Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 3086 - The Scott Adams School 02⧸03⧸26

00:00:00.000 I've actually been crying. I've been laughing so hard. I've been laughing for 10 minutes straight since I saw this.

00:00:06.000 George Filosopoulos, a newscaster, would binge on several factors.

00:00:11.000 One, source of information.

00:00:13.000 Wow.

00:00:14.000 Viewers might be more inclined to trust his statements. Conversely, if he has been wrong before or shown bias, viewers might question his claims.

00:00:31.000 Three, context of the information.

00:00:44.000 The transparency would make his assertion seem less credible or might suggest that he is part of a broader misinformation.

00:01:11.000 From a storytelling perspective, whether George is portrayed as a credible newscaster or as someone engaged in gaslighting.

00:01:41.000 Oh, I've watched this, like, probably 15 times, and I literally cry every time I watch it.

00:01:54.080 My tears just shoot out of my eyes against my glasses.

00:01:58.520 I could not not start with that today.

00:02:02.200 Oh, my God.

00:02:03.080 Good morning, everybody.

00:02:04.220 Okay, we're going to get right into the sip, because we have a special guest with us.

00:02:12.740 Okay, everybody, get ready.

00:02:15.320 It's time.

00:02:30.240 Alexa, turn on studio. 1.00

00:02:34.220 Hey, it's time for Coffee with Scott Adams.

00:02:38.860 You came to the right place.

00:02:41.020 Boy, do we have a show for you.

00:02:44.040 Oh, my God, it's going to be so good.

00:02:46.800 I know you can't wait.

00:02:48.680 But first, the simultaneous sip, the thing you're all here for, I know you are.

00:02:53.800 And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a festival of any kind.

00:03:01.080 I like coffee.

00:03:02.000 And join me now with a simultaneous sip.

00:03:05.240 It's the thing that makes everything better.

00:03:07.540 It's the dopamine hit of the day.

00:03:10.320 Go.

00:03:10.800 Oh, yeah.

00:03:17.440 You're impeachy.

00:03:19.040 You said impeachy.

00:03:22.120 Oh, my gosh.

00:03:23.180 So, you guys, let me grab my cup.

00:03:25.080 I'll have a sip after.

00:03:25.980 You guys, I'd like to welcome you all to the Scott Adams School.

00:03:31.620 And my name is Erica.

00:03:32.960 And we have the beautiful Marcella.

00:03:35.300 We've got sexy Sergio.

00:03:37.980 More dapper than tapper is Owen Gregorian.

00:03:41.040 And our matriarch of all matriarchs, we have Shelly Adams and our special guest today, the amazing, the wonderful, talented, always has a better tan than me, Steve Cortez. 0.52

00:03:56.180 Welcome, Steve.

00:03:59.640 Thank you so much for having me.

00:04:01.140 Thank you.

00:04:02.360 Thank you.

00:04:03.160 So, just for those that don't know who you are, I'm not going to try to summarize who you are because I can go on for days.

00:04:11.320 But how would you describe yourself to those meeting you perhaps for the first time?

00:04:16.280 Sure.

00:04:16.840 Probably the quickest way is political, operative, and TV talking head.

00:04:21.260 So, I specialize in media, both doing live hits and responding and defending and promoting agendas on the air, but also creating media.

00:04:29.720 I make political ads.

00:04:30.820 I make documentaries.

00:04:32.280 I do a lot of just phone videos.

00:04:33.960 I learn quite a lot about a lot of things, but including making media from Scott Adams over the years.

00:04:39.400 I worked on and off for President Trump over the last decade, worked for J.D. Vance in his Senate campaign.

00:04:44.520 I'll be really involved in a lot of races into this fall.

00:04:47.520 Prior to that, I had a Wall Street life that got me into television kind of just by happenstance.

00:04:52.260 I really kind of stumbled into TV, business TV, but that then led to the political world, and I'm now all politics and media,

00:04:59.980 and just taking on the small task of saving America and saving Western civilization.

00:05:04.700 No big deal, right?

00:05:06.800 That's all.

00:05:07.540 That's all.

00:05:08.060 Nothing big.

00:05:10.040 So, I am curious to know what campaigns you're going to be working on.

00:05:14.720 I mean, we can get into that a little bit later.

00:05:17.520 And, of course, we're going to have questions like, what do you think about 28?

00:05:22.260 And J.D. Vance, is it going to be Marco Rubio?

00:05:25.500 But there'll be time.

00:05:27.240 Okay, guys.

00:05:27.840 So, I would love to kick it off as a group chat because, Steve, I think one thing that I want to talk about right away,

00:05:36.900 because the issues that we're having with China in our country are vast.

00:05:43.340 And from them buying up our property to strategic purchases of property also, which is very concerning to me,

00:05:53.800 near military bases and things like that.

00:05:57.300 But what you're doing is a documentary coming out on Thursday?

00:06:03.060 Yes.

00:06:04.200 And why don't you explain to us?

00:06:07.020 I did post a clip for people to see, and I'll repost it after the show.

00:06:10.740 But tell us what that's about and why it's so urgent.

00:06:14.760 Sure.

00:06:15.180 Thank you for the opportunity.

00:06:16.300 It's China's College Takeover. 0.99

00:06:18.920 And you can see, if you'd like to see a trailer for it, it's at the top of my social media right now.

00:06:23.080 If you go to my Twitter, which is at Cortez Steve, Cortez with an S, Cortez Steve, you can see just a 30-second trailer.

00:06:29.100 But I think even in that 30 seconds, we convey, I hope, a powerful argument that this is really dangerous to America

00:06:35.040 and it's unjust to American young people.

00:06:37.720 We have 300,000 Chinese nationals studying in the United States right now.

00:06:44.080 Some folks, including President Trump, want that total to actually go up.

00:06:48.000 I'm trying to make the case that that number needs to go down.

00:06:50.300 And, in fact, it should actually be zero.

00:06:53.080 For two reasons.

00:06:54.220 Number one, it is a national security threat to the United States.

00:06:57.320 It makes no sense for us to educate our enemies.

00:07:00.560 And we know, as a matter of fact, not supposition, we know factually that at least some of them are here to spy,

00:07:06.520 that they are spies and saboteurs.

00:07:08.580 That's probably the worst-case scenario.

00:07:10.300 But even in the good-case scenario, we are educating our enemies to then use our knowledge base to make their country better

00:07:17.520 and at some point to use those very skills and that knowledge against the United States.

00:07:23.380 But then the second aspect of it is that, of course, this is a zero-sum gain in terms of these top universities.

00:07:29.720 And generally, they do attend very prestigious, very selective U.S. universities.

00:07:33.760 They do not have endless seats, right?

00:07:35.840 Those spots, in my view, should be reserved overwhelmingly for American students, for American kids. 0.73

00:07:42.980 And I highlight in this documentary – this will be out Thursday morning, by the way.

00:07:47.120 It's free.

00:07:47.580 We'll be putting it everywhere, on my website, on Twitter, on YouTube.

00:07:52.080 We just want people to see it.

00:07:53.500 We're not trying to in any way monetize this.

00:07:55.580 And I highlight the University of Illinois.

00:07:57.920 And I'm from Chicago, spent most of my life in Chicago until the crazies chased me out.

00:08:02.900 And I now, thankfully, live in the wonderful red state of Tennessee.

00:08:06.200 But I know Chicago is near and dear to me.

00:08:08.580 I know many people there.

00:08:09.600 And I kept talking to so many parents who had just outstanding young children,

00:08:14.380 I mean, just outstanding young adult kids who were applying to the University of Illinois

00:08:17.900 and couldn't get in.

00:08:18.920 I mean, the kinds of kids with, you know, 4.2 GPAs, taking all the APs,

00:08:22.780 getting a 35 out of 36 in the ACT.

00:08:25.220 I'm one of those parents, Steve.

00:08:26.820 Okay.

00:08:27.520 Okay.

00:08:27.780 And they can't get in.

00:08:29.060 And one of the key reasons is because selective American schools –

00:08:32.860 and University of Illinois is one of the best STEM schools in America.

00:08:36.360 University of Illinois is absolutely flooded with foreign students.

00:08:40.180 And I think there's way too many international students, period. 1.00

00:08:42.280 But the Chinese, to me, are by far the most ridiculous part of this equation 1.00

00:08:46.820 because of the national security threats, because, again, we're educating our enemies. 0.98

00:08:50.620 University of Illinois, in the middle of the farmlands of America,

00:08:54.180 in the middle of cornfields in central Illinois, has 6,000 Chinese students,

00:08:59.520 6,000 Chinese nationals.

00:09:01.480 By the way, I want to point this out.

00:09:03.020 A lot of the American students that they are replacing, they're taking the spots of, 0.92

00:09:06.680 happen to be Americans of Asian descent.

00:09:08.980 Think about that.

00:09:09.660 So if you're a Chinese-American citizen, if you're a Korean,

00:09:13.600 your spot is being taken by an Asian national who is coming across the ocean 1.00

00:09:18.060 from communist China, almost all of them the sons and daughters of the power brokers 0.92

00:09:22.480 of the Chinese Communist Party, to be educated at the University of Illinois.

