In this episode of The Sip, Shelly and Owen discuss the life and career of comedian Scott Adams. Scott Adams was a friend, a mentor, and a great human being. He passed away at the age of 65, but his legacy will live on forever.
00:07:54.000And as soon as he saw the one he loved, I mean, the laughter, like the head would go back, like the eyes start watering, the glasses come off, the whole thing.
00:08:38.100And I think maybe we wanted to ask you a couple of questions, too, because you've had quite a fascinating run over the years with President Trump and his campaign.
00:08:52.060And I don't know if I forgot this, but the group reminded me today that you were in Butler, Pennsylvania that horrendous day, weren't you?
00:12:06.540And so later, when I decided to become a human meme, it really drew a lot of inspiration from that experience where taking a slogan out of cyberspace, out of the web, and putting it into real life and becoming a meme in real life.
00:12:24.560And that's basically why I decided to buy the suit.
00:12:28.960You guys have questions for BrickSuit?
00:13:05.020So, no, but the beautiful lesson here that you give us a break to, Mr. BrickSuit, is that you are telling us that with that effort that you did to stand out,
00:13:16.140you got the attention, which is the number one rule in persuasion, to get attention, right?
00:13:24.340And you got the attention of the president to make you into not just like one-dimensional meme,
00:13:33.660but a three-dimensional meme that is multiplying, that is taking videos, that is spreading everywhere, like that.
00:13:40.360And that's what a meme is, you know, we're all memes, basically.
00:13:44.200Every person is a living meme, in a way.
00:13:47.620Some are, you know, more proliferous than others.
00:13:51.420But this is wonderful to have you here and show us what can be done, you know?
00:13:57.020Well, actually, that's kind of what actually happened is because, you know, basically my motivation at the beginning was get to the rallies early
00:14:04.760so that I could be up near the front because I wanted to be there.
00:14:08.680But then when I had the very third, the third rally I ever went to, I bought this because I had two extra days in D.C.
00:15:05.440And from, I guess, a very selfish perspective, I realized that I had done so many of these interviews that I was actually better at articulating whatever it was the administration was trying to convey at that point in time.
00:15:18.780So I felt like if I get there early and I wear this suit, the media will come to me because they're going to assume that I'm just some fool dressed up like a clown.
00:15:28.880And then I can give them sound bites that the Trump team is actually putting out there and trying to emphasize in that given time frame.
00:15:36.440And so I was kind of like, you know, I was under the radar to the media at that point.
00:16:53.720And just a lot of names went off the radar then.
00:16:57.560And I figured at that point in time, if you can't have free speech on the Internet, I'm going to bring it back to real life.
00:17:05.920And I ordered my first Make America Great Again hat and I started going out in San Diego to farmers markets and baseball games and golf tournaments, wearing a Trump hat in 2018 at a time when it was not very popular.
00:17:20.420And it was really doing that was really just driven by my experience at that first rally and how effective it can be to take something out of the realm where it's normally seen and then take it into real life.
00:17:36.660And that was kind of how I got the inspiration to make the suit because I'd already been doing that with just a very simple hat.
00:17:44.080So I'd keep my car and put on when I went about my daily business in San Diego.
00:18:01.700And apparently, unlike an American bachelor party, when they have these in England, all the lads will order similar clothing so they can be identified in the group.
00:18:12.760So they behave much like an American bachelorette party would in terms of their apparel.
00:18:17.140Now, couple that with the best clubs in London having a dress code that the men have to wear suits, there became this cottage industry for semi-disposable, cheap polyester suits and very loud patterns for this type of bachelor party.
00:18:32.820And so they have like rocket ships and skies and thunder and lightning bolts.
00:18:37.740And one of the ones they just had was a brick wall.
00:18:39.920And when I did my initial suit for something to trip, my initial search for something to trigger leftists when I went to D.C., I'm thinking, what do I do?
00:20:31.580When you're an undercover Trump supporter and nobody knows it and then you go to a rally and the president calls you up on stage and two days later you're on Fox and Friends and then you come back to work.
