Episode 3035 CWSA 12⧸03⧸25
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 20 minutes
Words per Minute
131.53052
Summary
Coffee with Scott Adams is back, and it's better than ever. Plus, the dangers of birth control, and Elon Musk's new robot hand. Guests: Comedian Adam Gertler ( ) and comedian Scott Adams ( ), co-host of the podcast Coffee With Scott Adams.
Transcript
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on in. It's time. You know what. Grab a seat. Make yourself comfortable. And we're just
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about ready to go. Are you ready? You're ready, right? Not many people here yet, though.
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I say we start with Adam. What do you think? Yeah. Start with Adam.
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization. It's called
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Coffee with Scott Adams. You've never had a better time. But if you'd like to experience
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an elevation in how you feel to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny,
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shiny human brains, all you need for that is a cup or mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice
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or a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I
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like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day, the thing
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that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. It happens now. Go.
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Delightful. Well, let me make sure I can see all the beloved locals' comments.
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Not that they're better than the rest of you, but they are. The beloveds. All right, beloveds,
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you are fully functional. Mm-mm-mm. All right, let's check the news, see if there's anything
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weird in the news. Well, according to the University of Copenhagen, the women's contraceptive pill
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may cause people to get depressed later in life. Now, how many of you did not know that the contraceptive
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pill could change how you feel? Well, it can. It can. Increased risk of depression. Well, I knew that
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if you just asked me. I could have told you. It also changes your preferences in men, doesn't it?
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Don't we already know that, that your preferences in men would change based on being on the pill?
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That's dangerous. So I would advise you never get married and then go on the pill because that's
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kind of sketchy. You might not be attracted to your husband anymore. Anyway, did you know also
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that the more you engage in social media, the dumber you get, according to SciPost, Karina Petrova?
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There's a new analysis that says that the more time you spend on social media,
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literally the dumber you get. Okay, you score lower on certain tasks of brain function.
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All right, let me see. I wonder who scrolls more on social media, men or women? What do you think?
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Who spends more time on social media? Well, let's go to Grok. Grok says women spend
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30% more time on social media. So if you know a woman who's on social media
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and she recently went on the pill, according to science, she is dumb and depressed compared to you,
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compared to you. So be careful about that. You don't want the dumb and depressed people.
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Well, Elon Musk is bragging about his new Optimus robots. The hands are the hard thing to get
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because they have so many, the range of motion is so great and they have to be able to feel what
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they're doing. But apparently the new Optimus hand is a wonder. 22 degrees of freedom. I don't know,
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maybe that's a lot. But they say they're finalizing it, the design of Optimus version 3.
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And it'll have the manual dexterity of a human.
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Really? This would be where a crude cartoonist would be making a joke. Huh. Let's see. Women are
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going to be scrolling on social media and getting dumber compared to men, according to science. That's
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not me, that's science. And they're going to go on birth control to get angrier and more depressed.
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But your Tesla Optimus robot is going to have a human-like hand and is going to be happy and like
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you all the time. I wonder where this is heading. That's right. Who will be the first person who
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cancels a date to get a hand job from his robot? You know, Alice, I'd love to go on the
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date to the movie and sit there for two hours watching somebody get tied to a chair. Or I could
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just get my robot to be a little friendly and a little handsy. You know what I mean? Well, can your
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robot give you a massage? Back massage? I don't know. But if one of them learns it, then they all learn
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it, right? Well, I believe since the Optimus robots will be networked and presumably anything that one
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of them learns will be taught to the others automatically, I feel like it's an important
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kind of a social thing you can do to train your robot first to, you know, get a little handsy.
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And then all the robots will be able to. And then you don't have a date at all. Yeah, that's where
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we're going. Now, Elon Musk, of course, also is the Neuralink company where they put a chip in your
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brain. And he says that any device can be controlled via computer or phone that can be controlled by
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the Neuralink implant. Hmm. Well, that's interesting. If you were in need of the Neuralink implant,
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would it be possible that you'd be able to someday, they can't do it yet, imagine that you're in a drone
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or robot and that you see what the drone sees or the robot sees. That's coming, right? So it could be
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that our best warriors will be people who are paraplegics, but they have a Neuralink implant
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so that they can actually be on the battlefield without being on the battlefield. They'll just use
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their Neuralink connection to see what the drone sees or see what the robot sees. Now, the question
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will be if the Neuralink, I'm sorry, if the Tesla robots, Optimus, suppose they're the best ones
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and inexpensive. Will they be available to the military? Or will Tesla say, we will not sell these
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to the military? But what if the military said, we will buy a million of them? Well, maybe. Maybe.
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So, yeah, I have a real question whether the robots will ever be militarized or will Elon just say,
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I don't want to be in that business, use some other robot. I feel like maybe he will not want to be part
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of that, but I don't know. Well, the New York Times has joined others in debunking the Washington Post
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story that alleged that Secretary Hegseth ordered the killing of survivors on one of those narco boats
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in September. So, the New York Times says, nope, not true. How many of you already knew that wasn't true
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because you had learned how to detect fake news from me? This one had all of the signs,
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all of the signs for fake news that was there. Number one, the story fit the Democrat narrative
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perfectly. Oh, so six people are complaining about the risk of illegal orders being followed by the
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military? And then, coincidentally, there's a big national story about some military people who may have,
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allegedly, done some illegal things by following orders. That is what we call two on the nose.
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So, clue number one, there was fake news, two on the nose. And the timing was kind of coincidentally
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perfect for something that happened in September, and we waited until now. All right. Number two,
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it came from the Washington Post. Well assumed, let's say, assumed to be a non-legitimate news source
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when it comes to deep state Democrat stuff. Maybe not in general. You know, the other news might be
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fine. But when it comes to politics, that would be one of the least credible sources. So, that would be
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clue number two. Two on the nose, and it's the Washington Post. What would be the third thing?
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The third thing is that it's from two, it's always two. They always tell you they're two anonymous
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whistleblowers. Now, if they had been non-anonymous, and we could all talk to them, maybe, you know,
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but if they're anonymous, Washington Post, two on the nose. No, we did not need to wait for the New
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York Times to debunk this. We were all there first. So, how does it feel to know what the future is?
