunter's cocaine that it pays for the construction.

00:32:55.620 All right.

00:32:56.020 That was my joke from Robots Read News.

00:33:00.940 And then one of them is...

00:33:03.740 The other one is Trans Day of Visibility. 0.98

00:33:09.740 At the White House, which was a real thing.

00:33:12.400 It was a Trans Day of Visibility. 1.00

00:33:14.280 Now, I have no problem with the Trans Day of Visibility.

00:33:18.680 But what's funny is the photo that they included.

00:33:22.160 So the photo is a split screen of Biden looking, you know, cluelessly like Biden does.

00:33:29.180 But next to him, it was a trans person who must have been born male and transitioned and was holding on to his or her jugs, was topless in the White House law and holding on to her front part. 0.83

00:33:46.780 So that was the photo that they included in the Trans Day of Visibility.

00:33:56.660 And there were a few more.

00:33:58.840 But the fact that somebody spent a lot of time turning that website into a parody, I couldn't love that more.

00:34:10.460 I could not love that more because Trump is turning this whole ballroom construction thing into just basically a way to mock the Democrats and also get a ballroom with his name on it.

00:34:29.060 I love everything about the ballroom story.

00:34:36.840 It's all the Democrats have.

00:34:38.920 They literally have nothing else.

00:34:41.880 Do you wonder what their meetings are like?

00:34:43.820 When they get together and they talk about what's their best play.

00:34:51.780 All right, Nancy, we're going to have to come up, Chuck, we're going to have to come up with a new play.

00:34:57.700 What's their best play?

00:34:59.800 Well, we could talk about the border.

00:35:03.940 No, no, no, no, not the border.

00:35:06.220 Well, we could talk about how we solved Gaza before Trump.

00:35:09.620 No, no, no, forget Gaza.

00:35:12.040 Don't talk about it.

00:35:12.960 That was a success.

00:35:15.080 Well, we could.

00:35:17.240 And then finally, they get around to, what about that ballroom construction thing?

00:35:22.560 Oh, Nancy, I think you got something there.

00:35:26.120 That ballroom construction has legs.

00:35:28.440 People are really going to care about that.

00:35:30.520 But amazingly, they actually made the Democrats afraid.

00:35:36.920 They made them afraid of a ballroom.

00:35:38.800 If you wondered how easily can you make Democrats afraid, they're afraid of a ballroom.

00:35:47.720 They're actually afraid of a ballroom.

00:35:53.500 You can make them afraid of climate change.

00:35:55.840 You can make them afraid of secret white supremacists who are allegedly in the hills waiting to attack.

00:36:01.920 You can make them afraid of Trump's authoritarian ways.

00:36:07.060 But apparently, you can make them afraid of a ballroom.

00:36:11.020 That's like the ultimate test.

00:36:13.040 I want to see what else they can make them afraid of.

00:36:15.840 You see this chair?

00:36:16.800 This chair, this chair, could attack you at any minute.

00:36:22.080 Run! 0.68

00:36:24.980 Anyway.

00:36:27.500 Let's look at the narrative contest.

00:36:31.980 The Democrats want us to know that Trump is using his power of the government to go after his, quote, political enemies.

00:36:40.660 Now, here's another one of those situations that I talk about in my book, Loser Think.

00:36:48.060 Loser Think, one way to argue like a loser, one of many ways, is to try to get your opponent to agree with your definition of things.

00:36:59.460 Because if you can get them to agree with your definitions, then you don't have to use an argument. 0.91

00:37:05.760 And usually, at least one side doesn't have an argument.

00:37:08.480 So political enemies is that.

00:37:12.100 The real question is, is it appropriate in any given case for the government to be pursuing any particular perp?

00:37:21.600 That's a good question.

00:37:23.780 What is not a good question is not good thinking, is can we label all of it political enemies so that we don't have to think about them individually?

00:37:31.980 So the whole political enemies approach, when you see it, is people who are propagandizing.

00:37:40.960 It's a narrative.

00:37:43.300 But suppose I said, let's say I played the same game, which I do sometimes.

00:37:48.840 If I were to argue against the word thinkers who say it's political enemies and that it's revenge, it's a revenge tour, I would just use different words.

00:38:00.400 I'd say, no, he's only going after the people who law fared him for the purpose of running a coup and controlling or overthrowing the United States government.