00:20:44.760But the secret is kind of out, you know, when you get doxed by the president in that way, you know, you have to make a decision.
00:22:00.600At that time, I was working as a contractor for RSBN.
00:22:04.480RSBN actually hired me in the latter half of the campaign in 2020 to cover some rallies because they did not have enough internal staff to cover three rallies a day schedule.
00:22:18.280And they basically put the call out there.
00:22:21.060And, you know, there are some other alumni from those guest host days, names that people recognize, such as Scott Pressler was one of those guest hosts.
00:22:29.600Brian Glenn, now at RAV, was one of those guest hosts.
00:22:33.040And, you know, I did probably about seven.
00:22:35.900So in January, I had just come from the rally in Dalton two days prior, which I attended myself, then flew into D.C. where I was slated to cover the segment of the rally.
00:22:52.300Basically, basically, a secondary speaker rally was going to take place near the Capitol steps after the main rally of President Trump by the White House.
00:23:03.020So I was I was in D.C. on January 6th.
00:23:06.300Did you did you have any issues afterwards by the FBI or any other thing regarding January 6th?
00:23:51.340Because I had footage of the policeman, the Capitol policeman being tased in the neck.
00:23:58.200So I had footage of that and I didn't even know I captured it at the time.
00:24:02.720I captured it incidentally just because I was holding a camera up.
00:24:06.020I wasn't looking at that when it happened.
00:24:07.760But, you know, when I heard about it later and I reviewed my footage, I said, yeah, I just, you know, for everything that went on that day, I still think assaulting an officer with a taser to the neck is not acceptable.
00:24:27.720So, you know, when I came back to work after that, after that January, you know, shortly thereafter, I did get a visit from the FBI and it was, they were just following up in every lead.
00:24:41.920I didn't get the impression that they were after me for anything that I'd done.
00:24:45.880It's just that they were, you know, checking names off the list, had a brief conversation with them, a little chit chat.
00:24:52.060They're playing like the good agent, bad agent.
00:24:53.740You know, it's like the one guy starts off the interview and says, like, before we start, I got to ask you, where did you get that suit?
00:25:01.180And so I tell them the story, much like I told you about how I got the suit.
00:25:04.860And then the very next question is, so on January 6th, were you in Washington, D.C.?
00:25:13.060And did you see anything violent at the time?
00:25:15.600Which, having learned from General Flynn, I immediately positively invoked my Fifth Amendment rights and they politely, you know, ended the interview at that point.
00:26:52.060If there's ever another period of time where we lose control of our borders, as we did under Joe Biden, we will be, again, at existential risk as a country of losing everything we've built over 250 years.
00:28:01.780To the extent of my involvement really so far, remember, I was holding a full-time job at the time.
00:28:06.380So, I would go to rallies and I viewed myself as, you know, I'm calling attention to the issue.
00:28:11.420I'm getting out press bites, sound bites beforehand.
00:28:14.260During the rally, you know, I'm close enough.
00:28:18.000The president would usually see me when he comes out.
00:28:20.020And then, you know, if he wanted to use me as a prop during the rally, I was there.
00:28:25.360It wasn't about, you know, it wasn't about so much about me wanting to be recognized at every rally.
00:28:31.100It's just that, you know, low-key, if he wanted to be calling attention to that, I was kind of there as something he'd point to.
00:28:39.280And not just as a prop, but also as a, really, this is important.
00:28:42.740It's really as a proxy for all of his supporters.
00:28:47.640You know, there's another group of people who go to all the rallies, the Front Row Joes, which I'm sure many people are familiar with.
00:28:54.420And so, you know, I believe that the president did like to recognize all of us on occasion because it reminds everybody out there of his supporters.
00:29:06.680And, you know, have I been to the border directly?
00:29:41.640On Butler, that chart that saved the president, that chart became the most famous chart ever.
00:29:47.980I was the PowerPoint guy back in corporate, and when that chart came up and the president looked at it, has anybody tried to make a suit of that chart?