00:09:26.320 And I begin this trailer, and I begin my documentary with what I think is a powerful reminder,

00:09:31.520 University of Illinois fighting Illini football games broadcast in Mandarin Chinese.

00:09:36.260 That's how many Chinese students are there.

00:09:39.600 This, to me, is really troubling, and I think we need to wake up.

00:09:44.100 So I just have to ask one quick thing, because this floored me.

00:09:49.760 Why does President Trump want more Chinese students here full well knowing what's going on?

00:09:56.940 I just, I don't understand.

00:09:58.420 Make it make sense.

00:09:59.260 It doesn't, but help me.

00:10:00.380 It does not make sense to me.

00:10:02.340 But, you know, listen, President Trump's instincts are almost always correct.

00:10:06.320 Sometimes he needs his ardent supporters, like us, to remind him of our basic philosophy.

00:10:12.300 I don't know why he has that stance, but I think it's important for us to just make our case.

00:10:18.040 And I'm certainly not attacking President Trump.

00:10:20.020 As a matter of fact, I don't think he's mentioned in the documentary.

00:10:22.700 We are just making the case, hey, this does not make sense for America.

00:10:26.800 It doesn't make sense for our kids.

00:10:28.020 It doesn't make sense for our national security.

00:10:30.380 And by the way, we are, of course, funding these schools.

00:10:33.100 So remember that.

00:10:33.960 We are paying to educate Chinese nationals, some of whom are spying on us, right? 0.99

00:10:39.200 And again, we know this.

00:10:40.480 They've been convicted.

00:10:41.360 They've been arrested.

00:10:42.340 University of Michigan, two more Chinese nationals were just indicted on bringing bioweapons into the United States. 0.92

00:10:50.020 This is outrageous, and we're paying for it.

00:10:52.720 We're paying for the privilege of being spied on,

00:10:55.020 and the privilege of having our own children excluded from selective schools while Chinese nationals get in. 0.99

00:11:00.740 And let me just make this point, too.

00:11:02.320 University of Illinois, of course, is the flagship public school of that state.

00:11:05.900 So it makes it, I think, even worse.

00:11:07.900 But the private schools, in many cases, actually get more government money than the public schools.

00:11:12.640 So, for example, Columbia University, prestigious Ivy League school in New York, is half foreign.

00:11:17.720 Well, Columbia gets billions of dollars in foreign assistance, excuse me, in government assistance.

00:11:23.500 So we have a critical say in what happens at all of these schools because we are funding all of them,

00:11:29.100 including the allegedly private ones that aren't really private when it comes to their funding.

00:11:34.720 Yeah.

00:11:34.980 Well, I agree with you 100%.

00:11:36.460 And like I said, I'm one of them that was directly impacted by this.

00:11:40.060 My son applied to University of Illinois for mechanical engineering, and he got rejected.

00:11:44.380 And I'm sure there are a lot of Chinese students that got accepted into that program.

00:11:50.480 And because of that, he went to University of Wisconsin, you know, pretty comparable school.

00:11:55.140 Sure.

00:11:55.480 But I had to pay out of state tuition because of that.

00:11:57.880 Yeah.

00:11:58.440 So, I mean, my family lost over $100,000, I would say, just because of that, you know,

00:12:04.540 because I couldn't get my son into University of Illinois.

00:12:07.180 Wow.

00:12:08.260 And I assume he had really good credentials.

00:12:10.380 Yes.

00:12:10.680 He had excellent grades like straight A GPA.

00:12:13.340 He had a high test scores, everything.

00:12:15.200 I mean, when I applied to college many years ago, I got accepted by University of Illinois.

00:12:21.440 And back then, it was pretty much like a table.

00:12:24.120 You could just say, okay, if you have this test score and this GPA, you'll get accepted

00:12:27.320 to this program.

00:12:28.580 And so you could tell right up front.

00:12:30.560 And I always thought it was kind of a deal that we made, especially with the public schools,

00:12:35.300 to say we're paying tax dollars into the University of Illinois if we live in Illinois for

00:12:39.920 our whole life, right?

00:12:40.780 And so part of that deal should be that your kids get accepted into that school if they

00:12:46.620 want to go there.

00:12:47.860 And it is criminal to me to say that we would prioritize foreigners over those students,

00:12:52.940 especially people that are in that state for a state school.

00:12:57.300 It's just, it makes no sense.

00:12:58.560 And especially from China.

00:13:00.520 Right.

00:13:01.380 Yeah.

00:13:02.100 Right.

00:13:02.260 Well, I mean, I agree with all your arguments about, you know, they're stealing intellectual

00:13:06.440 property from us.

00:13:07.360 They've been doing it for decades.

00:13:09.060 And it makes it so much easier when we put all their people into our graduate programs

00:13:13.680 and have them doing the research and giving them access to all this information.

00:13:17.200 It doesn't make any sense at all.

00:13:19.200 Yeah.

00:13:19.440 And part of the motivation specific to University of Illinois, of course, again, it's an issue

00:13:23.020 nationwide.

00:13:24.040 But part of the motivation for me to make this regarding U of I, I mean, I mentioned, of course,

00:13:27.480 I just have a lot of knowledge there because I'm from Chicago.

00:13:30.060 But in addition, I watched Mark Andreessen, you know, the famous tech titan who has now

00:13:34.260 become pretty political and then has mostly come over to the right politically, which

00:13:38.460 is wonderful, of course.

00:13:40.100 And he went to University of Illinois among a lot of luminaries, by the way, Larry Ellison

00:13:43.920 went to University of Illinois.

00:13:45.020 So these major companies, major figures in tech have gone to U of I over the years.

00:13:50.740 But Andreessen said, and he said he was a middle class kid from Wisconsin who got into U of

00:13:55.280 I went there and that was really the launching pad for his career success.

00:13:59.300 He said that he would not get in today.

00:14:01.760 And I play a clip of him saying that.

00:14:03.420 He said, as a middle class white kid, I would not get into University of Illinois.

00:14:07.200 And he blamed the DEI quotas and then the foreign nationals being there.

00:14:11.540 And I thought that was pretty powerful.

00:14:12.880 If a guy as successful as Andreessen says, I probably don't get into Illinois.

00:14:16.380 Well, then we're not doing something correctly, right, for the for the students of Illinois.

00:14:20.180 And I totally agree with you that, first of all, it should be prioritizing Illinois students,

00:14:23.980 right?

00:14:24.600 Overwhelming.

00:14:25.000 Yeah.

00:14:25.440 Secondly, Americans, of course.

00:14:28.140 Now, in my argument in the documentary is one, two percent foreigners.

00:14:32.240 OK, that might make sense.

00:14:33.480 Truly exceptional kids from around the world.

00:14:35.800 But but from friendly nations.

00:14:37.740 OK, you know, from Canada and the UK, Japan, not from communist China, not the princelings

00:14:44.060 of the Chinese Communist Party.

00:14:45.920 And again, there's 300,000 of them in the United States.

00:14:49.660 And there are at least some calls even from Republicans to let that number grow.

00:14:53.620 And I think that number needs to go to zero.

00:14:56.480 It just doesn't make sense for our country.

00:14:58.940 How does it change, though?

00:15:00.680 I mean, it's so I mean, I guess it's follow the money.

00:15:04.020 I'm sure they're getting lots of extra.

00:15:06.560 I'm assuming they're getting Marcella allegedly that they're getting lots of extra kickbacks and 0.99

00:15:13.060 favors or whatever, because why else would this be happening?

00:15:16.140 But my concern is that it's so far spread that like who's going to stop it?

00:15:23.260 Like the whole schools, the whole college admission is just so messed up that I don't

00:15:29.560 know how you rein it in.

00:15:30.900 Who can do it?

00:15:32.160 Does it have to be some kind of new law passed?

00:15:36.240 It has to happen across the board.

00:15:38.500 I don't know.

00:15:39.240 Like, how do you solve it?

00:15:40.560 Any ideas?

00:15:45.520 Well, yes.

00:15:46.080 I mean, look, I do believe it will take ultimately legislation.

00:15:49.740 But, you know, how we solve it is is this right is outrage and knowledge.

00:15:54.440 So let's let's get outraged. 0.98

00:15:56.340 It's proper.

00:15:56.920 Right.

00:15:57.160 Let's get educated on the situation.

00:15:58.840 And that's why I do these documentaries.

00:16:00.220 Right.

00:16:00.440 I'm trying to expose something.

00:16:01.720 I think a lot of folks aren't aware of this, especially if you don't happen to have young

00:16:05.000 people in your life.

00:16:05.680 If you don't have sort of high school or college age people in your life, you may not even really

00:16:09.620 realize that this is going on.

00:16:11.700 So let's let's expose the problem, get educated about it, hopefully generate enough frustration,

00:16:17.640 enough righteous anger about this, that there's a demand for action.

00:16:21.440 And then let's pressure politicians, including politicians on our side, including the leaders

00:16:25.920 with whom we normally agree, you know, on 90 something percent of issues.