00:38:12.000 Now, is that an argument?

00:38:17.100 If you don't think about it too hard, it's an argument.

00:38:20.200 But really, I'm just trying to win the same way they're trying to win.

00:38:24.020 I'm trying to get you to accept my definition that I don't need an argument.

00:38:28.520 If I can get you to agree that they're coup plotters and that they were involved in, you know, very bad behavior, then you wouldn't have any problem with the thought that they could go to jail for their very bad behavior.

00:38:42.900 So don't think that there's any argument going on here.

00:38:46.840 That whole, is it a political enemy revenge tour or is it just nobody's above the law?

00:38:55.700 None of those are arguments.

00:38:57.280 They're just trying to get you to agree with a framing, basically.

00:39:02.600 So that narrative contest is kind of a tie.

00:39:06.100 The other narrative guy is Pritzker.

00:39:09.720 So Governor Pritzker, as you know, I call him the poor man's Adam Schiff.

00:39:17.360 So that doesn't work, right, because he's a billionaire?

00:39:19.820 He's not really the poor man's Adam Schiff. 0.74

00:39:22.460 But apparently he wants to be their newest designated liar.

00:39:25.840 I've told you before many times that the Democrats have this weird structure where they've got most of the Democrats are just normies.

00:39:35.320 You know, they're just taking their little bit of corruption, probably, and just trying to get by and trying to get reelected.

00:39:41.940 They're not trying to be in the limelight, not trying to get any attention.

00:39:46.620 Most of them are just trying to get by.

00:39:49.920 But there's this handful, you know, the Raskins and the Schiff and the Swalwells, who I call the designated liars.

00:39:57.040 They're the ones they send out to sell something like the fine people hoax or the Russian collusion hoax or the drinking bleach hoax.

00:40:06.900 Because they'll say anything.

00:40:09.180 They will lie in the most obviously debunkable stuff.

00:40:14.040 But not all of the Democrats will do that.

00:40:16.200 I'm not even sure.

00:40:20.380 I don't know.

00:40:20.800 Maybe AOC does it sometimes. 0.83

00:40:22.640 But there are a whole bunch of ones that are prominent that don't do that because it just looks silly. 0.96

00:40:28.520 But apparently Pritzker is all in on being a new designated liar. 0.92

00:40:33.060 So here's the stuff that he's coming up with.

00:40:35.040 He's coming up with that the real reason that Trump wants federal agents, well, the National Guard, to be in cities is not to fight crime.

00:40:49.440 So here's his narrative.

00:40:51.000 No, it's not to fight crime.

00:40:52.300 That's Trump's narrative.

00:40:54.040 Trump's narrative is that Democrats are bad at fighting crime.

00:40:57.380 So they need Republicans to hold their hands.

00:41:00.600 And that's what he's doing or trying to do.

00:41:02.900 But Pritzker is saying, no, it's a trick so that he can bring in the military in the cities so that when he loses an election, he can just use the military to stay in power.

00:41:16.180 Do you think there's any truth to that?

00:41:19.440 Do you think that Trump has spent even one minute thinking, huh, if I bring the military into the cities, then I can just activate them to keep me in command?

00:41:32.900 Well, first of all, that wouldn't work.

00:41:35.940 There's no way that would work.

00:41:38.440 At the very least, it would just trigger a civil war.

00:41:42.060 But it wouldn't end well.

00:41:44.460 I said, no, I don't think he spent even one minute thinking about that plan.

00:41:48.380 I think he wants to, I think Trump wants to reduce crime and then take credit for it.

00:41:53.820 What else does he need?

00:41:55.220 If Trump succeeded in reducing crime in the cities and then also immediately pulled his resources out once he was done, that would be a gigantic win.

00:42:07.300 I mean, it would be one more reason to say greatest president ever.

00:42:11.600 So why wouldn't that be enough?

00:42:14.240 Seems like it would.

00:42:15.200 You're probably hearing Steve Bannon going on podcasts and talking about Trump running for a third term, and he yaks completely serious about it, Bannon is.

00:42:30.680 But I don't know anybody else who's serious about that.

00:42:35.160 A lot of people talk about it and we joke about it, but I'm definitely not serious about it.

00:42:39.760 If he tried to run for a third term, I would try to stop it with whatever resources I had.

00:42:47.520 And I'm pretty sure Republicans would try to stop it too.