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That's what happened. Those of you that I've trained to spot fake news, as soon as you saw that,
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you said. A number of people told me, as soon as I saw it, your training kicked in, Scott, and I knew
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it was fake news. Yep. So, you're welcome. Anyway, speaking of Exeth, he's announced, I don't know
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that this is new, but that the U.S. is going for drone dominance. So, we've got to be the bestest,
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biggest military drone maker to stay safe. Almost nothing else will matter, except drones.
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And we can't afford to shoot down cheap drones with, you know, expensive missiles. So,
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we're going to have to match the cheapness of what will be coming at us if there's a war.
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My question is this. How many of our drones that we make, and we're looking to make a
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gazillion of them and, you know, be able to make more than anybody else? So, the only way that's
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going to happen is if they're being made by robots. So, we'll have to have Tesla robots working in
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factories or other robots making drones like crazy. But will they be software upgradable? Probably.
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That's probably the main difference will be the software upgrades. But there will be other hardware
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upgrades too. All right. ABC News says that the wealth of the top 1% of Americans is now a record
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$52 trillion. Wow. So, if you took, if you confiscated most of the wealth of wealthy Americans,
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if you just took it all, you would be able to pay off our national debt. So, how do you think the
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national debt would be paid off? Do you think it will be paid off by the poor people? No.
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Will it be paid off by a tremendous amount of economic activity from robots? Well, that's what
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Elon Musk thinks. He thinks the only way out to pay off our national debt is to have such a gigantic
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increase in economic activity that that $32 trillion or $39 trillion debt doesn't look so big anymore.
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Maybe. That plus inflation could be. But here's the good news. Even though the richest got richer by
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10% recently, the bottom half also did well. They increased their wealth by 6%. Well, that's not
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bad. A 6% increase. But I bet it doesn't feel like they increased their wealth. Because everything
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costs more, right? Not everything. Well, speaking of everything costing more,
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Rand Paul is reviving a plan that I guess Democrat AGs shot down the last time it came up. It's a plan to
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allow health insurance to be sold through Costco, Amazon, and Sam's Club. Now, if I understand the idea
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here, if you allow those entities in particular, because they're so big, Costco, Amazon, and Sam's Club,
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if you allow them to compete in the insurance business, the competition would drive the cost
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down. Now, do you think that's true? Do you think that that would be enough? All you have to do is
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let these big cost-conscious companies that are really good at driving costs down, if you let them
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compete with each other, will that drive down the cost of healthcare? It feels like it's worth a try,
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right? I don't really see the downside. But I don't know how much of a difference that would make
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or how quickly. I suspect it would not be fast. But I also wonder if your Amazon, has not Amazon
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announced that it wants to be directly in the healthcare business, not just the insurance
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business, but in the providing healthcare? Part of it makes sense, because there's a lot of healthcare
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stuff that really depends on something being delivered to you, right? Like, you need some
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crushiness, you need a pill. A lot of it is just something that has to be delivered.
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So Amazon's the obvious one to do that. Would you buy your health insurance from Amazon if they
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provided the insurance, but they also provided some fast same-day service for, you know, all the
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medical things that you continually need? I feel like I might. I feel like that might be an attractive
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option. So I guess the last time this came up, the Democrat AGs fought against it in court and won,
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to which I say, what was their objection to it? Why did the Democrats, AGs, not want competition?
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In what world is competition a bad thing? Well, it must be just somebody was making money.
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You know, it had to be the usual, some kind of corruption or something. But now that the
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Republicans have control of Congress, there's some thought that it could get passed. So maybe
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if that was the only thing that Trump did for healthcare, how much of a difference would it make?
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Maybe a lot. By lot, I would say 20%. I mean, it's not going to turn it upside down. But you could get
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probably a solid 20%. Well, Trump is doubling down on his anti-Biden auto pen stuff. And he wants to make
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sure that everybody who got a pardon into that knows that it's canceled. I've got a problem with this. I've got a
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problem. You know, there is a constitutional ban against double jeopardy. So you can't be tried for the same
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thing twice if the first time you got off, right? And we all, we understand that to be fair, don't we?
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Don't you think that's fair? If you've been tried for something once, and you were found not guilty,
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it's not really cool to try you again. It just, we like that. It seems fair. But what happens if you got a
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auto pen pardon or commutation, and then the next president tries to take it away, doesn't that feel like a little
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double jeopardy-ish? To me, it does. So as much as I think people like Fauci and whoever else need to, they need to be
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responsible for what they allegedly did. I don't know what they did or didn't do, but it feels like
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people should be responsible for, you know, any bad things they did. On the other hand,
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it's really double jeopardy-ish. I just don't know if I want to be part of a system that can tell
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somebody, all right, you're safe. You know, go live your life. And then next president comes in and says,
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oh, no, you have to go back to jail? Are there people who will be literally put back in jail
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because of the auto pen? That's not cool. You know, even if I don't like those people,
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and even if I think, you know, they got away with murder, I don't know. You know, I don't think
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anybody has been put back in jail because of it yet, but how would you feel watching somebody
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being handcuffed and taken back to jail after they thought that all the problems were over and
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they'd been pardoned? It wouldn't be a good feeling, but I imagine there are a few really bad characters
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that, you know, maybe you would. Now, there is an allegation that maybe, there's no proof of this
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whatsoever, that maybe the Biden people sold some of the pardons or commutations or clemency or
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whatever the hell it's called. But I don't think we've seen evidence of that. Or I don't think we
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would necessarily, even if it were true. So, I'm uncomfortable with that, but I understand why
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it's being done. Let's see, Scott Jennings apparently spent some time with President Trump,
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and there was some report that Trump fell asleep during a meeting, cabinet meeting. Is that true?
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How in the world could it be true that Trump fell asleep during a cabinet meeting and there's no
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video of it? Was there a part of the meeting where it was not videoed? I don't know. Seems like we'd be
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seeing that all over the news if that were true, but they say he dozed off. Now, I wouldn't care,
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you know. If somebody dozes off in a meeting that's so boring that anybody would doze off,
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I don't really care. Do you? I feel like if your job is going from one meeting to another,
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and you sleep four hours a night, and one of these is just so boring you fall asleep,
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I don't want you impeached over that. I just think you should have shorter meetings
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or have somebody sit next to you to wake you up. But it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world,
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but Scott Jennings is pushing back on that. I saw a man a few days ago in the Oval Office for about
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an hour. He looked and sounded fine, wide range of issues. People were coming and going. It was
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bustling. He was listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon cabinet meeting.