00:16:29.520 If we disagree on this one, let's make our case.

00:16:32.200 Let's use the lessons of Scott Adams.

00:16:35.360 Right.

00:16:35.800 On persuasion of how do we persuade people that this is important for our country, that

00:16:40.840 we shouldn't take the national security risk of the Chinese nationals and that we should 1.00

00:16:44.680 prioritize our own our own young people.

00:16:47.280 I would add to and I try to make this point in the documentary, and I think I make it persuasively

00:16:51.660 toward the end.

00:16:52.600 Well, I shouldn't say I make it.

00:16:53.620 I think my guest makes it.

00:16:56.000 He's a man.

00:16:57.480 He now teaches high school chemistry.

00:16:59.240 He went to University of Illinois for chemistry.

00:17:01.360 He is a black guy who grew up on the south side of Chicago, didn't have many advantages 0.96

00:17:05.660 in life, single mom, but was a smart young man, studied hard, got his way to U of I on

00:17:11.240 scholarship, majored in chemistry, then had a successful career as a chemist and has sort

00:17:15.020 of retired into teaching high school chemistry.

00:17:17.260 Just a wonderful, genuine man, really patriotic, loves this country, loves U of I, loves the Illini

00:17:23.360 and what they've done for him.

00:17:24.280 And he makes the case, you know, not only would that slot be taken perhaps by a Chinese

00:17:29.140 national now, and his name is Tony Robinson, and young Tony Robinson doesn't get in to

00:17:34.240 U of I, but Tony Robinson also met his wife there.

00:17:36.900 So it's not just about the education.

00:17:38.960 He had met his wife.

00:17:40.160 They have four beautiful grown children now.

00:17:42.540 They've been married for decades.

00:17:44.020 So there's also the social aspect of, you know, many of these schools are multi-generational,

00:17:48.760 right?

00:17:48.920 There's generations of Illini fans who've gone there and now can't get in.

00:17:53.780 To the school that they have supported as a family forever.

00:17:57.980 You know, how many family formation opportunities will be missed because they're not there socializing

00:18:03.180 and instead we've invited in masses of foreigners into these schools.

00:18:06.740 And again, I think there's too many foreign students, period. 1.00

00:18:09.520 But I find the Chinese segment to be the most troubling.

00:18:13.300 And that's why I'm attacking that part first.

00:18:15.660 And again, remember, we're paying for this.

00:18:18.100 You know, whether you, if you've never been to college, if you've never set foot on the

00:18:21.140 college campus, you are paying for these schools, including the private ones, including Harvard,

00:18:26.300 which has the biggest endowment by far of any school.

00:18:29.060 Harvard, not surprisingly, actually, if you think about it, has the biggest endowment.

00:18:33.260 They have the most resources.

00:18:34.540 They also take the most government money because they're the most skilled at garnering it, right?

00:18:39.660 And attracting it, and in some ways, I would argue, exploiting it and getting our money for

00:18:44.180 their operations.

00:18:45.800 And at Harvard, I don't know the number exact, but I think it's about a third.

00:18:48.680 Almost all the Ivies and selective schools are at least a third foreign right now, including

00:18:53.560 a lot of the 90s nationals.

00:18:54.960 So I want to shine a light on it.

00:18:56.800 And from there, folks like the audience of this show, who are activists, who are engaged,

00:19:03.840 who are patriots, once we've shined a light on it, once hopefully folks have gotten educated

00:19:08.260 and angry about it, then we move to the action stage.

00:19:12.100 And will it be difficult to reverse?

00:19:14.100 For sure, right?

00:19:15.060 For sure.

00:19:15.440 We're fighting decades here of momentum the other direction.

00:19:19.780 But these movements sometimes start small.

00:19:22.820 And before you know it, we're in power.

00:19:25.420 I mean, you know, unrelated, but look at the Maha movement, right?

00:19:29.180 There was a time when the Maha advocates were considered coups, right? 0.99

00:19:32.640 Robert F. Kennedy was considered by a lot of, you know, sort of credentialed people to

00:19:36.580 be a wacko.

00:19:37.440 Well, he's now the Secretary of Health and Human Services, right? 0.81

00:19:39.900 And we're starting to change health policies.

00:19:41.560 So I know that's off topic, but I just use that as a motivating example of things can change

00:19:46.880 materially.

00:19:47.800 And if you have the right argument, if you have the facts on your side, and if you're trying

00:19:51.720 to do what's patriotically right for this country, and especially for young people,

00:19:54.880 one thing I'll tell you, just putting the trailer up, and it's gone crazy.

00:19:58.920 It's gone pretty viral, just my kind of commercials for the documentary.

00:20:02.140 And I've heard from so many moms who are outraged. 1.00

00:20:05.080 You know, a lot of these mama bears, you want to stir up the hornet's nest. 1.00

00:20:09.860 You know, you have a credentialed son or daughter of a mama bear, and you say, Junior can't go 0.87

00:20:15.440 to Virginia Tech.

00:20:17.340 Junior can't go to University of Texas or to University of Illinois.

00:20:21.060 And by the way, that spot was taken by a Chinese national.

00:20:24.600 Those moms are motivated. 1.00

00:20:26.440 They are angry.

00:20:27.920 And I think they can be activated.

00:20:29.780 And I think this is also an issue where hopefully I'm always looking for ways.

00:20:33.840 And a lot of this also, I learned from Scott Adams.

00:20:36.300 I learned so much from him.

00:20:37.740 But is look for ways to grow the coalition.

00:20:41.040 Work for ways to convince, to persuade new adherence to your belief system.

00:20:45.500 Maybe they don't believe with you.

00:20:46.560 They're not with you on X, Y, and Z.

00:20:48.860 But can you pick them up on that next issue?

00:20:51.240 And I think this is a lane where we can convince and persuade some people who maybe don't agree

00:20:56.360 with the MAGA agenda in general, wouldn't call themselves America first, might not love

00:21:00.980 Donald Trump.

00:21:02.120 But this makes sense to them.

00:21:03.740 And particularly if they've had a personal consequence, if they've had their son or daughter

00:21:08.160 denied or somebody they know, their nephew or their grandchild denied from these schools.

00:21:12.500 I think this is the kind of issue where we can persuade people who might not otherwise be with

00:21:17.120 us.

00:21:17.300 And I'm always looking for those opportunities.

00:21:19.460 I think everybody here will retweet the trailer, you guys.

00:21:23.200 So everyone, please retweet Steve's trailer and let people know that the documentary drops

00:21:29.220 on Thursday this week.

00:21:31.140 And it's true. 0.56

00:21:32.300 Like whether you're a taxpayer, like if you don't have kids, you're paying taxes, you're paying

00:21:36.600 for this nonsense, or if you have children or you've experienced this, it's true.

00:21:42.780 It's not like a right or left issue.

00:21:44.580 It's an American issue.

00:21:46.360 It's a, you know, keep more money in your pocket to educate our country and our people.

00:21:53.520 I mean, we, we need it.

00:21:55.180 So that's, that's the least we can do.

00:21:57.220 So I think everybody, will you guys drop an emoji in the chats?

00:22:00.620 If you are at least willing to retweet Steve's documentary trailer and lead people to it,

00:22:06.620 that would be amazing.

00:22:08.020 Go ahead.

00:22:08.280 What other actions can, can we take or should we take?

00:22:10.840 Like if I am outraged about this, should I be talking to my state legislature?

00:22:15.740 Should I be talking to my federal Congress people?

00:22:19.040 Where should I be directing this outrage?

00:22:21.360 Yeah, no, great question.

00:22:22.520 Both, by the way, thankfully, this is one of these cases where it can be both, right?

00:22:25.640 So for example, now Illinois is unfortunately a thoroughly blue state, so I don't expect much

00:22:30.260 action there.

00:22:31.260 But this is happening in states that are either sort of, you know, middle of the road, purplish

00:22:34.620 states or actually deeply red states.

00:22:37.060 As I mentioned, I now live in Tennessee.

00:22:38.840 This is a big problem at the University of Tennessee, which is probably just about as

00:22:42.840 prestigious now as University of Illinois, or at least in that ballpark regarding STEM.

00:22:47.120 And a lot of really smart kids can't, from Tennessee, cannot get into their flagship state

00:22:52.160 university in part because of too many foreign students.

00:22:54.700 Now, thankfully, in Tennessee, right, Republicans control this state politically.

00:22:58.980 So this, I think there's a lot better chance that we can get state action here.

00:23:02.940 So to me, it's both, you know, it's not an either or, pursue it in your state.

00:23:06.980 And again, I know that's difficult if you live in California or Illinois or New York, it's

00:23:10.600 going to be difficult to succeed, but still try to make some noise, of course.

00:23:14.100 But in those red or purple states, take state action.

00:23:18.160 So yeah, I think it's both.

00:23:19.540 But at the same time, most of the funding, most of it flows actually federally, especially to

00:23:24.320 the private schools.

00:23:25.040 And again, let's not forget about the private schools.