00:42:51.140 So I don't think there's really any chance he could run for a third term and get away with it.

00:42:56.280 But if it gives them something to worry about, I don't know Steve Bannon's game because he's a 4D chess player, so you never know exactly what he's thinking or hoping.

00:43:13.240 But it might be that he just wants them to think about that.

00:43:17.300 Because the more they're thinking about that, the less they're thinking about other stuff, that might be more of a problem.

00:43:24.900 So it could be that he's just trying to divert them into a non-issue, so they spend all their energy arguing the thing that's not even real.

00:43:34.320 Maybe.

00:43:35.360 I mean, I'm speculating.

00:43:36.440 I can't read his mind.

00:43:37.960 So I don't know what Steve's up to.

00:43:40.040 Maybe.

00:43:41.060 There is another speculation.

00:43:42.360 One of the things that makes a second-term president weak is that you can wait them out, right?

00:43:50.340 You can just wait.

00:43:51.260 No, it's only a couple years.

00:43:52.940 We just wait them out.

00:43:54.080 But if you raise the possibility that he might be there for a third term, maybe you don't wait him out. 0.99

00:44:02.220 Because you know he'll kick your ass when he gets that third-term power. 0.98

00:44:05.580 So it could be that Steve Bannon is so much smarter than us, and he's very smart, that he knows that the only way to have a really, really good second term is to tease a third term. 0.99

00:44:22.320 He might be right about that, if that's what he's thinking.

00:44:26.260 Again, I'm just speculating.

00:44:28.040 I couldn't possibly read his mind, so I'm just guessing.

00:44:31.340 But that would be pretty smart.

00:44:35.380 It would be pretty smart if all he's doing is essentially putting down suppressive fire so that Trump doesn't have a, let's say, risk from behind, you know, where they're just waiting for him to get out of office.

00:44:51.540 Might be that.

00:44:53.920 Anyway, Pritzker thinks that it's all about stealing the country.

00:44:58.560 And then Pritzker also said that Trump isn't about fighting crime.

00:45:07.020 That's not about crime.

00:45:08.520 He says he's going after the, he said he was going after the worst of the worst.

00:45:12.300 That's not what they're doing, Pritzker says. 0.94

00:45:14.640 They are literally going after black and brown people because of the color of their skin.

00:45:20.940 Really? 0.96

00:45:22.700 Really.

00:45:23.120 Does anybody think that there's even one Republican who said, we've got to send those federal forces in there because there are people with brown and black skin and they must be stopped? 1.00

00:45:36.640 Anybody?

00:45:37.760 Does anybody think that that's anything like reality?

00:45:42.060 No.

00:45:43.080 No.

00:45:43.980 There's nothing like that in real reality.

00:45:45.980 But the real question, and maybe the most important one, is, does anybody besides Pritzker look more like Fred Flintstone?

00:45:58.180 I've never seen a live person who looked more like Fred Flintstone.

00:46:03.120 So, I just see him running along with his feet in the little car there.

00:46:08.660 The Flintstone car.

00:46:09.800 Anyway, he'd look good for, that'd be, that'd be just like a perfect Halloween costume, wouldn't it?

00:46:17.480 If Pritzker went as Fred Flintstone.

00:46:21.260 Perfect.

00:46:23.440 Well, according to the Post Millennial, Thomas Stevenson's writing that 70% of Democrats support amnesty for illegal immigrants, Rasmussen Poll says.

00:46:35.140 47% of voters said that Trump's immigration policies have been too harsh.

00:46:42.140 What do you think of a second-term president where a healthy percentage of the public thinks he's being a little too strong, a little too harsh?

00:46:54.940 Well, in my opinion, that means he's exactly where he needs to be.

00:46:59.180 If you were a transformational president, which Trump is, very transformational, what would you expect would be his popularity?

00:47:10.540 And you could say popularity for his policies as well.

00:47:13.440 What would you expect would be the normal arc?

00:47:16.940 Well, what I would expect is that when he got elected, you know, he got a sort of a mini mandate.

00:47:22.820 You could argue how big the mandate is, but it was a mandate.

00:47:26.720 And so his popularity should have been the most popular at the beginning.

00:47:33.240 And then you get into the hard work where everybody's arguing with you about everything, and they're trying to block you, and the things that you thought might have been easy turn hard because the other side found a way to stop you.