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So, maybe that's another fake news. So, I don't know.
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The video won't be shown on the news stations I watch. What do you mean? I watch both sides of the news.
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How many of you think I don't watch CNN? I do watch CNN. I don't watch MSNBC so much,
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because that's not even trying to be news. CNN at least is trying to be news most of the time.
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You know, and they may stray a little bit from perfection. But if you look at them lately,
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not five years ago, but if you look at them lately, it looks like they're trying to do news.
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So, I always sample CNN and all the regular mainstream news. So, no, I would definitely
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have seen it if it were circulating. But it was a good accusation.
00:23:10.220
Well, President Trump has called Ilhan Omar garbage. Now, compare the outrage or lack of it
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with what Trump said this week to how much outrage there would have been in his first term.
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And it's completely different. So, this is something Trump actually said. Quote,
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Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work. These
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aren't people that say, let's go. Come on. Let's make this place great. These are people that do
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nothing but complain. When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch,
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this is actually what Trump said. Do nothing but bitch. We don't want them in our country. Let them
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go back to where they came from and fix it. All right. So, was that racist? Was it sexist?
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What was it? Was it racist or sexist? And are you surprised at how little pushback there is on this?
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There's a little bit. But it doesn't feel like it would have felt five years ago, does it?
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Five years ago, this would have been the only story. And they would have slammed it over and over again.
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And it would all be about, he wouldn't call a white person this. And if it were a white person, he wouldn't
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do that. If it were a man, he wouldn't do that, even if he would. So, does it seem to you that Trump has
00:24:59.640
cornered the Democrats? Because their one play, their go-to all the time, was identity politics.
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So, he goes right in the middle of the identity politics and does a tap dance on top of it. It's
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like, do-do-do-do-do. Watch this. They're garbage. When they come from hell and they complain and do
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nothing but bitch, we don't want you in our country. Yes, you're garbage. All your friends are
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garbage. And he basically just gets away with it. Because I think the Democrats have finally
00:25:47.540
caught on that if they take the bait and they go down the identity politics, it doesn't get them to
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be the next president. People don't care. Most Americans don't really care about whether he's
00:26:04.680
insulting Somalians who are ripping off the country. They're not all ripping off the country.
00:26:12.060
Let me say that because I'm no racist. But there are some prominent stories of Somalian
00:26:19.140
crooks stealing a billion dollars from Minneapolis, Minnesota, I should say. So, yeah. But it's not
00:26:28.180
every one of them. So, don't be like that. There are plenty of good Somalians. I don't know any
00:26:35.600
Somalians, but I'm just assuming. I assume there's some good ones. Anyway.
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Ilan Omar is garbage. And all of her friends are garbage. All right. Well, that was fun.
00:26:52.100
Well, they're not all garbage. Come on. They're people. They're human beings, people. Stop being
00:26:58.900
that way. But it is pretty funny when Trump is that way. Well, the Trump administration has
00:27:07.320
officially halted immigration and naturalization from 19 third world countries. So, I remember when
00:27:17.740
doing that was a racist act. But now, not so much. Not so much. Doesn't seem so racist now, does it?
00:27:27.260
And have Democrats learned that pushing back against identity politics or embracing it, I guess,
00:27:36.220
doesn't work? Or do they just not have any leadership? Because it seems to me, and see if you agree,
00:27:45.900
that Trump is giving them all kinds of red meat. Just all kinds of red meat. And they don't seem to be
00:27:54.840
chopping on it. But they're also not doing anything else that's working. Maybe they just think they
00:28:01.400
can outweigh them. Which they can, by the way. They can wait them out. Anyway. It does make me
00:28:10.680
wonder if Democrats have literally had a meeting and said, all right, we can't let him bait us like
00:28:18.680
this. Every time he baits us into this identity politics things, he wins and we lose. So just don't
00:28:24.960
take the bait. Do you think that's happening? Or is it just some lack of leadership that they can't
00:28:32.280
organize a counterattack? I don't know. Meanwhile, the Alabama town has squashed a plan to build
00:28:43.300
in their town a large Muslim school. And locals say they don't want to become like Dearborn or Great
00:28:52.700
Britain, which I imagine means they don't want to have too many Muslims in their town.
00:28:59.440
But the reason that they gave for turning it down had to do with traffic. Do you believe that?
00:29:07.840
And do you believe that Alabama turned down the Muslim school because the impact it would have on
00:29:14.220
traffic? Well, maybe. I mean, traffic's real and maybe. But that was kind of convenient because then
00:29:24.360
they didn't have to have a deeper argument about what their concerns were. So we'll see if there's
00:29:32.700
more of that or less of that. I wonder why you can't just turn it down for being a Muslim school.
00:29:42.760
Like that's not a good enough reason. Now, I get that we're America, blah, blah, blah.
00:29:48.680
But wouldn't a Muslim school be sort of at odds with the whatever standards there are for American
00:29:57.960
schools? I feel like a Muslim school would have a tough time meeting the requirements of a regular
00:30:05.100
school. So I got questions. Anyway, so Duffy, what's his first name? Secretary Sean Duffy,
00:30:17.340
transportation secretary, transportation secretary. Yeah. He warned that he warned Walsh,
00:30:26.620
Governor Walsh of Minnesota, to revoke illegally issued driver's license from non-citizens or lose 30
00:30:35.320
million in highway funding, according to just the news. So Minnesota failed to follow the law,
00:30:42.360
says Duffy, and illegally doled down lots of trucking licenses that would be unsafe
00:30:50.780
because the people are not qualified. So that's happening. 30 million in federal highway funding.
00:31:00.420
So I have a question for Governor Walsh of Minnesota. I mean, I'm just reading the news and there are a
00:31:10.340
variety of things in the news about Minnesota. And the overarching question that it makes me wonder
00:31:17.360
about is, did Governor Walsh do anything right? Or was he literally playing some kind of prank
00:31:28.860
where he wanted to see if he could become governor and just do everything wrong? I'm going to do
00:31:34.640
everything wrong. Just see what happens. I'm just curious what will happen if I just do everything
00:31:40.460
wrong. Can you imagine he could have been the vice president? He could have been the vice president.
00:31:48.180
Oh, my God. But, you know, a lot of us, and I would put myself in this category, had an instinct about
00:31:58.200
Walsh. Like, there's something wrong with this guy. There's just something wrong. And sure enough,
00:32:07.000
there's something wrong with him. He is not to be trusted, in my opinion.