00:23:26.680 Let's not let Stanford and Duke and Columbia off the hook.

00:23:31.220 Because again, they are feeding to the public trough actually to a more substantial degree

00:23:36.000 than UCLA and Florida State and University of Georgia.

00:23:41.780 So everyone is involved in this mess.

00:23:44.920 So let's not let them off the hook.

00:23:46.400 And those are federal issues, right?

00:23:47.660 They don't tend to get very much state and local money.

00:23:49.560 That's federal money going there.

00:23:51.240 So let's pursue both simultaneously.

00:23:54.320 But, you know, to me, this is one of these issues where if you present it correctly, you

00:23:59.500 know, I'm always looking for these as a campaign, guys, a campaign operative.

00:24:02.160 We're always looking for these issues where the opponent is wrong on a 70-30, 80-20 issue.

00:24:07.040 And I think if this is presented correctly to reasonable people, this is a 70-30, 80-20 kind

00:24:12.720 of issue.

00:24:13.100 I mean, I think the only people who would be in favor of hundreds of thousands of Chinese 1.00

00:24:16.940 nationals coming here are just wacko far leftists who are totally unpersuadable, who

00:24:22.140 just aren't reasonable and frankly don't like the United States. 0.92

00:24:25.140 So they welcome an invasion of our enemy's children into the United States. 0.99

00:24:29.140 But I think reasonable people, if presented with this scenario, will say, yeah, that doesn't

00:24:33.820 make sense, or at least at this scale, right?

00:24:36.060 Now, again, I want to go to zero.

00:24:37.980 And I understand that's probably viewed as a pretty extreme position.

00:24:40.660 But I think also sometimes you need to stake out positions that may seem extreme to get

00:24:45.480 us to a place that's more reasonable.

00:24:47.400 And folks may say, OK, maybe it's not zero like Cortez wants, but it shouldn't be 300,000.

00:24:52.580 And it certainly shouldn't go to 600,000 as the White House had proposed.

00:24:57.180 So, you know, let's start debating this.

00:24:59.480 Let's start talking about it.

00:25:00.540 It's an important issue.

00:25:02.100 And I believe, too, it's reflective of broader issues, right, of just prioritizing American

00:25:08.260 citizens, period, right, whatever it is.

00:25:10.940 So, I mean, I think this is related to illegal immigration.

00:25:13.880 I think it's related to all kinds of really important issues of Americans for too long

00:25:18.440 have been shamed and guilted into believing that we cannot prioritize American citizens,

00:25:24.420 when in fact, the opposite is true.

00:25:26.000 It is actually ethical and moral and logical for us to prioritize our own citizens, just as

00:25:32.400 every country in the world should, and most countries in the world do.

00:25:37.360 Let's do that in all facets of life, including higher education.

00:25:44.220 Yeah.

00:25:44.960 Sergio, did you want to chime in?

00:25:48.640 Oh, I would love to.

00:25:50.020 Because Scott always talks about you, Steve, in such a high regard.

00:25:55.680 And I didn't understand really why until this morning it hit me when Erika sent us that short

00:26:04.260 video of you on your tweet, one minute, and how you went, you cut through the BS and you

00:26:12.900 started using the right words right away.

00:26:15.460 And that's what I love about Scott's homage and we all respect it because how much you

00:26:19.660 respected people's time that way.

00:26:22.260 So in regards to that, I can see that you understand really well that the word choice

00:26:29.240 is what is going to make that impact on people, right, in choosing those right words.

00:26:35.720 And I love how you're talking about less illegals, higher wages, right? 1.00

00:26:42.240 It's like you just get to it.

00:26:44.460 And I love that reframes that you're doing in that regards.

00:26:49.320 Can you tell us a little more about how you came to that conclusion?

00:26:54.160 I saw in some of the last rallies by Trump, the wages too, you know, like higher wages,

00:27:00.860 right?

00:27:01.240 So that was like the word wages, it looks like that we like to hear, you know?

00:27:07.740 And so I'm really curious to know how you work on those techniques.

00:27:14.320 Yes.

00:27:14.780 No, thank you, Sergio.

00:27:15.640 Well, listen, first, I learned a lot of it from Scott Adams, and it's one of the many

00:27:20.080 debts I owe to him and to his legacy.

00:27:23.380 And I think so many of us, you know, certainly those of us here on the show and so many in

00:27:27.360 the audience, so many in the world, thankfully, were able to learn from this man because of

00:27:31.560 the big platforms that he had, you know, between Dilbert, between the show, his books,

00:27:36.060 he just, you know, he reached millions.

00:27:37.300 And I was certainly one of them.

00:27:38.740 And I admired him long before I ever got to know him and learned from him a lot.

00:27:43.680 And I learned even more once we developed a relationship, largely because of the Charlottesville

00:27:48.200 fine people hoax.

00:27:49.440 But regarding communication skills, yes, he certainly taught me, you know, that brevity

00:27:53.880 is the coin of the realm, right?

00:27:55.480 And that the more concise we can be in a busy world, in a digital era, you know, the more

00:28:01.440 effective we will be, the more persuasive we will be.

00:28:04.160 And so, yeah, just to put it very practically, for example, that video I made this morning

00:28:08.520 to, and I wrote an article.

00:28:10.760 So I think first, you know, your thoughts should be a bit more, a bit more detailed.

00:28:17.040 So I have detailed thoughts.

00:28:18.700 Okay, why is affordability an immigration issue?

00:28:22.340 Well, I think it's primarily because when foreigners, illegal foreigners compete in the 1.00

00:28:27.880 labor market against American citizens, wages are depressed.

00:28:31.280 Okay, secondly, having tens of millions of illegals present in the United States puts enormous 0.97

00:28:37.100 strain on the housing supply of the United States.

00:28:39.080 So rents are too elevated.

00:28:40.660 So wages depressed, rents elevated because of illegals. 1.00

00:28:44.120 Now we're starting to see illegals leave, thankfully, by the millions, thanks to President 1.00

00:28:48.220 Trump, thanks to Tom Homan.

00:28:49.840 And guess what?

00:28:50.880 Real wages are jumping and rents are starting to ease.

00:28:54.200 Rents at four-year lows and we can quantify all this.

00:28:56.200 So what I do then is I write an article with the citations, with the numbers.

00:29:00.160 Now, admittedly, the article is kind of boring.

00:29:02.760 Okay, I want people to read it, obviously, but it's hard to persuade people with a serious

00:29:06.960 sort of academic article.

00:29:08.620 I think it's important to have it out there.

00:29:10.060 It gives you credibility and it shows that your mind can think that way.

00:29:13.980 And even that, by the way, condense it as much as I can.

00:29:16.920 I mean, believe me, if I just let myself, that article would have been 2,000 words.

00:29:21.380 Instead, I think I got it down to 700 words.

00:29:23.320 And I'm always shooting for 600, 700, 800, 900 absolute max is what we find people will actually

00:29:28.520 read, but then take the article and turn it into a video.

00:29:32.880 And I do a script.

00:29:34.980 I don't always follow the script.

00:29:36.380 I don't always read it as a teleprompter.

00:29:37.800 As a matter of fact, I usually don't.

00:29:39.220 But I still write myself a script so that it's in my head, even if I'm not actually reading

00:29:43.480 it.

00:29:43.980 And I just keep cutting and cutting and cutting the script, right?

00:29:47.760 And part of that, by the way, I got from a movie, A River Runs Through It, which is,

00:29:53.180 I think, a fantastic movie.

00:29:54.480 And in the beginning of that movie, they talk about how the boys, the two brothers, were

00:29:58.260 homeschooled by their minister father.

00:30:00.220 And if you remember, if folks who have seen that, I think it's this amazing scene.

00:30:04.180 Their father, Tom Skerritt, I think is the actor's name, who plays the minister.

00:30:08.220 They write an essay for them.

00:30:09.980 And he says, OK, half is long, right?

00:30:12.720 And they bring it back.

00:30:13.620 And he says, OK, half is long, right?

00:30:15.960 Which is not easy, right?

00:30:17.240 It's much more difficult to write short than write long.

00:30:20.400 But I try to take those lessons in my head.

00:30:22.560 And so I sort of have A River Runs Through It and Scott Adams in my head as I'm trying

00:30:28.500 to cut things down and still convey the idea.

00:30:31.440 But get that down.

00:30:32.480 Get that video down.

00:30:33.320 I think this one was 50 seconds.

00:30:35.020 So get it down, hopefully under a minute.

00:30:37.560 I try to go for 30 seconds.

00:30:39.020 That's not easy.

00:30:40.000 And get a serious idea across.

00:30:41.980 And then tape that video and hope people watch.

00:30:45.040 And I also really believe in trial and error.

00:30:47.680 See what works.

00:30:48.560 I mean, thankfully, all this stuff's quantifiable now, right?

00:30:50.800 Instantly, we can see, OK, how many views?

00:30:52.700 How many clicks did the article get?

00:30:54.240 How many actual reads?

00:30:56.660 You can tell, like, did they spend time on the article?

00:30:58.720 So anyway, all of that is what I do.