00:47:45.060 And there's, you know, then the courts get involved.

00:47:47.540 And then all the people who supported you say, I thought this would be easier, right?

00:47:52.820 I thought this would be easier.

00:47:56.040 And then it looks like maybe you've got a lot of problems.

00:48:00.160 So the normal arc for the best president you could imagine would be it starts out with a lot of optimism.

00:48:08.200 And then as the real world gets involved and everything's harder than it looks, the popularity would go down because it doesn't look like it's working as well as you wanted.

00:48:17.600 When you're afraid to just imagine how it will go, you could imagine it going great.

00:48:22.820 So you say, I've got a great president.

00:48:25.220 I imagine he's going to do great things.

00:48:27.500 High rating.

00:48:28.600 Then when you hit the real world, and there are all these just normal real world problems, nothing works as well as they should.

00:48:36.080 So normally, you would expect that somewhere in the middle of the term, a president's popularity would plummet because they're doing the hard stuff,

00:48:44.720 and they're doing the stuff that half of the country is really going to hate, because they always do.

00:48:51.220 Now, what would happen if he's the real deal?

00:48:55.620 We'll say if, just so you don't have to argue about it.

00:48:58.400 If Trump is the real deal, meaning that the big changes he's making will anger people, and they won't understand them, like tariffs.

00:49:07.000 We didn't really understand them.

00:49:10.400 It looks like they might be working.

00:49:12.780 He's got a pretty good argument for it.

00:49:14.760 It's a little bit early.

00:49:17.040 But at this point, it looks like he's hitting some of the hardest topics where people have the most resistance.

00:49:26.700 If he gets a good result, so let's take the attack on Mexico that's certainly going to happen. 0.96

00:49:35.160 So he's getting ready to do a land attack on Mexico, it looks like. 0.72

00:49:38.780 When the attack is being planned, and we're thinking about how badly it could go, his popularity might go down.

00:49:47.680 When the ballroom is under demolition, and all we see is the destruction of a thing that used to be beautiful, his popularity might go down.

00:50:00.920 When he leans on China, on fentanyl, and then China pushes back with their own tariffs that hurt us economically, that looks like we took a hit.

00:50:12.440 But if you look at the middle of everything, it's going to be the worst it could be, because everything starts out like a rosy idea, turns into a messy reality.

00:50:24.360 That's what everything does.

00:50:26.000 But in the end, if you succeed, get a good deal with China, get less fentanyl in Mexico, and bring down inflation, for example.

00:50:37.960 If he pulls any of that off, his popularity will go to levels that nobody ever saw.

00:50:45.080 So to look at the middle of his term and say that his popularity has dropped, that doesn't tell you anything.

00:50:53.520 That doesn't tell you anything.

00:50:55.400 It only tells you that it's exactly on track.

00:51:00.680 It's the arc you'd expect.

00:51:02.520 It should start high, it should go down, and then only if he succeeds will it go up again.

00:51:07.960 And I believe he will succeed.

00:51:12.120 Well, Israel, as you might know, the Knesset, had this unexpected vote about annexing the entire West Bank, which would be the opposite of what Trump administration wants.

00:51:24.280 It's something that a lot of the Israelis, and I think Netanyahu probably wants, but has been willing to at least say for now that he doesn't.

00:51:36.660 What do you think that was all about?

00:51:39.100 Because it sounded like even J.D. Vance was a little bit confused about why they even did that.

00:51:44.340 Because Trump and J.D. both said directly, this isn't going to happen.

00:51:50.620 We would withdraw all American support if you annex the West Bank, because we made promises to the Arab world, and we don't think we can operate over there if we broke that promise. 0.99

00:52:03.620 We just wouldn't even be able to operate.

00:52:06.120 Too big of a promise.

00:52:07.900 So I agree with Trump.

00:52:10.920 If that was the basis upon which they got to this point of dealing with Gaza, if there was a promise that they would not support annexation and therefore a one-state solution, he's got to stick with that. 0.94

00:52:27.560 He's got to stick with that.

00:52:28.680 It looks like he is.

00:52:31.020 Now, I would not rule out that either Israel and or Trump might think that there's a one-state solution somewhere in the future.

00:52:43.540 Maybe.

00:52:44.240 I don't know.

00:52:46.660 But I don't think they can do a two-state or a one-state solution anytime soon.