00:32:11.700
Well, the Department of Justice is suing six states, according to Fox News, for refusing to turn
00:32:23.260
over their voter registration rolls because the federal government wants to look at them and make
00:32:30.040
sure that they have, you know, legally, that the people on the voting rolls are there legally.
00:32:36.080
And the states that have refused are Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont,
00:32:43.640
and Washington. And now they're being accused of violating federal election laws.
00:32:50.240
So my question is this. Why would any of those states refuse to turn over their voter registration
00:32:59.080
rolls upon request? What would be the argument? Too busy?
00:33:04.640
Oh, we're too busy. Maybe they don't have the information. Do you think? Do you think it's
00:33:13.860
possible they don't have voter rolls? No, they have voter rolls. Or they don't think that the federal
00:33:21.340
government has a legitimate right to see that? I don't know. It looks like they have something to
00:33:30.200
hide. I don't know that for sure. But it looks kind of suspicious. So I'm glad that the federal
00:33:38.840
government is pushing on. Trump is still talking about him not getting the Nobel Prize. And he says,
00:33:49.140
every time I end a war, because he's allegedly ended eight wars already, according to him,
00:33:55.500
every time I end a war, they say, if President Trump ends that war, he's going to get the Nobel
00:34:00.500
Prize. If I end that war, well, he won't get it for that war. But if he might get it for the next
00:34:06.960
war. So Trump is mocking the Nobel Prize people for not giving him the award for ending what he would
00:34:17.720
say would be ending eight wars. You might debate whether he has ended eight wars. But he certainly
00:34:24.420
does something in that direction. He's certainly impressive. You know, whether it's eight or six
00:34:31.560
or five, it would still be a world's record of ending wars. And then he says, I should get the Nobel
00:34:40.160
Prize for every war. But I don't want to be greedy. I kind of love that Trump is going after this hard
00:34:52.680
because one of two things is going to happen. He's either going to get the Nobel Peace Prize
00:34:59.500
eventually, you know, maybe not right away. So he's either going to get it or he's going to destroy
00:35:05.220
the Nobel Peace Prize as a credible prize. One of those two things is going to happen.
00:35:12.560
So he's created sort of like a me or, you know, me or them. And I've got a feeling that he might
00:35:18.940
destroy the old Nobel Prize reputation like he did the news business. You know, if you're sitting over
00:35:27.100
there in the news business and you watch how Trump completely destroyed the credibility of the entire
00:35:32.760
news industry, well, I think the Nobel Committee might be next. So Nobel Committee, if you guys want
00:35:41.660
to maintain your credibility, you probably don't want to go up against the most persuasive person
00:35:48.860
who's ever been mad at you. So watch out for that. But I think everybody's watching the Russia-Ukraine
00:35:58.320
situation. If Trump ends that, what do you think will happen? I'm going to make a prediction, okay?
00:36:06.860
I'm going to predict that if Trump literally ended the Ukraine-Russian war, that the Nobel Prize
00:36:17.020
Committee would not give him, not give him the Peace Prize because they would argue that he ended it
00:36:24.060
in a way that was not, let's say, good for Ukraine. Right? Because you could argue anything.
00:36:32.820
You could argue, well, all he did was give away a country to an aggressor. He gave away, you know,
00:36:40.020
the most economically viable part of Ukraine. He just gave it away. We're not going to give him a,
00:36:47.060
you don't get an award for giving land to an aggressor. Right? So I think the Nobel Prize Committee
00:36:56.440
are going to try to not give it to him. And they will simply have some argument. Well, yeah, he did
00:37:04.180
solve eight or nine wars. But, you know, they would have solved themselves. And, you know, they'll have
00:37:11.560
some reason. So I suspect he will never get a Nobel Prize. But the cost to the Nobel Committee,
00:37:21.720
I mean, can you even imagine? Imagine if he did solve the Ukraine situation and just got a total
00:37:29.360
lasting ceasefire. And then would the Nobel Prize be able to ignore that? Yes, they would.
00:37:38.180
They could. All they'd have to do is say it wasn't a good deal for Ukraine. That's all they'd have to
00:37:44.900
say. Well, yeah, the shooting stopped, but only because they gave away half of their country,
00:37:50.140
you know, the best parts. So yeah, they could weasel their way out of that. But I think that
00:37:55.720
if they do so, it will forever destroy the credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize. Some would
00:38:02.000
say it's already destroyed. Well, I've talked at length about how the Democrats use that word
00:38:09.540
affordability as a very effective propaganda. And when you hear that they want to make things more
00:38:17.240
affordable, as a consumer, you say to yourself, well, that sounds good. I would like some affordable
00:38:22.900
stuff. Please give me some affordable things. So it sounds good. And I've told you that it's a real
00:38:29.500
problem if you're Trump. So what does Trump do? Well, first of all, I'm going to give him credit
00:38:36.440
for noticing, as I did, that the word affordability is pretty good. You know, if you were coming up with
00:38:45.740
things to say about the other side, and you were a Democrat, and you came up with that word
00:38:50.940
affordability, you've heard me compliment that, right? Mondani, Mondami. It's a really strong word
00:39:00.120
for, you know, the common sense, ordinary person who just can't pay for groceries. We want to hear
00:39:07.000
that you're fixing affordability, and shut up about the rest. Honestly, I don't, I never go to bed
00:39:13.320
thinking about Ukraine. But I've had a lot of people go to bed thinking about how to pay for groceries.
00:39:18.520
So it was a super, super clever, effective word. So that gives Trump a problem. What does Trump do
00:39:27.320
when the other side, whoever the other side is, what does he do when the other side makes a good
00:39:33.580
play? And it's based on words. Well, he either co-ops it, which it looked like he was trying hard
00:39:41.040
to do maybe a week or two ago. But now it looks like he may have pivoted. So instead of co-opting it,
00:39:47.720
which might look like he's just following the Democrats, which is not a good look.
00:39:54.920
I think he's mocking it out of existence. It looks like that's the next play. So Trump says,
00:40:01.620
the word affordability is a Democrat scam. Oh, all right. So he's going to call it a scam.
00:40:08.960
They say it. And then they go on to the next subject. And everyone thinks, oh,
00:40:14.120
they had the lower prices. No, they had the worst inflation in the history of our country.