00:31:01.360 Sorry if I gave you a non-brief answer.

00:31:04.540 Oh, it's good.

00:31:05.140 About how I'm brief.

00:31:06.860 The goal of keeping it short is such a key because that's what makes people share it

00:31:13.800 to others, right?

00:31:15.080 You want to share.

00:31:16.000 You don't want to waste people's time, you know?

00:31:17.740 So you want to share it to a friend.

00:31:18.960 I'm thinking, like, somebody that might want to watch yours video.

00:31:22.240 And I go, like, well, it's 20 minutes long, you know?

00:31:25.380 I cannot do that.

00:31:26.600 So I cannot do that to his life, right?

00:31:29.240 But if you give me, like, one minute, 30 seconds, and the way you did it, oh, man,

00:31:34.180 I can repost that, send it out, make it, you know, everybody will get it.

00:31:39.240 They're like, oh, I'm going to share that to my friend, too.

00:31:41.280 So I love that.

00:31:42.840 Thank you very much.

00:31:43.720 No, of course.

00:31:44.200 That makes sense.

00:31:44.720 By the way, so, like, we did that, for example, I mentioned my trailer's 30 seconds, which

00:31:47.920 I'm proud of.

00:31:48.520 We got that down to 30 seconds.

00:31:49.820 I think it's still really effective.

00:31:51.400 And certainly the numbers indicate it is.

00:31:53.320 The documentary is 28 minutes, which is still kind of short for a documentary.

00:31:57.740 Now, a lot of folks won't commit to that, which I realize, okay?

00:32:00.360 But I hope that if they commit to the 30 seconds, they've gotten the idea, right?

00:32:04.880 Now, I'd like them to go on to the 28 minutes, but, again, a lot won't.

00:32:08.920 That's fine.

00:32:09.580 Let's give them multiple formats, right?

00:32:11.500 And we'll give them things in between, by the way, too.

00:32:14.020 We'll give, you know, two-minute clips of the video that we'll put out.

00:32:16.800 And, again, see what works and what works run with it.

00:32:20.620 I love it.

00:32:21.900 Yeah.

00:32:22.220 So can you tell me more about how you met Scott and what you learned from Scott and

00:32:26.700 also, like, how you worked together to fight the fine people hoax?

00:32:30.980 Yes.

00:32:31.300 So, no, it's really a great story, and it's a great story how the pursuit of truth thankfully

00:32:37.120 formed a real three-part friendship here, you know, sort of the three amigos of Joel

00:32:42.340 Pollack, Scott Adams, and me, and Steve Cortez.

00:32:44.840 And it was because all of us, independent of each other, we were pursuing the truth on

00:32:49.240 the Charlottesville fine people hoax.

00:32:51.060 And in my case, it was because at that time I worked for CNN, which might shock people.

00:32:55.660 President Trump asked me to go to CNN, okay?

00:32:57.820 They asked me at the White House, by the way, I was a Fox News contributor at the time.

00:33:03.000 This is 2017, so it was first year in office.

00:33:05.860 I worked really hard on the 2016 campaign.

00:33:08.860 I then signed a contributor contract with Fox News.

00:33:11.540 I was on Fox News in 2017 promoting President Trump's agenda.

00:33:14.940 And let's face it, pretty easy job in general promoting Trump on Fox.

00:33:18.880 I had a pretty cushy gig.

00:33:20.200 They treated me well.

00:33:21.000 They paid me well.

00:33:22.420 And now President Trump says, okay, for 2018, 2019, I need you to dive into the fire and

00:33:27.380 go to CNN.

00:33:28.100 So I was kind of the Scott Dennings, where he is now in that day.

00:33:32.020 I wasn't thrilled about the ask.

00:33:33.720 But you know what?

00:33:34.260 I said, I'll do it.

00:33:35.360 Number one, I want to support you, Mr. President.

00:33:37.420 I want to help this country.

00:33:38.560 The other reason I did it is in my business career, before I got into politics, I had done

00:33:42.600 a lot of international work, almost exclusively in Europe for hedge funds.

00:33:46.220 And so I was always traveling to Europe.

00:33:47.560 And I realized that CNN, unfortunately, is the global American channel for the world.

00:33:54.000 They don't see Fox News.

00:33:55.200 They don't see that much of alternative media.

00:33:57.400 They're starting to, shows like this, thankfully.

00:34:00.000 But they think CNN is the American network, unfortunately.

00:34:03.560 So I said, you know what?

00:34:04.260 For that perspective, too, I want to try to explain this movement to the world.

00:34:07.520 I want to try to persuade the world that we're not what you've been told.

00:34:10.820 So I agreed to go on CNN.

00:34:12.300 Well, on CNN, they constantly, constantly brought up the Charlottesville fine people lie.

00:34:17.920 Now, I knew from the beginning that it was an absolute lie.

00:34:21.100 That not only had Donald Trump not praised neo-Nazis, that he explicitly condemned them.

00:34:25.780 And I would say so all the time on live television.

00:34:28.700 They would immediately, you know, cut me off.

00:34:30.500 They would sometimes literally even cut the microphone off.

00:34:33.160 They put me in a timeout, even though I was, you know, a paid contributor to CNN.

00:34:36.560 They'd say, OK, you're not on for a week because you mentioned it again.

00:34:39.620 It was very frustrating.

00:34:41.200 I had become friendly with Dennis Prager.

00:34:42.900 I did his radio show quite a bit and told him about all of this.

00:34:46.260 I wrote an article, again, kind of to a point, I wrote a very serious article at Real Clear Politics that did pretty well, but just an article.

00:34:52.820 Video always does better, or at least in conjunction with an article.

00:34:56.100 Dennis Prager read that article and said, we need to do a video.

00:34:59.200 So I did one of his PragerU videos, his very famous five-minute videos.

00:35:02.700 He said this is so important because he recognized early, and I think Scott Adams was coming to this conclusion at the same time, independent of each other,

00:35:09.960 that this was the tentpole hoax, that this was the lie on which all the other lies was based.

00:35:15.560 Because if you can convince people that the president is a bigot, right, that he's a neo-Nazi,

00:35:20.120 that he hates wide swaths of Americans who happen to be the wrong color or the wrong religion,

00:35:24.720 if you can convince them of that, then you can convince them of all kinds of other lies about this agenda and about President Trump.

00:35:30.960 And so we need to debunk it.

00:35:32.060 So I made this video.

00:35:33.760 I got tons of attention, thankfully.

00:35:35.560 President Trump tweeted it out, got millions and millions of views.

00:35:38.760 I ended up getting fired by CNN because of the video, but they did me a favor in that regard.

00:35:45.020 I'd been there at that point a year and a half.

00:35:46.460 I'd had enough time to move on anyway.

00:35:50.480 And thankfully, then Scott Adams and I started communicating.

00:35:54.280 At first, just through DMs on Twitter, and he said, hey, we've got to bring Pollock into this because he's doing great work on it as well.

00:36:00.160 So Joel Pollock was doing mostly written work at Breitbart on this issue.

00:36:04.680 I was mostly finding it on television, on CNN.

00:36:07.120 And then Scott was doing his work on his show.

00:36:10.440 And so the three of us started a chat.

00:36:13.020 And at first, you know, I didn't know.

00:36:16.020 Of course, I knew who both of them were.

00:36:17.280 Again, I was a huge admirer of Scott Adams from afar.

00:36:20.020 But it was organic in the way that it developed and really became an online friendship and alliance where we really became the three amigos and would almost split up tasks and say, okay, you take this part of attacking the host.

00:36:35.240 You take this part.

00:36:36.020 And we always reamplified each other's works.

00:36:39.160 You know, thankfully, all of us had pretty big platforms to try to spread the truth about this.

00:36:43.920 And it took years.

00:36:45.140 That's the thing I'll tell you.

00:36:45.880 It wasn't easy, right?

00:36:46.920 I mean, we fought like dogs on a bone.

00:36:48.920 It took years for us to debunk this hoax.

00:36:52.320 But I think we finally have, I think any reasonable person out there, you know, unless they're just truly deranged, I think any reasonable person now knows, now will acknowledge, even if they can't stand Donald Trump, they will acknowledge that that was a hoax.

00:37:04.800 And by the way, it's not just that the masses were won over.

00:37:07.640 It's also that some really important players, some really influential people in society, like Chamath talks a lot about this, and, you know, and other Silicon Valley folks who had believed it.

00:37:18.480 And once their eyes were opened, and I think largely opened because of the work of Scott Adams, right, because he was just an absolute persistent truth seeker, right?

00:37:27.440 And thankfully, and listen, and I'll give all the credit.

00:37:30.360 I think all three of us mattered.

00:37:31.940 He mattered the most, okay?

00:37:33.160 He was the most persistent.

00:37:35.020 I think he was the most persuasive on making these points.

00:37:39.420 But it did take the team, and it was thrilling to be part of it.

00:37:43.240 It really was.

00:37:43.820 And particularly when ultimately, and this is kind of funny, I mean, it took seven years, but Snopes, which is not really a fact-checking site, okay, pretends to be.