00:52:52.700 I think they have to do some hybrid, where it's neither a one-state or a two-state,

00:52:56.840 and it's just a thing that nobody ever saw before, and we give it a name, and we say, oh, this is a special temporary situation.

00:53:07.200 And if you can get people to buy it as a special temporary situation, then both sides will think that in the end it will be their way.

00:53:15.660 Oh, after the temporary part will be a two-state solution.

00:53:20.260 Maybe not.

00:53:21.020 And then the other side, after the temporary part, will be a one-state solution.

00:53:25.980 So you give people, you give everybody a way to think that in the future it's going to go their way,

00:53:31.300 then maybe you have something.

00:53:33.940 But the annexing, to me, or even the vote about annexing, to me is some parts of the Israeli government

00:53:42.840 signaling that they'll never be happy with a two-state solution.

00:53:46.760 And that's okay.

00:53:49.220 If it's just signaling, no big deal.

00:53:52.240 I don't think they're going to do it.

00:53:55.220 I don't think they'll annex.

00:53:56.800 All right.

00:53:59.700 So Trump says he's going to inform Congress about what he plans to do war-wise against the cartels.

00:54:06.640 I guess I would include the Mexican as well as Venezuelan and Colombian cartels.

00:54:10.760 I did hear that Venezuela is becoming more of a fentanyl capital because I guess the pressure

00:54:20.180 on Mexico was sufficient that their fentanyl operation from Mexico is depressed.

00:54:27.160 And Venezuela is picking up some of that.

00:54:29.560 So if you thought that Venezuela is just not involved with fentanyl at all, which we'd heard

00:54:34.820 recently, it may be that it's new, that it wasn't involved in fentanyl, but maybe now

00:54:41.620 it is because Mexico is more dangerous for fentanyl, potentially.

00:54:47.700 But anyway, Trump says he doesn't want to declare war.

00:54:51.600 He didn't really give a detailed reason why not.

00:54:54.220 But I think the why not just limits his own flexibility.

00:54:57.980 So he's not going to limit his own flexibility if he doesn't need to.

00:55:02.300 So I don't believe he'll do anything except inform Congress what he plans to do.

00:55:07.400 He won't ask for permission.

00:55:09.400 I don't mind that.

00:55:13.500 Don't mind that at all.

00:55:15.700 Meanwhile, when Trump talks about dealing with China for their trade deal, he puts at the top

00:55:23.000 of his list, and I like that he does this, coming to an agreement about fentanyl.

00:55:29.060 Because as you know, fentanyl precursors are created in China, sent to Mexico, and now maybe

00:55:34.740 Venezuela as well.

00:55:36.020 And then it turns into the fentanyl that they ship to us.

00:55:41.080 So China is the bad guy. 0.97

00:55:42.780 And apparently the top fentanyl guy is in custody and is going to be sent to the United States

00:55:49.540 soon.

00:55:49.920 And so did you know that, that we actually have in custody, well, not we, but he is in

00:55:57.600 custody, the number one fentanyl guy from China?

00:56:01.680 So I don't know if that's telling me anything or not.

00:56:07.600 But Trump said the fentanyl issue is going to be the first thing on his list.

00:56:15.020 And he's going to make sure that China knows that they can't do that anymore.

00:56:19.920 Yeah.

00:56:21.560 Here's his math of it.

00:56:22.800 He says China is paying right now a 20% tariff because of fentanyl.

00:56:27.900 So 20% on some number of goods because they do fentanyl.

00:56:33.480 And Trump says that's billions and billions of dollars that they're paying.

00:56:37.540 On November 1st, the tariff on China goes to 157%, which is record-setting territory. 0.52

00:56:43.600 We don't want that because it's not sustainable for them.

00:56:46.980 He goes, they make $100 million selling fentanyl into a country, only $100 million, but they

00:56:52.440 lose $100 billion because of his 20% tariff because they sell the fentanyl.

00:56:59.260 He goes, that's $100 billion approximately that they have to pay.

00:57:03.020 It's a big penalty.

00:57:03.900 So if they want to do something and they want to put it on the list, it's on the list.

00:57:08.920 So Trump has been very transparent about the fact that he uses the tariffs as negotiating

00:57:16.640 leverage, not just for the trade, but also for wars.

00:57:21.460 And the fentanyl is sort of a war.

00:57:25.480 So I like this.