00:40:19.200
So I guess Trump's new approach, and maybe he's just testing it. You know, he doesn't know if it'll
00:40:24.540
work yet, but testing it out, is that he did successfully call a lot of things they do
00:40:30.380
fake and scams. I think he said, you know, climate change, or at least the alarm over it was a scam.
00:40:40.440
Got away with that. So maybe, yeah, I always say this is just a test to see how it goes. If he can
00:40:49.380
make affordability sound like a scam, he might do it. But it would be better if he could just make
00:40:56.040
stuff affordable. Apparently, gas prices are falling to below $2 in some states. Did you ever
00:41:05.320
think that would happen? I didn't. I never thought any state would have $2 gas again, but apparently
00:41:13.880
they are. That's a pretty big deal. In California, of course, I think we're still around $5 because we
00:41:23.180
got a terrible government. Just summary. Summarizing, we have a terrible government.
00:41:31.320
Anyway, so affordability, the word is all the Democrats have for them. They don't have
00:41:36.400
performance. They don't have success. They've got that word. It's a very attractive word because we
00:41:44.240
all want some affordability. But it looks like Trump is just going to take the piss out of the word
00:41:50.300
so that the next time you hear affordability, you're going to think, all right, it's a scam.
00:41:56.060
You know, I like affordability, but the way those Democrats talk about it, I don't know. Maybe it's
00:42:01.780
some kind of Democrat scam. So we'll see if Trump can sell affordability as a scam word. It's a tough
00:42:09.980
sell because it's a strong word. And Trump has actually predicted that gas prices will fall to $2 a
00:42:17.860
gallon in some places. He blames Biden, Trump does, for emptying out the National Petroleum Reserves.
00:42:28.240
Do you think that that's why the gas prices are what they are? I don't know. You know, maybe because
00:42:35.960
refilling the reserves means that we're competing, doesn't it? I think that's how it works. Doesn't that
00:42:42.820
mean that we would be competing in the free market to buy gas or oil? Is it gas or oil?
00:42:52.360
What's in our reserves? Gas or oil? Can you even have a reserve of gas? That's weird. I feel dumb.
00:43:04.100
One of the things about doing this, a podcast, where you talk about the news, is it does a really
00:43:13.180
good job of revealing your stupidity. If there's something you don't know, oh, it's going to come
00:43:20.940
out like it just did. I'm seeing all. So a bunch of people in the comments, are you telling me that it's
00:43:30.100
gas that's already refined and also oil? Oil and gas both. Okay. Oh, but are you talking about gas that
00:43:41.980
goes into your car or are you talking about gas that would be burned for energy? You know, the more
00:43:51.040
gassy gas. Okay. I think you mean oil and the kind of gas that you pull out of the ground, not refined
00:43:59.420
gas that goes into your gas tank. Right? I think. All right. Well, obviously I'm not the expert on
00:44:07.380
that, but I don't know if that is enough to be affecting our gas prices this much. I mean,
00:44:14.620
it might make some difference, but I don't have much difference. Well, according to the AP,
00:44:21.240
Trump administration says it's going to withhold a snap food aid from the Democrat blue states unless
00:44:29.360
they provide recipient records. So do you see the pattern? This would be yet another example
00:44:36.160
where the federal government is trying to do something like an audit without it being exactly
00:44:43.840
an audit. They're just trying to figure out where their money is going and to make sure that they
00:44:49.220
don't give money to a black hole. But it kind of amazes me that there's any state that's receiving
00:44:57.160
money from the government that's not willing to tell the government where the money is going.
00:45:02.840
That feels a little sketchy, doesn't it? Now, I don't know where this is going to end up,
00:45:08.540
but I definitely am backing the federal government who wants to have some kind of control on where the
00:45:13.840
money goes. I don't know if this would be an audit per se, but we need some kind of auditing process
00:45:22.340
for our federal dollars. It would be much harder to get that approved at a local level,
00:45:28.900
but it would be ideal if we never gave any taxpayer dollars to anything unless it was fully auditable.
00:45:39.680
All right, how about this? Oh, Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, are you listening? I call them out because
00:45:47.900
in my opinion, they're the common sense guys in the government. How about this? How about some
00:45:55.460
legislation that says if you want to receive federal dollars, you have to demonstrate that
00:46:02.560
you have an auditing function? Boom. What do you think? Show me in the comments. I want to see some
00:46:12.280
legislation that says that in the future you can only receive federal dollars only if you've demonstrated
00:46:21.160
that you've set up an auditing process that would allow the federal government to see where its money
00:46:26.720
went. You like it, don't you? Now, I like that because it's not overly prescriptive. It's not telling
00:46:39.060
people they have to do a certain kind of audit in a certain kind of way, but it allows the federal
00:46:45.180
government to say that's good enough or it isn't. That's pretty good, isn't it? Yeah, that's not just
00:46:53.200
a good idea. That's a freaking great idea. Now, I need somebody who's smarter than me to tell me if that
00:47:01.860
would work in the real world. I don't know if it would work in the real world, but why in the world would
00:47:09.820
anybody give billions and millions of dollars to anybody if they didn't know where it was going?
00:47:16.820
But somehow we do that. So I think you could start with that model at the federal level,
00:47:23.700
and then that would give people at the local level something to argue for. So in other words,
00:47:31.160
if you had this law at the federal level and it started working, then the people at the local
00:47:37.920
level could say, that, that, we need to do that. We just need to do the local version of that.
00:47:44.040
Much easier because if it works at the federal level, your argument for doing it locally is
00:47:51.700
trivial. I mean, easy. Of course you'd want it locally. Well, in other news,
00:47:59.020
China's going to tax condoms for the first time in 30 years. And I guess they're doing this to
00:48:07.660
increase the population because they know they've got a demographic problem. They're not creating
00:48:14.620
enough babies for their future survival. So they're going to stop taxing condoms.
00:48:21.700
I don't know how much difference that's going to make. Do you? Just that one thing.
00:48:29.160
How many condoms do they use in China? Now they should also tax oral sex, obviously,
00:48:36.940
because those people who are having oral sex instead of penetration, well, they're not having
00:48:42.780
babies. And if you really want to encourage the Chinese to have babies, you should put a steep tax
00:48:48.720
tax on oral sex. Something like $1,000. Because some people will still pay the $1,000 because,
00:48:55.800
you know, it's worth it if you have the money. At least that's the going rate in the United States.