00:37:54.340 But when even Snopes finally admitted, okay, this was a hoax.

00:37:59.220 Trump never prayed.

00:38:00.020 Yeah, like six or seven years later, finally.

00:38:02.980 I mean.

00:38:03.300 It was almost laughable, but it was, at least for me, a bit of a spike to football.

00:38:08.020 Okay.

00:38:08.620 We worked our tails off.

00:38:09.480 But it's amazing how damaging the media, I mean, that really, that was something I've never seen any.

00:38:16.640 I remember watching President Trump speaking live that day.

00:38:21.000 I remember him, exactly what his remarks were.

00:38:24.080 And I just remember thinking to myself, oh, that's good.

00:38:26.460 That's like a good measured response.

00:38:28.360 You know, there's people on both sides of the issue, and it makes sense.

00:38:31.340 And then when all this outrage started, it was like, wait, what?

00:38:35.900 Like, that never happened.

00:38:37.820 And Scott has an army of simultaneous sippers, and we were relentless. 0.99

00:38:45.480 And we were posting it, and we were telling people.

00:38:48.260 And I have a whole folder on my computer of all the hoaxes we were debunking.

00:38:53.180 And so I have the transcript ready for the drinking bleach hoax and the fine people hoax. 0.87

00:38:58.400 You name it, we have a transcript for it.

00:39:01.680 And also, when you said, like, you know, maybe some deranged people still believe it,

00:39:07.020 which I immediately thought of Biden campaigning on it.

00:39:10.520 And Obama, in the closing days of Biden's re-election campaign, still talking about it.

00:39:16.900 And this is where I got in trouble the other day, because I said that, like, there should

00:39:21.200 be some kind of, like, a free speech is free speech.

00:39:26.840 I feel like if you are in a position of influence, or you're an elected official, or especially

00:39:33.760 journalists, if you're an actual journalist, I just feel like you should have some kind of

00:39:40.120 credentials taken away if you're spreading hoaxes, because they're so dangerous.

00:39:44.320 They got people killed.

00:39:45.280 They created, you know, more racism and division in this country.

00:39:50.640 And like Scott said, you know, he's like, I lived through Watergate.

00:39:54.120 And he said, this is so much bigger.

00:39:56.860 And he said it was the worst thing he has ever seen in his lifetime, as far as a hoax and

00:40:04.060 a lie and something hurting our country.

00:40:06.720 And I don't know how that's, that's one of my pet peeves is that the media knowingly spreads

00:40:14.120 lies under the guise of journalism, and there's never a penalty.

00:40:18.140 Right.

00:40:18.480 And you're so right.

00:40:19.360 Think of the tangible damage done to this country.

00:40:21.880 Think of the racial division that it's sowed, all based on a lie, right?

00:40:27.260 All of it based on a lie.

00:40:28.780 That's why Dennis Prager, by the way, I also should give him, he wasn't part of the Three 0.96

00:40:32.160 Amigos, but boy, was he helpful.

00:40:33.900 And I would call him an adjunct member of the Three Amigos doing this.

00:40:37.960 And he calls it the blood libel of American lies, which is a powerful statement, particularly

00:40:42.420 coming from a really devout Jew like Dennis Prager.

00:40:46.380 But I think he's right, because, and you're exactly correct.

00:40:49.540 Thank you for bringing it up, Joe Biden.

00:40:50.700 Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign explicitly on this lie.

00:40:56.320 I mean, think of that.

00:40:57.760 I mean, that's outrageous.

00:40:59.980 And he became the president of the United States, you know, launching the entire effort

00:41:04.140 on a clear, refutable lie, you know, actually easily refutable for those who are willing

00:41:10.080 to be honest about things.

00:41:12.320 But it also speaks to, you know, what Scott, of course, talked about constantly and taught

00:41:16.000 us all about this split screen, two movies, right, at the same time.

00:41:20.620 So, you know, he was, what I saw, there's so many things I admire about Scott Adams, but

00:41:26.500 perhaps above all, it was his courage, his courage that he was unafraid of the blowback.

00:41:32.020 He was unafraid of the career consequences, which we know for him were significant.

00:41:36.660 You know, a lot of us took career risks, you know, for our stances and for the pursuit

00:41:40.600 of the truth.

00:41:41.120 He certainly took very significant ones, was willing to deal with the fallout, let the

00:41:45.680 chips fall where they may, that he had principles that were more important than those temporal

00:41:51.200 benefits.

00:41:53.000 And I think, thankfully, what he did earn, what he may have lost in some of those career

00:41:57.000 opportunities or some of those, some of that income, boy, did he make up for him.

00:42:01.160 And they love and admiration of millions of people.

00:42:03.880 And I'm certainly one of them.

00:42:05.340 And it's one of the honors of my life, really, I say this, that I was able to become friends

00:42:10.260 with him.

00:42:11.120 And again, all via the pursuit of the truth.

00:42:13.380 There's sort of no better way to strike up a friendship than, hey, we're both after the

00:42:16.600 same truth here.

00:42:18.340 And because it's something very noble, right?

00:42:20.360 And it's a great way to become friends.

00:42:22.580 And what a privilege, you know, what a privilege for me.

00:42:25.460 And what a privilege for all of us that we, that we got to, while he was alive, that we

00:42:29.820 got to experience and learn from him, and that we still do.

00:42:32.980 That's the beauty of him creating a body of work, right, is that it lives on.

00:42:36.840 It was on in this show, in his writings, in his recordings.

00:42:40.560 And that's, you know, a wonderful, wonderful legacy.

00:42:44.180 He was just, he was a patriot.

00:42:46.000 He was selfless.

00:42:47.440 And boy, did he have courage.

00:42:49.000 And I think that's a lesson for all of us.

00:42:50.820 We need more courageous people.

00:42:53.380 And courage is contagious.

00:42:54.580 When you act courageous, those around you will act courageous.

00:42:57.900 And I certainly found his courage to be contagious for me.

00:43:02.140 And I hope I radiated that out to others.

00:43:05.420 And it's hard for me to exaggerate how much of an effect, how impactful he was on my work

00:43:12.940 and what I do in politics.

00:43:14.800 And politics, you know, as we all know, can be bruising, right?

00:43:17.700 And we're in an incredibly partisan moment in American history.

00:43:21.380 We probably haven't been this divided since the Civil War.

00:43:24.600 So, you know, this ain't beanbag, right?

00:43:26.400 I mean, this is, you know, this is serious stuff that we're talking about in terms of

00:43:29.820 our political battles in this country.

00:43:31.560 And you need courage to stand for truth in an environment like this.

00:43:36.380 And that's not just for those of us who do it for a living, by the way.

00:43:38.940 That's for all the regular folks out there.

00:43:41.020 That's for the working class patriots who love this country.

00:43:44.280 And I know so many of them watch this show.

00:43:46.180 So many of them are admirers of Scott Adams.

00:43:49.220 And again, that's such an important part of his legacy.

00:43:52.680 And we learned from him so much while he was alive.

00:43:55.100 I hope we continue to learn from him and be inspired by him now.

00:43:58.600 Agree.

00:43:59.980 Marcella, did you want to jump in?

00:44:04.280 I just want to say I admire you very much, Steve.

00:44:07.540 As a Hispanic American, I really admire you.

00:44:12.640 And I wanted to ask you, you talked about recently making the Americas great again.

00:44:21.560 The Colombian president, I think he's visiting Donald Trump today, President Donald Trump.

00:44:28.480 And I wanted to know what your thoughts were on there.

00:44:32.920 You know, Chile turning to the right and as well as Argentina.

00:44:37.760 So I wanted to get more info on that.

00:44:41.560 Yes.

00:44:42.060 No, thank you for asking.

00:44:43.000 And thank you for your kind praise.

00:44:44.300 It certainly means a lot.

00:44:46.080 And yeah, listen, I'm always going to be America first, meaning the United States of America first.

00:44:51.240 But secondly, I have great affinity for Latin America.

00:44:55.200 My father came to this country legally from Colombia, was a patriot who loved this country and did it the right way, came to the United States.

00:45:02.780 And so I do have great love also for Colombia.

00:45:05.420 And I think strategically, beyond just my own affinity, strategically, the Americas really matter to the United States.

00:45:11.520 Because America first has never meant America alone.

00:45:14.880 And I really believe in the original Monroe Doctrine.

00:45:18.260 I absolutely subscribe to the new updated Monroe Doctrine 2.0 that the Trump administration is pursuing.

00:45:24.960 His national security strategy document, by the way, that NSS document.

00:45:28.980 It's a little bit wonky, and I think it's about 30 pages.

00:45:32.160 But if you care about world strategy, if you're into that sort of thing, I think it's well worth reading.

00:45:36.580 It's fascinating.

00:45:37.500 And it's about as blunt as any official Washington federal government communique has ever been, talking about the problems of the old world, how the U.S. has always been so oriented toward Europe, understandably, right?

00:45:49.000 Because we are essentially a child of Europe as a country.