00:57:26.460 I like that he just put a price tag on it.

00:57:28.860 It's like, all right, it's $200 billion.

00:57:31.000 If you're going to keep doing it, it's going to get really expensive.

00:57:37.140 Probably the best he can do.

00:57:39.160 Meanwhile, as you know, Trump put some sanctions on the two big oil companies in Russia, trying,

00:57:46.640 I think, to get them to not export as much, which would give them less money to press their

00:57:52.420 war against Ukraine.

00:57:53.320 But India and China who buy Russian oil probably will not be impacted by the sanctions at all

00:58:02.820 because even though the sanctions could also be applied to India if they buy the Russian

00:58:08.200 oil, I think, there is allegedly so many workarounds that they can sell the oil to somebody else

00:58:16.380 who sells it to somebody else who sells it through a shell company who sells it to India.

00:58:21.160 So India will not be limited in their oil.

00:58:24.340 They'll just have to get it through a more weaselly way that the United States can't identify.

00:58:30.060 But they'll probably get the same amount of oil.

00:58:31.620 The good news is that apparently oil supplies in the world are up, which means that the price

00:58:41.180 of oil is down, down to about $60 a barrel.

00:58:45.000 At $80 a barrel, Putin can do war all day long.

00:58:50.860 At $60 a barrel, it gets really expensive because there's just a huge difference in profitability.

00:58:59.240 So because the entire world seems to be creating more oil, and also maybe the demand is a little

00:59:09.440 soft, the price is down.

00:59:13.200 So put it all together.

00:59:16.560 So you've got Trump working on the price of oil globally, which would take away some of Putin's

00:59:23.180 economic power for the war.

00:59:25.940 You've got the Ukrainians with their drones attacking the energy resources of Russia, which 1.00

00:59:33.780 is working.

00:59:35.600 And you've got pressure on our partners, which so far probably hasn't worked, but maybe more

00:59:42.260 pressure will, to stop buying Russian oil.

00:59:45.680 And there's pressure to stop.

00:59:47.340 I think we've stopped all the pipelines.

00:59:50.460 I believe that Europe is already committed to no Russian oil by 2028 or something.

01:00:00.580 So that's kind of...

01:00:01.300 So anyway, so there's a whole bunch of paths in which the Trump administration, along with

01:00:07.020 Ukraine, is working on Russia's energy economy in a negative way.

01:00:12.580 So collectively, I feel like if you wait long enough, it's going to work.

01:00:18.780 But it might take a while.

01:00:21.000 I don't think that Russia can continually sell less oil and less oil and less oil and still

01:00:28.180 do what they want to do in Ukraine.

01:00:29.860 At some point, they're going to say, all right, we need just money.

01:00:34.540 We just need money.

01:00:35.820 So we're going to have to play along and sell our oil and get out of Ukraine.

01:00:42.060 So it could be that we have a workable possibility for some kind of ending to the war.

01:00:48.960 But it might not be fast.

01:00:51.180 It might not be fast.

01:00:52.620 But it might be certain.

01:00:54.280 Speaking of which, interesting engineering.

01:00:57.040 Kaif Sheik is writing about this.

01:00:59.260 There's a humanoid robot maker that's making the Phantom MK1 humanoid robot.

01:01:07.560 It's a San Francisco-based company.

01:01:10.200 And they're making their robot to be only a soldier.

01:01:14.300 So where the other AI and robot people are saying, no, we don't want to do military stuff.

01:01:19.940 We'll stay away from the military stuff.

01:01:21.920 These guys are saying, we're only going to do military stuff.

01:01:24.980 We're only making a soldier.

01:01:26.620 So they've got this, I think it's 5'9", robot that looks more like a Star Wars kind of a creature.

01:01:36.580 But we're knocking on the door, total robot soldiers.

01:01:42.900 I don't know how many of these are going to end up in Ukraine.

01:01:45.300 But it's 175 pounds.

01:01:47.760 It can carry a load up to 44 pounds.

01:01:50.960 And it could just march with the other soldiers.

01:01:53.560 Or better yet, march with them.

01:01:54.820 Trump was bragging, I saw the other day, that he had $18 trillion of investments coming into the U.S.

01:02:04.340 And the mostly anybody had ever done before was $2 trillion.

01:02:08.260 Are both of those numbers just made up?

01:02:12.140 Do you think either one of those is based on real data?