00:49:05.620
That's the going rate around here. How do I know that? I don't know that. I'm just guessing.
00:49:20.280
Jay, don't clip this. Jason, do not clip this. This should not be a clip. I'm just messing with you.
00:49:30.320
I'm just joking. So the Chinese got to pay taxes on their condoms. All right.
00:49:41.880
Speaking of NATO, the chief of NATO, Rutty, says that next year countries need to give a lot of
00:49:49.680
money more than a billion a month to purchase offensive and defensive weapons from the U.S.
00:49:55.360
All right. As long as they're buying our weapons, I'm happy about it. Yep. You Europeans need to
00:50:01.940
vastly increase your weapons sale, your weapons purchases of American weapons.
00:50:10.280
All right. Senator or Secretary Rubio was pointing out yesterday, I think, that Ukraine has pushed
00:50:19.080
Russia back out of a lot of territory that Russia once held. Now, did you remember that?
00:50:25.360
To me, that came as sort of a surprise. I know that some of the territory has changed hands.
00:50:34.080
So I know it's not a static situation in Ukraine. But is it true that Russia once held a lot more
00:50:41.000
territory than they do? And that little by little, Ukraine pushed the amount of some of it? And now
00:50:48.440
they have reached some kind of impasse where Russia is gaining a little ground and Ukraine is not pushing
00:50:55.820
anybody out of anything? Is that what's happening? It's fog of war. So I don't know exactly what's
00:51:02.600
happening over there. But Rubio claims that they used to have a lot more territory and Ukraine pushed
00:51:09.800
them back. Now, the way I would interpret that is that Russia didn't have the force to hold the
00:51:17.900
territory that they captured. And maybe some of it wasn't terribly strategic. So they may have said,
00:51:24.700
well, we got all this territory. We'll keep the strategic stuff. We'll let them see if they could
00:51:32.300
get back the non-strategic stuff. So probably there's a strategic versus non-strategic element in
00:51:39.020
that. But it's generally easier to conquer to some territory temporarily than it is to hold it for
00:51:47.120
years. So anyway, that's interesting. Putin is, as I like to say, he's a real good propagandist.
00:51:59.000
And I like to look at his work. Now, if you can find it in your brain to not say I'm a Putin lover,
00:52:10.080
I'm going to talk about what he's doing right in persuasion. Can you all handle that? I know 90%
00:52:18.220
of you can handle it because you've been around my content for a while. It doesn't mean I love Putin.
00:52:25.220
Okay? If I say he did something right or something that's smart for Russia, it doesn't mean I love
00:52:33.480
Putin. It just means he made a good play. And maybe it's worth looking at. Maybe you learned
00:52:39.680
something. So Putin said there were three things he wanted to say about the war that in Russia's,
00:52:49.800
specifically about Europe's involvement in the Ukraine-Russia war. And Putin said that about
00:52:58.220
Europe, they were obsessed with this idea of delivering a strategic defeat to Russia.
00:53:05.460
Is that true? Do you think Europe was obsessed with the idea of delivering a strategic defeat?
00:53:12.560
Or is it just something they wanted? Because who doesn't want to win? Well, this one rings a little
00:53:20.640
bit true. Again, I'm not taking sides with Putin. I'm just talking about the propaganda game and when
00:53:29.020
he does it well and when he doesn't. This is a good job. Because I don't know that this is the truest
00:53:37.760
thing he's ever said. But it does match what I've seen in the news. So it's true-ish. It's in the
00:53:46.020
realm of true, true stuff. I mean, it doesn't seem like the most important point in the world.
00:53:53.700
But all given that, it rings a little bit true. And it did look like they were somehow obsessed with
00:54:01.480
spending all this money. You know, if you spend so much money and all these people have died,
00:54:07.420
you're kind of going to want to say, but it worked. Right? So maybe the way I would put it
00:54:13.420
is it's not so much they needed Russia to lose, but they had put so much of their own reputation and
00:54:20.240
treasure into making a difference that it's really hard to say, oh, well, yeah, it's kind of
00:54:27.660
embarrassing. But we wasted, I don't know, $100 billion on absolutely nothing. So it might be
00:54:36.260
more to do with the Europeans can't take a loss when they put this much into it. So it could be
00:54:43.580
that. So that would, it's roughly what Putin said, but I'm just saying it differently. He said, number
00:54:50.960
two, instead of helping the current American administration and Trump, who actually wants to
00:54:56.800
negotiate a settlement? Oh, see what he's doing? So Putin is saying that Trump wants to negotiate
00:55:05.220
a settlement and Europe doesn't. See what he's doing there? He's dividing the allies. So there's
00:55:13.940
already, you know, a little bit of division going on between what Europe wants and what America wants.
00:55:20.080
And America apparently is trying to negotiate a deal and then kind of coerce Europe into saying
00:55:27.700
yes. And Putin's just very gently putting a wedge between them so that that difference is a little
00:55:37.180
bit more stark. Trump wants it, wants it to end the war. Europe does not want to end the war. Now,
00:55:44.500
is that true? It's probably not exactly true. You know, there must be Europeans who do want to end
00:55:50.460
the war, et cetera. But it sounds right, right? So propaganda wise, nice play. Again, if you're
00:56:00.460
just joining, I'm not taking Putin's side. I'm just looking at the gameplay, you know, who's making a
00:56:06.360
good play and who isn't making a good play. And he says, Putin says of Europe, they're the ones who
00:56:13.200
walked away from serious negotiations earlier. And now they're trying to sabotage Trump's efforts as
00:56:19.820
well. Does that ring true? Do you feel that Europe is trying to sabotage Trump's efforts? Well,
00:56:28.860
probably they're going to ask for things that they know. Well, let me say number three. This is what
00:56:35.380
Putin said. Before I say it in my words, I'll say it in his words. He said they, meaning Europe again,
00:56:41.240
Europe have no genuine peace proposal of their own. Okay. Is that right? I think that's true,
00:56:48.920
right? That Europe has not proposed a serious peace proposal. I haven't, I don't remember seeing one,
00:56:57.420
but that would be a good point. Again, I'm not backing Putin. I'm just saying, you know,
00:57:03.440
anytime he says something that is true, that bolsters his persuasion. And I think that sounds true.