00:30:20.760I thank you, Brick Suud, because I know you've stayed in California, and to be honest, you're a symbol for all of us that are silent, basically.
00:30:34.860Obviously not anymore for me, but there's so much support for Trump and for J.D. Vance and such policies, but there's lots of Californians that have to be very quiet because they'll lose their job.
00:30:51.020They'll do anything to them, and there's also the social thing of, like, oh, you like a Nazi.
00:31:00.520You like that, and I really, you are a brave man.
00:31:04.660You are absolutely a brave man, and Scott appreciated you and loved you, and I'm glad you're here with us, and thank you for being the symbol.
00:31:21.020I'm glad to be here this morning, and it's very early for me to be in the full suit, but, you know, like, maybe next time just the hat if I ever come back.
00:32:13.620Well, starting off with a little science, Eric Dolan, one of Scott's favorites from SciPost, is saying that maladaptive personality traits are linked to poor sleep quality in a new twin study.
00:32:24.760So, apparently, not getting enough sleep makes you a bad person.
00:32:30.320It says all these traits were linked to worse sleep, including negative effectivity, detachment, disinhibition, and psychoticism, which I guess is probably psychosis.
00:32:43.280I think this clearly falls in the category of you could have just asked Scott.
00:32:50.300Any one of us probably would have known.
00:32:52.640If you don't get enough sleep, it probably makes you grumpy and does bad things.
00:32:57.560So, that's what I would expect Scott would have said on that one.
00:33:06.160He probably would have said maybe backward signs as well, but I think it's funny because Scott, I know, personally, got like four hours, maybe three hours of sleep a day.
00:33:19.500And he obviously didn't have any issues, so it depends on how you're built.
00:33:25.560But I think, I don't know what others would think of that.
00:33:32.160I just laughed that Scott would be like, oh, like, I hate sleeping.
00:33:55.960The other thing I was thinking about, so sorry, just real quick, is that whenever Scott talked about twins, he went on a tangent about how it could be like the perfect crime if you have like a, what is it called, like an identical twin.
00:34:20.260Owen, on that study, so they say that people that don't sleep enough, they're becoming psychos or what?
00:34:28.060Yeah, it's, let me just get back up to it.
00:34:32.020It was, they said the personality was measured with the DSM-5, which is the thing that is, you know, basically seeing if you're mentally ill or not.
00:34:41.840And it said they focused on negative affectivity, detachment, disinhibition, and psychoticism.
00:34:49.180And it said all traits were linked to worse sleep.
00:34:53.700Negative affectivity and detachment showed the strongest ties.
00:34:56.760So, I guess that means it probably just makes you much more negative and detached if you don't get enough sleep.
00:35:21.180That's exactly the backward science that I think Marcela was getting at.
00:35:24.140Is that Scott would often say, these studies are backwards.
00:35:27.600They're, they're measuring the, you know, the wrong thing.
00:35:30.300And, you know, like there's often studies he would talk about, about like how people that, you know, go do things outside are better, you know, better off.
00:35:43.340And then he would say, well, you know, if you, if you're not healthy, you're not going to be able to go outside.
00:35:47.720Like, it's got to be a little backwards.
00:35:50.840So, yeah, I think this definitely could qualify for that, that maybe someone who's a psycho or is very negative might have trouble sleeping.
00:36:02.660And that's the best part of those questions like that.
00:36:04.520That's the best part of this section of the show where Scott does it because it teaches us all to, you know, look at the news from a different angle like that instead of just taking it from the, whatever they tell us.
00:36:15.760So, this is, right, this is the lesson.
00:36:20.060So, getting into the politics, there's certainly a lot more controversy coming with the Minnesota protests and the church storming.
00:36:28.240Apparently, there's some news that one of the people that led that storming of the church took home over a million dollars from an anti-poverty nonprofit that she led.
00:36:38.440So, clearly, there's some vested interest there.
00:36:41.220It looks like the nonprofit gave $700,000 in grants over six years.
00:36:46.700She got, like, $936,000 in salary plus $200,000 in benefits.
00:36:53.620So, she took more home than they gave out in grants, which seems like a pattern for a lot of these NGOs that they end up just keeping most of the money.
00:37:03.900And I think the next story had to do with that as well, where Noam is saying that there are arrests coming.
00:37:14.600I think they may have already happened now because when the story came out, it said it's going to happen within hours.
00:37:21.040But Kristi Noam is saying they're going to be arresting these people for disrupting the church.
00:37:26.200Yeah, there has been one arrest so far.
00:37:29.540A.G. Bondi has put it out, and Harmeet Dillon has also reposted it.
00:37:33.540So, one of the – maybe the same person you were talking about, I don't know, but one of the ringleaders, a woman who was instrumental in that,
00:37:42.560I think the one who was interviewed by Don Lemon outside, has been arrested.
00:37:47.520Fingers crossed that the Lemon himself will be arrested if he's guilty.
00:37:51.980I don't want him arrested if he's not guilty, but if the evidence shows that he colluded, then that's on him.
00:37:59.680I saw him in the church talking to the pastor.
00:38:02.540I don't know how you could say he wasn't disrupting the service.
00:38:05.960And he talked about it before even going in.
00:38:08.540Like, he brought coffee and donuts to these people, I think, and said, we're going somewhere.
00:38:13.580I think he spit it out and said it was – I think he said it was a church, but he said, I can't tell you where we're going,
00:38:20.500but it's going to happen, and you're going to see it live.
00:38:32.860I hate to leave that there are bad news, but the jury, even if it's a federal case, which I don't – it would be a federal case if no one is involved, would be a Minnesota jury.
00:38:55.320It would be pulled from all corners of the states, and, you know, Minnesota outside of the – look, we don't want a stacked jury for our side in much the same way we don't want a stacked jury against us.
00:39:12.060So, I think that you will see that, that they will be – you know, they will make sure that it's not just a jury just from Minneapolis property.
00:39:32.360I mean, it's questionable whether or not they'd allow that.
00:39:36.380I know there was the same kind of request with the George Floyd case, which was probably the most clear case of bias where it should have been changed to a different venue, and they didn't.
00:39:45.780But that was, in my opinion, just a lynching.
00:40:09.540As a lawyer would say, it depends on a lot of things.
00:40:12.560So, I mean, even if he knew it was a church, he could have said he didn't intentionally threaten anyone because I think you have to have the threat.
00:40:22.220I'm not familiar with the FACE Act and the KKK Act, but I think there has to be more than just interrupting something.
00:40:32.380So, it would have to be – there would have to be subpoenaed different – collected different documents, like his phone and his information in the computer and what they were planning and who was behind it.
00:40:47.240So, it could lead to different type of charges once you investigate.
00:40:52.480But there is probable cause for arrest and for possibly more issues coming.
00:40:59.900I'm laughing because V8G360 on Locals said, if Don Lemon is arrested, he will believe he is MLK Jr.
00:42:04.440So, I mean, I think to me the theme today, though, should be just Trump winning.
00:42:10.200Because he seems to be winning so hard.
00:42:13.620I want to turn our attention to what's going on in Davos.
00:42:16.680And he has this framework that he agreed to for Greenland.
00:42:23.060Apparently, it's not even just Greenland.
00:42:24.660It's like the whole Arctic cap or that whole region of the world.
00:42:29.200And so, you know, he went in there with a pretty strong card to play that he said he was going to ramp up the tariffs.
00:42:36.440And it looks like Europe and NATO back down.
00:42:40.320I don't know that it necessarily means he's going to literally acquire Greenland.
00:42:43.940But it does seem like he's going to get some kind of national defense thing going there to protect that region against Russia and against China.
00:42:53.180And so, Rubio and Wittakov and Vance, who are the usual people to lead most of the most important negotiations, have been leading the talks there.
00:43:03.660But it looks like they have agreed to a framework.
00:43:05.880And they at least got far enough with it that Trump said, I'm not going to go forward with the tariffs.
00:43:09.900He did mention that he's not going to use force to take Greenland, which seemed like a big sigh of relief for everybody.