01:02:14.820 That no country in the world has ever gotten more than $2 trillion a year, but he's got $18 trillion coming in?

01:02:21.860 And then soon after, he rounded it up to $20 trillion.

01:02:25.780 Do you really think he has $20 trillion coming in?

01:02:31.460 Maybe.

01:02:33.060 But it's a lot.

01:02:34.840 So this is one of those directional things.

01:02:36.940 Directionally, did he get more investment than you could imagine anybody else could have ever gotten?

01:02:43.040 Yes.

01:02:43.840 Yes.

01:02:44.620 He got more investment, mostly because of his tariffs.

01:02:48.820 But he got more investment than anybody could have done.

01:02:54.160 Nobody could have come close.

01:02:56.220 So I don't mind if his number is accurate or inaccurate.

01:02:58.860 You know, he's a salesperson, so he's going to go with the biggest number he can get away with.

01:03:07.420 Anyway, apparently Trump has decided not to surge the federal forces into San Francisco to try to clean up San Francisco.

01:03:18.020 He was asked by two of his buddies, he said, two of his rich friends.

01:03:22.260 We think it was Mark Benioff and Jensen Wang, who are locals, local San Francisco types, who apparently asked him not to do it.

01:03:34.340 And because their credibility with him was high, he said, all right, he'll hold back and he's not going to do it.

01:03:41.920 Now, part of that is that the new mayor of San Francisco appears to be making some progress.

01:03:47.540 And so Trump reasonably, you know, has smart people asking him to hold off.

01:03:55.440 And you don't ignore smart people if you're Trump.

01:03:58.960 And he's got some other story that he can say is working, which is the mayor's doing a good job.

01:04:06.160 So that's happening.

01:04:10.600 All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I had for you today.

01:04:14.160 It's another wonderful day in the neighborhood.

01:04:17.540 If you want an update on my medical situation, because I know you're taking the journey with me.

01:04:24.320 In one week, I will get some radiation treatment on some spots.

01:04:31.700 Not my whole body, just some of the painful spots.

01:04:35.140 If it works, then, you know, maybe I could walk again.

01:04:38.880 At the moment, I can't really walk without assistance.

01:04:41.040 So that's separate from if I can get approved for the Pluvicto.

01:04:49.300 That's a completely different path, but I can do them at the same time.

01:04:53.060 So one is just pain management.

01:04:54.920 And the other would, you know, maybe buy me a little more time.

01:04:57.620 So anyway, if you're wondering how things are going, it's really, really bad in terms of my current level of pain.

01:05:07.320 And the process I have to go through to get any of it fixed is also really, really bad.

01:05:13.120 Because I'll have to lay on a surface for half an hour without moving while they radiate me.

01:05:18.780 And that will be tough.

01:05:22.360 But it's a path.

01:05:24.780 So best case scenario would be that within two to three weeks, my pain level is down.

01:05:35.380 It's not guaranteed to work, by the way.

01:05:37.440 It might work.

01:05:38.100 It might not.

01:05:40.140 And then that might give me a little comfort until I can get on the Pluvicto thing,

01:05:46.060 which would be maybe a few weeks away.

01:05:48.780 And it would take me several sessions before I felt any relief from that.

01:05:54.920 So I might have a way to get to the other way, which is also not a cure.

01:06:02.760 So even if I get to the Pluvicto and even if it works, I still have to find a cure if I want to stay alive more than a year or two,

01:06:10.900 which I'd like to if I get the option.

01:06:14.560 So otherwise, who knows?

01:06:20.980 All right, that's all I got.

01:06:22.080 I'm going to talk to the locals people privately because they are beloved.

01:06:28.720 Beloved locals people coming at you.

01:06:32.000 We'll be private in 30 seconds.

01:06:44.560 So I'll see you in the next six weeks.

01:06:46.640 Bye.

01:06:48.040 Bye.

01:06:49.480 Bye.

01:06:50.060 Bye.

01:06:50.640 Bye.

01:06:50.980 Bye.

01:06:51.620 Bye.

01:06:52.440 Bye.

01:07:00.600 Bye.

01:07:07.440 Bye.

01:07:10.140 Bye.

01:07:10.860 Thank you.

01:07:40.860 Thank you.

01:08:10.860 Thank you.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - October 24, 2025

Episode 2998 CWSA 10⧸24⧸25

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