00:57:10.020
And so he says, what they really support is continuing the war. Now, this one's a little
00:57:16.520
harder to sell. Why would Europe want to continue a war? Why would anyone want to continue a war,
00:57:24.160
unless you were the one under attack? Now, if you were the one under attack, you might want to
00:57:28.980
continue it to, you know, get back what you lost, et cetera. But they're not Ukraine. So what is it that
00:57:36.020
Europe wants? So Putin goes on, he says, what they really support is continuing the war. Okay. Here's
00:57:46.940
where he loses me. What is Putin's argument for why Europe would want to continue a war in Europe?
00:57:53.760
If I were in Europe, the last thing I would want is to continue a war with Russia, even winning the war,
00:58:03.940
in quotes, winning, seems like that would be super dangerous because they're a nuclear power.
00:58:10.000
And what do they do if they get desperate? You know, do you have to win the war, but just barely win
00:58:16.660
it so they don't want to nuke you? I mean, it's all, it's all dangerous stuff. And then Putin says of
00:58:24.420
Europe, whenever they claim to be offering improvements, he puts it in quotes, or modifications
00:58:30.880
to Trump's plan, it's transparent. They're deliberately inserting conditions that they know Russia will
00:58:37.340
never agree to. Huh. But doesn't Russia do that too? Has not Russia inserted
00:58:45.400
requirements that Europe and the U.S. would never agree to? But maybe they've pulled back on some of
00:58:55.340
them? Because they had, I guess, the U.S. peace proposal was like 28 points, but now it's cut down
00:59:01.680
to 20. I don't know which ones fell away, but I imagine they were the impractical ones that, you know,
00:59:09.340
nobody would ever agree to. I imagine. Don't know that for sure. Anyway, the thing that Putin leaves
00:59:18.900
out from his analysis is when Europe says they're afraid that if Putin gets what he wants out of
00:59:26.380
Ukraine, he'll just keep trying to guess stuff. So if he wins in Ukraine, will that embolden him to
00:59:35.540
try to take a piece out of, I don't know, Poland? Because one of the arguments we've heard a lot
00:59:41.880
is if you don't stop him, it's going to be a Hitler situation, you know. It's always a Hitler
00:59:47.860
situation. But if you don't stop him, he'll try to get more of Europe. Because why would he stop?
00:59:54.220
If it works, it works. So you keep doing what works, right? I don't know. I'm not 100% sure
01:00:02.100
that Putin thinks he could take any other countries, but I'm not sure that he doesn't
01:00:08.880
think it. So that's the part he leaves out. I think Europe has a reasonably coherent opinion
01:00:18.840
that if you don't stop him here, he will be emboldened to take another bite out of something
01:00:25.340
you don't want him to bite. Either the rest of Ukraine, or like I said, Poland, or maybe the
01:00:32.520
Baltics or something. So there is an argument that if you don't stop him here, he'll keep going.
01:00:40.800
And how do you know? We're not mind readers. Can you tell if he would keep going? What do you think?
01:00:49.400
Show me in the comments. If we essentially appeased Putin by saying, all right, all right,
01:00:57.860
you can keep the stuff he already took. Just please don't take any more. Do you think they'd make a
01:01:04.940
play for Finland or the Baltics or Poland? What do you think? And how would we ever know?
01:01:14.560
And does he have a plan? Or would he form a plan based on future events, but doesn't really have
01:01:23.880
one now? I'm seeing some no's. I see some yeses. Don't know, right? Yeah. So I think it's kind of
01:01:34.060
convenient that when Putin was listing all the things that Europe was thinking, the one thing that he
01:01:41.680
didn't mention is that they're thinking he would keep going and try to conquer other places.
01:01:48.740
Isn't that the main thing? That's number one, right? Of the things that Europe is concerned about,
01:01:56.540
is it not the top interest that they stop him before he gobbles up more of Europe? And he doesn't
01:02:04.580
even mention that one. So the thing that Putin did not say, here's your dog not barking. And for those
01:02:13.440
of you who thought I was being a little too generous to Putin, now here's the counterpoint. The fact that
01:02:19.160
Putin never mentioned, well, you know, this is the only interest I have. I certainly don't have any
01:02:26.200
designs on Finland or Poland or Estonia. No, no, no. I would never attack or try to conquer them.
01:02:35.120
I have one interest only, and it's these interests, these ethnic, the ethnic Russians who happen to
01:02:43.540
live in what you call Ukraine, but now is part of Russia. No, no, no. I'm just looking out for
01:02:50.220
ethnic Russians. It's kind of missing, isn't it? The fact that he doesn't even address
01:02:57.240
what I think is the number one problem, which is we can't trust that he would stop there if we gave
01:03:04.220
him, you know, if we stop fighting, we don't really trust it at all. So I would say that by the fact
01:03:11.840
that he leaves out the number one worry suggests that Europe is right. Right? Do you tell me in the
01:03:23.560
comments? We're just going to do some mind reading here. None of us know what Putin is thinking or
01:03:30.280
what he'll do or how long he'll live or anything else. We don't know. But what do you think? Do you
01:03:37.220
think that if he succeeded in gobbling up as much of Ukraine as he already has, that once he's digested
01:03:46.340
that and he's got these, you know, drone-making factories and he's ramped up his war economy so
01:03:53.860
it's really humming around and he doesn't have a gigantic mutiny yet, you don't think he'd maybe take
01:04:03.280
a little nibble, just a little nibble out of one of those other countries? Or do you really think
01:04:11.100
this is solely about, you know, protecting ethnic Russians? Do you believe that?
01:04:20.920
Well, he's got a little bit of a Maduro problem, which is there's a belief that nobody has ever
01:04:29.060
kept a deal. Just people don't keep deals. Maduro's allegedly made five deals he didn't keep.
01:04:37.600
Putin allegedly has made some number of deals he didn't keep. The United States has made a number
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of deals with other countries that we didn't keep. Now, I'm not the historian expert, so I can't name
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what those things are, but I think that's true. Right? Would you agree it's true that even the United
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States has, unfortunately, you know, promised things that we didn't fulfill? Right? So deals are kind of
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sketchy just in general. People keep to deals when it's in their interest to do so. They don't keep
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to deals when it's not in their interest, and maybe they shouldn't, right? So I feel like the biggest worry
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issue is sort of unaddressed, and I wonder how Wyckoff and Jared Kushner are handling that.
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They're not handling it by not mentioning it, which is what Putin did. So we'll see.
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Meanwhile, the Trump envoys are in Moscow now meeting with Putin and his gang.