00:43:16.340I don't know that anyone, well, I certainly never thought he was going to go invade Greenland with military force.
00:43:22.860But apparently, he is saying that he's not going to do that.
00:43:28.320But at the same time, there's a quote from him saying, you know,
00:43:31.080we probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, but I won't do that.
00:43:36.060So, he certainly is acknowledging that he could easily do that, but apparently, he's taken that off the table.
00:43:42.540But that's a huge win, that he'd be able to get, you know, better protection over Greenland and that area of the world.
00:43:51.640Because as most of you are probably aware by now, it is a vulnerable spot in terms of both missiles and other attacks that might be coming from Russia or from China.
00:44:00.420But especially when the region is a little more navigable, you know, submarines can come through there and there isn't much else protecting us against that.
00:44:11.340So, that's like the most direct route from there to the United States.
00:44:15.500And so, you know, any kind of increased national security there, I think, will be a huge win.
00:44:20.400I love when he kept saying Iceland, sorry.
00:44:23.880And then somebody said, do you think Iceland's like, oh, my God, what did we do?
00:44:30.360Please, please, each Iceland part of America.
00:44:33.860I think one of the most important things, though, to look at that, the impending framework coming out of Greenland and the reports about it,
00:44:40.880are the very significant clause that's in there, is that sovereignty will be granted to the United States in small pockets of Greenland.
00:44:50.520And that means it's not just the right for us to have a base.
00:44:53.720It means that that piece of land will actually be America.
00:44:57.880And that's important because if any of those pieces are on a coastline, we will have territorial rights to the ocean extending outwards to whatever the limit is from that point.
00:45:13.020And that enables us to have more control over the navigation and shipping lanes that may be going by that land at the time.
00:45:21.480So, it's not just like an agreement to get bases done.
00:45:24.600You know, these are going to be real outposts of America on the top of the world that we are going to employ for our safety.
00:45:33.180And, you know, looking at Trump's negotiation strategy, it's pure Trump.
00:45:41.940You know, apply some screws of public pressure and then get back to what you really actually wanted,
00:45:50.120which was the ability to make bases up there, have some mineral rights, control some of the sea lanes, and just take it back from there.
00:45:59.000And if eventually, you know, a couple decades from now, it leads to the Greenlanders embracing us and voting to join America.
00:46:07.620I mean, where are all these people, all these leftists in America who want to decolonize?
00:46:12.180They're always talking about decolonization, and yet here they are still ostensibly supporters of European colonialism in North America.
00:46:20.260They should want Greenlanders to be able to choose where they would like to make their affiliation, and that could still happen somewhere in the future.
00:46:28.540One thing that's kind of saying is how Trump created assets out of the air, right?
00:46:37.180He didn't come with a basket of money, right?
00:46:40.560He came with an idea that there could be guns around, right?
00:46:47.020He also came up with the idea that, hey, Thaddeus might come down.
00:47:29.320I mean, I think everything I'm hearing is that he's following what Scott has said Trump does, which is to always take the strongest position on every issue.
00:47:36.740And he's been very direct, telling Europe that they need to follow America's example.
00:47:43.140And, you know, he talked a lot about the migration problem in Europe, which is worse than it is here, frankly, and how it's kind of ruining the country and they really need to turn that around.
00:47:55.440And it really seems like a lot of European leaders are, you know, really looking up to Trump at this point.
00:48:02.760There are some that have come out to defend his point of view, and nobody really is opposing him very strongly.
00:48:08.500And it's really bothering Gavin Newsom to the point where he was having a meltdown and saying, you know, he thought he should bring knee pads for the world leaders because they're, you know, sucking up to Trump so much.
00:48:21.560And so it really seems like a huge victory in terms of just how Trump is being perceived by all the world leaders, that he's clearly, you know, the big man on that stage.
00:48:35.780And, you know, everyone's looking up to what he's doing, and I think they're acknowledging all of his victories.
00:48:40.740So it seems like he's just winning left and right.
00:48:43.420And the other issue I would add to this at this point is the Board of Peace that he's putting together.
00:48:49.040It's focused on Gaza, but it seems like he's trying to turn it into something even bigger than that, where I think he mentioned it might even replace NATO, this Board of Peace.
00:49:00.300And, you know, that may just be another provocative statement on his part.
00:49:03.480But the persuasion around that, I think, is just incredible.
00:49:07.820He invited Putin to join this Board of Peace, and apparently Putin accepted.
00:49:13.540And he's even talking about paying the billion-dollar fee that Trump is asking for to be a permanent member of it.
00:49:21.020And he's saying maybe he'll use some of those frozen funds that he can't use for anything else anyway, so he may get that billion dollars from Putin.
00:49:27.080And then Trump also invited the Pope to join, and the Vatican said they're considering it.
00:49:37.400Like, how could you say no to joining the Board of Peace as the Pope?
00:49:41.300And, you know, we all know that the Pope is not very politically aligned with Trump, but how could he not say, I'm going to be part of this Board of Peace?
00:49:56.340He's got a Nobel Prize, a Peace Prize already, so he can call himself a medalist, you know?
00:50:03.800Someone on Locals named Rushdie has a few points to make, but he indicates that the Board of Peace itself is a kill shot, linguistically, because it drives you, if you go against it, it's like an 80-20 subject where if you're going to not join, then that automatically puts you against peace.
00:50:31.180So, it's a high ground maneuver, as he said, and as Scott would say.
00:50:37.360So, it's very interesting that he named it Board of Peace, and it's also very catchy and repetitive.
00:50:45.060So, it drives them insane over in Europe.
00:51:39.920Yeah, no, that, I mean, I just think it's incredible that, you know, he's shaking the box again, and he's, I mean, again, to me, like, the most surprising thing is he actually invited Putin to join, and he accepted, because that, to me, extends this well beyond Gaza, right?
00:51:57.980Like, that has to be tied to what's going on in Ukraine.
00:52:01.300I mean, someone just put that France rejected Trump's offer of the Board of Peace from unusual whales.
00:52:12.120Yeah, well, I mean, it's not surprising to me that some of the more less friendly European leaders might bow out, but, you know, they may end up changing their mind because they might realize they're being left out now.
00:52:25.260And if the Board of Peace becomes something that's maybe as significant as the UN or NATO, they're going to want to be part of it.
00:52:31.440And, you know, it's one of these things where once you get enough countries on board, everybody else wants a seat at the table.
00:52:38.280And thanks for reminding us, Gunner the Cat also reminds us that Scott often said Russia and the U.S. are natural allies, and it's so true.
00:52:48.980And I have no issue, what do I know again, but I have no issue with bringing Russia on board.
00:52:57.160You know, there were two countries that love our country and want to protect our countries and, you know, not join, like, a global initiative.
00:53:21.860You know, certainly they were our greatest allies.
00:53:24.520We are celebrating our 250th anniversary, and you can make the argument, and you'd probably be correct, that we would not be a country without the intervention and the assistance of France in the American Revolution.
00:53:37.040So it has not always been the case that they've been this spineless, but I think certainly we can look at the present leadership and their most recent leadership, you know, at the top level, not Marine Le Pen,
00:53:51.180because I think she's a great example of a populist nationalist leader that we're seeing in a lot of countries.
00:53:57.440But Macron is not, you know, why is he wearing glasses?
00:56:16.300You know, I think what you're talking about on the self-deportation, let's recognize this fact.
00:56:21.660When Biden opened the borders, so many benefits were being extended to illegal aliens that, for economic reasons, they decided to come to the United States.
00:57:35.960I've seen, you know, with regards to people being arrested in Minnesota, I saw a lot of black pillars, a lot of people saying that nothing would ever happen.
00:58:48.520And again, this is not necessarily for the audience, but maybe a way that you can explain it to people who you know, who are in that black bill camp of nothing will ever happen.
00:58:58.880Help nudge them over to something could happen.
00:59:01.420And that's what we would call a great reframe, BrickSuit.