00:45:52.760 And because of the history of Europe and World War I and World War II and the Cold War, we have always been very oriented toward Europe.

00:45:59.080 But that the old world, in many ways, does not share our values anymore.

00:46:02.640 And that the home of Western civilization really no longer believes in Western civilization.

00:46:07.840 So it's up to the United States to carry that torch, to carry that flame forward.

00:46:12.500 And in terms of who are our best potential allies, well, they're right here in our own hemisphere.

00:46:18.460 And so, Marcelo, you mentioned Argentina.

00:46:19.820 I was just there.

00:46:20.620 I'm actually going to be going back to make a documentary there on President Millet, who I think is an amazing man, in many ways, the Trump of South America.

00:46:28.420 It's going to be Make Argentina Great Again.

00:46:30.900 Luckily, we don't have to change any of the hats or stickers.

00:46:33.760 All right, it's MAGA.

00:46:34.980 But he is already doing that, by the way.

00:46:36.740 He's making Argentina great again. 0.75

00:46:38.000 And Colombia, unfortunately, has a miserable leftist radical president, Petro, who hates America, who is widely suspected of being in bed with the cartels, who have unfortunately grown back in power there.

00:46:51.320 He's actually at the White House today, which is why I sent out from my substack an article about the situation in Colombia, because they have an election coming up in May.

00:46:59.620 And there's one candidate in particular who I think is excellent, who loves this country, who is Colombia first in his orientation.

00:47:07.040 He's a populist, patriotic candidate named De La Espriera.

00:47:11.360 And I think he can win.

00:47:12.840 Now, I polled Colombia.

00:47:13.880 I do a lot of polling.

00:47:14.780 And he's down, but he's within striking distance.

00:47:17.460 And I think with enough help from the United States, especially after the Maduro capture, we earned a lot of goodwill in Colombia by that capture of Maduro.

00:47:24.920 Colombia has a huge problem with Venezuelan migrants.

00:47:27.220 We do, too, of course, but so does Colombia right next door.

00:47:30.020 There's about two million Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, and it's a problem for Colombia.

00:47:35.580 So they want stability in Caracas for their own selfish reasons, but also for the good of the hemisphere.

00:47:42.140 So can we win this election in Colombia?

00:47:43.760 I may be getting involved in that race.

00:47:45.620 I think we can.

00:47:46.320 You mentioned Chile.

00:47:47.840 Incoming President Cast is wonderful, loves this country.

00:47:52.580 So the right is starting to win in Latin America.

00:47:55.600 As of right now, we've got Argentina, Chile, Honduras.

00:47:59.520 We've got upcoming elections in Peru and Colombia, both of which I think are very winnable.

00:48:04.200 So if you're looking at sort of the map on the western side, on the left-hand side of South America, other than Brazil, sort of Spanish Latin America,

00:48:12.560 I think we can be looking at a grand alliance of patriotic populism, of making the Americas great again, that unite from the Tierra del Fuego all the way up to Greenland, which I think makes sense.

00:48:26.580 By the way, Greenland is in our hemisphere, and I think it's a big part of why President Trump very smartly has his sights on Greenland.

00:48:33.600 And I commend him for thinking strategically.

00:48:36.560 And again, our focus always is going to be on the United States first. 0.59

00:48:39.740 We are truly America first.

00:48:41.200 But it doesn't mean America alone.

00:48:43.220 And building the Americas into a powerhouse of prosperity and sharing our values, I think that makes a lot of sense.

00:48:50.820 And I think it's actually really exciting in the bigger picture.

00:48:53.680 So I'm doing what I can, making documentaries, polling.

00:48:57.000 I might be getting directly involved in some presidential races there.

00:48:59.980 Thankfully, I have the reputation as being a skilled campaign guy.

00:49:04.620 So there are folks overseas who want my assistance with campaigns.

00:49:07.820 And as long as they have the right orientation and as long as it's going to advance U.S. interests, I'm willing to at least give that a listen.

00:49:14.940 But there's exciting things going on, you know, both here and within the rest of our hemisphere.

00:49:19.900 I think with 10 minutes left, Owen, I kind of wanted to talk about midterms.

00:49:25.560 And I wanted to ask Steve, so I feel like these ICE protests are strategic to try to just make Trump look bad.

00:49:35.860 So, you know, we'll lose the midterms.

00:49:38.300 So they're going to keep them going on.

00:49:40.100 But what do you think about that?

00:49:41.980 What do you think about the midterms?

00:49:43.580 I feel like we're screwed if we don't win because then everything just gets, you know, put into a stall.

00:49:50.720 Yeah. So, listen, regarding the midterms, you know, and because I do a lot of polling and polling is never perfect, but this is polling that I run.

00:49:57.380 OK, so I'm not relying on polling from some lefty, you know, disreputable outfit.

00:50:02.100 And my polling, if passed as prologue in 2024, my polling was very, very accurate.

00:50:08.280 I got six of the seven swing states right.

00:50:10.100 I did not get Pennsylvania right, but I got the other six.

00:50:13.300 And most importantly, I got the Sunbelt states right very early.

00:50:16.400 And so the groups that I work with, the outside groups, we devoted all of our attention and resources into those northern three swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania,

00:50:26.000 largely based on the polling that showed me that those Sunbelt four were put away, which thankfully they were. 1.00

00:50:31.980 So I'm reasonably confident in my in my strategy and my methods doesn't mean it's perfect.

00:50:37.340 And my polling right now shows that we're in a pickle.

00:50:41.020 OK, we are in a corner.

00:50:42.500 We're up against the wall because of the economy, not because of the ice raids.

00:50:46.520 I'll address that in just a sec, but but because of the economy and people right now still have real economic anxiety while things are getting demonstrably better.

00:50:55.480 And they are. And I point this out again in my article on why immigration leads to affordability.

00:51:00.300 They're getting better, but it's not been enough, not better enough, not enough time of getting better for them to be convinced that that this is the right trajectory.

00:51:10.180 And right now, Americans blame Republicans as the governing party.

00:51:15.400 And you may say that's not logical.

00:51:17.080 And I understand those arguments that a lot of this is hangover from Bidenomics and from the disaster of Biden.

00:51:22.640 But the reality is right now, today, you know, as we sit here, people do blame the Republicans for an economy that isn't working for them.

00:51:30.720 And working class people still have an affordability issue.

00:51:33.960 Now, again, I think we're doing the right things and I think the trends are very positive.

00:51:38.200 I do think a lot of the messaging around that from Republicans, from the White House hasn't been terrific.

00:51:44.100 For example, I think we need to acknowledge that. Right.

00:51:46.580 You can't convince people in terms of like Scott Adams lesson on persuasion.

00:51:50.080 You can't just convince people that their economic situation is great when they know it isn't right.

00:51:55.900 In other words, when they know that they're stressed about their bank account, when they know they're going to the grocery store, it gives them anxiety.

00:52:00.940 You can't just say, oh, no, but the economy is great.

00:52:03.300 So, in other words, acknowledge that we realize things aren't still wonderful, but it's on the way.

00:52:11.400 Help is truly on the way.

00:52:13.060 And the number and it's not just a hope and a promise.

00:52:15.120 The numbers show it. Right.

00:52:16.260 We can show rents just hit a four year low. Right.

00:52:19.120 That's important. It's really important for us to talk about.

00:52:22.620 And but we have to persuade in the right way.

00:52:25.360 Part of persuading is acknowledging that there's a problem and that we are addressing the problem in a very aggressive way.

00:52:31.900 Now, we have time until November. OK, not a lot of time, but we have time until November.

00:52:36.180 If I had to make a prognostication, if I'm trying to be honest about things right now, we are going to hold the Senate.

00:52:41.220 As a matter of fact, I think the Senate will probably have no net change.

00:52:44.560 My baseline right now, if the election were today, is we pick up Georgia, but we lose North Carolina to the Democrats and all the other states stay the same.

00:52:53.700 That would be my Senate projection right now.

00:52:55.640 If the election were today, I think we lose the House.

00:52:58.100 I think we lose the House narrowly, but I do think we lose the House.

00:53:02.160 And I agree with you. That could be catastrophic. Right.

00:53:04.980 Because what happens if there's a Speaker Jeffries?

00:53:07.560 Well, he moves immediately to investigation because guess what?

00:53:11.260 When the Dems get power, they use it. OK, they don't act like Republicans.

00:53:15.780 They're not a bunch of squishes like Speaker Johnson and his comrades are on Capitol Hill.

00:53:21.080 They use power and they immediately wield the powers that the voters give them.

00:53:27.960 And if that happens, they're going to move to impeach President Trump.

00:53:32.160 They're going to move to impeach Tom Holman, probably other folks.

00:53:35.240 And that would be disastrous for this country.

00:53:37.620 So I'm not trying to be depressing anybody, by the way.

00:53:40.140 I guess I'm trying to be motivating.

00:53:42.940 It's not unwinnable by any stretch. Right.

00:53:45.140 I think it's a close call right now.

00:53:47.000 It is winnable. But let's also recognize, you know, we're down.