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But what's different about this meeting, I guess Wyckoff has been to Moscow and done a lot of
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footwork there, but this is the first time that Jared Kushner is in the room on negotiating with
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Putin, with Wyckoff. Now, here's what's interesting. Do you know what Jared Kushner has working for him?
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Does anybody know his secret sauce? Because he got the Abraham Accords done. Nobody saw that coming.
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What is the secret sauce that Jared Kushner has that nobody else has?
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He literally read the book on persuasion before he did the Abraham Accords, which seemed impossible.
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I've got this weird optimism that if you put Jared in the room, everything changes.
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Because Jared is operating, I think, on a higher level than maybe even Wyckoff.
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And Wyckoff is operating at a really high level.
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But it appears to me that Wyckoff is the real deal.
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He's just maybe good with people, good with negotiating, has a lifetime of practice.
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This might be the first time we've had that much skill sitting in a room for that long.
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So if it turns out that they make some big breakthrough, and I'm not predicting it, by the way, but if they did, that would be further evidence that Jared is the secret sauce.
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You know, maybe they're just tired of Wyckoff, or maybe they've decided they can get one over on Wyckoff.
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So you add this new variable, which they probably trust that if Jared says something, that Trump will probably back it.
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But so the exciting part to me is watching if the person who, in my opinion, is the most capable persuader, the most capable persuader.
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I'm sure it's not the only thing he's read, but he has at least that much training.
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Because I believe I have a skill set that's well matched to the job.
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I think he has a skill set that's really well matched to this job.
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Now, he also has a track record with the Abraham, of course.
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And that matters, too, because if you walk into the room and you have a track record of being able to solve these seemingly unsolvable problems, then everybody starts acting like maybe it's going to be solved.
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Oh, we finally have a person who knows how to solve the unsolvable problems.
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So then suddenly people start getting flexible because they start believing it's possible.
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If they don't believe it's possible, they're not going to give up anything.
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And in order to find a middle ground, there's going to be some giving up.
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So would you give up something to wick off if you didn't think he could get it done?
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But would you give up something if Jared is in the room knowing that he knows how to get this stuff done?
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Because you might say, well, I wasn't going to give this up, but I think Kushner could actually get a deal.
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And by the way, Wyckoff has a strong track record, too, but he didn't do the Abraham Accords.
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There's a report that Putin made Wyckoff and Kushner wait.
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So after they got to the Kremlin, Putin was not on site.
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He was giving some kind of a talk nearby and made them wait until he was good and done with his talk.
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And it's being reported that that was sort of a power play, you know, to make them cool their jets so that they know they know who's in charge.
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And then he makes them cool their jets after they flew halfway across the world.
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It's entirely possible that Putin is not super on time for everything that he wants to be on time for.
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So it's possible that Putin didn't plan it as some kind of a, you know, power play that he just maybe just didn't have enough time to get done what he wanted to get done.
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So I'm not entirely sure it's the way it looks.
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But on the other hand, would Putin be the kind of negotiator who would do this intentionally?
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But is he the personality type, the kind of training where he would have seen this as a possible way to get a little advantage?
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And then Putin is warned that Russia is ready to go to war with all of Europe, if that's the path that the European leaders choose.
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And he says that Moscow has no intention of starting a war with Europe, but says if Europe ignites it, Russia will finish it off kind of quickly.
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Now, I hate to say it, but at this point, it does not look like Europe would put up much of a fight, because apparently Ukraine has the strongest military in all of Europe, and they're at a stalemate with Russia.
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So I just don't know how much of a fight Europe would put up, or NATO, I guess.
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So in theory, if he went after Europe, he'd be going after NATO, and the U.S. would be in the fight, and there's no way he'd want that.
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Putin's singing the Blueberry Hills song at a dinner event.
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Anyway, in other news, scientists have discovered a way to recharge the aging human cells.
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So apparently there's something they can do to goose your mitochondria, which I believe Star Wars did first.
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Star Wars, the force, works on your mitochondria.
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But there's a latest study from researchers at Texas A&M, and they found some nanoflower particles that can goose your stem cells and create more mitochondria that basically keeps you younger.
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So are you excited about getting some strong mitochondria?
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I need a little extra mitochondria if you have any.
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Well, Jonathan Turley is writing about how California is considering a billionaire tax for 2026.
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They would impose a one-time 5% tax on any individual wealth exceeding a billion dollars.
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And apparently if you tried to leave the state, they would still claw it back from whatever state you went to.
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So do you think that's a good idea for California?
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I'll tell you, I'm not a billionaire, but if I were, I would be looking for some clever way to get the hell out of this state, because I would not want to live in a state where they ever, even once, had a tax on assets, this kind of a tax.
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I already have property tax, that's bad enough, but this 5% of everything you own, are you kidding?
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But if you're a billionaire, I guess you could afford it.
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That's why people wouldn't care so much, except the billionaires have too much power.
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As I told you, Senator Rubio is pointing out that Venezuela's Maduro has broken every past deal.
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Apparently there have been like five deals with different parties over the last 10 years, and Maduro broke every one of the deals.
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So that would explain why Trump was not willing to do a deal with him.
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How about I stay, but you control the government and I'll control the military?
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How about I leave, but you guarantee me, you know, in the other countries, a pardon?
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You don't have to say the second part because that's implied.
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So now you can see why Trump has not been dealing with him, but rather simply telling him what the deal is.
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Now, if you want to stay, well, you know, I'm looking at moving my military in there and you might all be killed soon.
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Do you know what's the only thing that could save Maduro at this point?
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It would be the Dilbert calendar for 2026 because I don't think he has one and look at the trouble he's getting in.
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But if he had the Dilbert calendar, which is available only on Amazon and you could order yours now.
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Well, well, boy, there's a very loud noise in my driveway.
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But I can guarantee you that there's not a single dictator who's ever been deposed who also had the Dilbert calendar.
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Let's act like that's some kind of a coincidence.
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In the entire world, in the entire world, of all the different dictators there's ever been, you think it's a total coincidence.
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It's a coincidence that not a single dictator who has the Dilbert calendar has ever been deposed?
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You've got to have this to prevent being deposed.
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I'm going to talk to the beloved local subscribers privately in about 30 seconds.
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The rest of you, I hope you enjoyed the show or learned something at least.
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And my beloveds, I'm coming at you in 30 seconds, assuming all my technology works as planned.