00:53:49.900 OK, I really and I think it's important for us to be realistic about that, that we're down.

00:53:54.780 The reason is the economy, though. It's not immigration.

00:53:57.440 Immigration continues to pull very well. 0.99

00:53:59.720 Yes, the sort of important people in the country, their hair is on fire.

00:54:04.100 Right. Very wealthy people who many of whom have very big media platforms.

00:54:08.200 Their hair is on fire. Regular folks.

00:54:10.340 That is not the case. They support immigration enforcement.

00:54:14.460 And I think the more we connect immigration enforcement to affordability.

00:54:17.700 All right. The more we make that argument that I made in my video today, the better off we're going to be.

00:54:22.260 And there's a lot of reasons to enforce immigration.

00:54:24.240 But the number one is it helps make your life more affordable.

00:54:27.840 And part of why your life got so unaffordable was because of the open borders of Joe Biden.

00:54:32.600 We're fixing that. We fix both problems at once.

00:54:35.480 So let's make that case together.

00:54:37.220 Do you think that there are other promises or other plans that Trump needs to come out with?

00:54:43.860 I remember what Scott said not too long ago that one of the issues was that because Trump has already done many of these things,

00:54:50.740 he can't really run on that for the midterms and that people are looking for change, looking for, you know,

00:54:57.080 what are you going to do that hasn't already been done?

00:54:59.300 Are there things that you would suggest that Trump should come out with as far as what he's going to do in the next two years?

00:55:04.000 Yeah, no, that's a great question. And here, for example, closing the border, which is a magnificent success, right?

00:55:10.120 Closing the border, in a sense, almost works against President Trump in a strange way, right?

00:55:15.080 Because you're exactly right. It was accomplished.

00:55:16.780 It was accomplished so quickly and it's seemingly easily that people just move on mentally, right?

00:55:22.760 And that's a problem politically because, you know, he doesn't get credit for a massive win to protect the American people.

00:55:30.220 But it's hard to just keep reminding people of that into 2026 and certainly into 2028.

00:55:36.040 I mean, people are of the mentality of, you know, what have you done for me lately, right?

00:55:38.960 So, you know, what's the new win for us?

00:55:42.820 And I think there, to specifically answer your question, you know, so what new can we promise people?

00:55:49.880 I really believe that we need tariff rebates.

00:55:53.080 Number one, because affordability is the chief concern of Americans.

00:55:56.900 And I think it makes sense to try to put money in a sensible way into their pockets.

00:56:00.840 But number two, I think people deserve it.

00:56:02.940 Working class people in America have been abused for decades by awful trade policy that exploited American workers and rewarded the credential elites of the United States and the globe.

00:56:12.960 Now that we have sensible trade policies and now that tariffs are bringing in tens of billions of dollars of revenue,

00:56:18.360 I think a dividend for working class Americans makes sense.

00:56:21.560 So this isn't just about politics, although I think the politics will be very fortuitous if we, in fact, do this.

00:56:27.360 Now, can President Trump get it done in time through Congress?

00:56:30.420 I don't know.

00:56:31.240 He's, of course, talking about doing it unilaterally.

00:56:33.240 That would obviously be challenged in court quickly.

00:56:35.580 I don't know if that would survive and if the money gets to people.

00:56:38.380 But in terms of, to answer your question directly, of something tangible and real and now, tariff dividends, to me, make a lot of sense.

00:56:49.300 It makes sense anyway, just as a policy, but then looking at the politics of it, of convincing people, hey, I care about you.

00:56:56.620 My new policies are tangible.

00:56:58.500 They result in revenue for the United States, part of which you deserve a share of, and you deserve a share of it right now, not just in the bigger sense, but, you know, actually in your bank account.

00:57:08.920 That, I think, would do wonders for us into the fall.

00:57:11.960 I'll tell you this.

00:57:12.380 The other issue in terms of something new, what's going on in Minnesota, right, the mass Somali fraud, it's almost like we wrote this story. 0.56

00:57:20.000 It's so advantageous for Republicans.

00:57:22.640 So the more we can focus on that and the more we can uncover similar frauds, looks like that process is happening right now in California.

00:57:29.820 If we can correctly brand the Democrats as the party of fraud, and specifically the party of fraud by foreigners, that is a really compelling new reason to vote for Republicans. 0.78

00:57:44.120 That this will not happen under Republican leadership.

00:57:46.920 This will not happen if President Trump has a majority on Capitol Hill.

00:57:49.620 The Democrats are the party of systemic fraud and often systemic fraud by foreigners. 1.00

00:57:56.580 So I would say those two things, territory of dividends, and then this new issue because of what's going on in Minnesota.

00:58:02.740 Very important.

00:58:04.080 Very, you know, that's just very important.

00:58:05.700 Also, you think about someone like Nick Shirley.

00:58:08.380 I mean, he made a tweet the other day just saying, California, I'm here.

00:58:13.980 So, like, this type of show, you guys, for all of us on here, we are, like Elon said, we're the news now.

00:58:24.640 And, you know, Steve's going to get a lot more traction because he's been on here with all of us and, like, the replay of this show.

00:58:31.540 And a lot of people listen later, Steve, or the next day.

00:58:33.940 And we are definitely an army of people that are not afraid to go out there and talk to people, to post about it, to re-share your video and tell people what's going on.

00:58:47.760 And we have to just, you know, say thank you so much.

00:58:51.300 You have an open invitation to come here anytime.

00:58:54.420 We loved having you here.

00:58:56.900 We all, they all already committed to sharing your trailer.

00:59:00.860 We're all, a 28-minute long documentary.

00:59:04.820 Yes, everyone can watch that.

00:59:06.700 And it affects everybody.

00:59:08.660 So, we truly thank you so much.

00:59:11.000 Sergio, you have something to say?

00:59:13.220 Yes, thank you.

00:59:14.700 Steve, I was one of those people that believe the fine people hoax, 100%.

00:59:20.360 I was living with a liberal back then, and I took it all in.

00:59:25.340 And the way I loved it when Erica was talking about it because she was mentioning how she was watching it.

00:59:30.220 And the two movies in one screen, right?

00:59:32.520 Because I was not following Scott Adams at that point.

00:59:36.320 I had no idea.

00:59:37.940 I know about Dilbert, but I was not following him.

00:59:40.320 So, I had no filter to see that, right?

00:59:43.180 So, I believe the 100% in the way they did it was by emotions.

00:59:48.300 The emotions that they made me feel at that point, right?

00:59:51.120 They kept playing the same frames with the tiki torches over and over again.

00:59:57.340 They were overimposed Trump's face, you know, overexposed hair.

01:00:03.480 And that had the effect, you know, that I had no idea that it was having an effect on me because I wasn't aware of all these techniques.

01:00:11.060 So, you saved me and with Scott and everybody and a lot of us, you know, so thank you for that.

01:00:18.680 And now, we have to use those techniques against them, right?

01:00:23.240 So, what are you saying is that to create a fear in them from the invaders, right?

01:00:31.340 From the people that are taking away our wages.

01:00:35.000 So, something like that, right?

01:00:36.460 So, thank you very much, sir.

01:00:37.900 You bet.

01:00:38.140 So, you guys want to say goodbye to Steve and we'll let him go.

01:00:43.600 I promised him we'd be done at the top of the hour, which is where we're at.

01:00:47.580 So, please come back anytime.

01:00:50.480 I will ask you again.

01:00:52.660 And we will all share it.

01:00:54.480 Good luck with the documentary and everything you're doing.

01:00:56.760 And thank you for everything you're doing.

01:00:58.720 And we'll see you back here soon.

01:01:00.440 I hope we want to do a closing sip to our beloved Scott.

01:01:04.880 We miss you and we love you, Scott.

01:01:06.960 And we will see you guys tomorrow.

01:01:10.880 And there's Shelly.

01:01:12.140 We love you, Shelly.

01:01:13.060 And Joshua Lysak is going to be on with us tomorrow.

01:01:15.500 He has a lesson.

01:01:17.040 Thanks to Scott.

01:01:17.780 He's going to teach us for the first part of the show.

01:01:20.960 To Scott.

01:01:22.760 To Scott.

01:01:24.900 To Scott.

01:01:27.180 Bye, guys.

01:01:28.080 See you tomorrow.

01:01:28.800 Thank you, everybody.

01:01:30.400 Bye-bye, everybody.

01:01:31.860 Bye.

01:01:32.140 Bye.

01:01:32.240 Bye.

01:01:32.300 Bye.

01:01:32.400 Bye.

01:01:32.420 Bye.

01:01:32.440 Bye.

01:01:32.460 Bye.

01:01:32.480 Bye.

01:01:32.500 Bye.

01:01:32.520 Bye.

01:01:32.980 Bye.

01:01:33.420 Bye.

01:01:34.420 Bye.

01:01:34.980 Bye.

01:01:36.960 Bye.

01:02:04.740 Bye.

01:02:05.360 Bye.

01:02:06.040 Bye.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - February 03, 2026

Episode 3086 - The Scott Adams School 02⧸03⧸26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript