Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 804 Scott Adams： Elaborate Prank on Chief Justice Roberts, Coronavirus Malfeasance, Other Fun

00:00:00.460 Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum 1.00

00:00:07.000 Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams. That's me.

00:00:13.000 And if you're you, and I think you are, you've come to the right place.

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00:00:25.000 One of the best days ever. Today's gonna be fun. In fact, the whole weekend's gonna be fun. I guarantee it.

00:00:32.000 And to get the fun going, 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 vessel of any kind.

00:00:41.000 Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like my coffee.

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00:00:55.000 Mmm. Nailed it. Nailed it.

00:01:00.000 Well, I don't know if I've ever been more entertained by government malfeasance than I have this week.

00:01:09.000 It's not all good, but a lot of it is funny.

00:01:14.000 Happy birthday, Hooper.

00:01:17.000 I don't know where to start with the funniness, so I'll just start in no particular order.

00:01:24.000 I've told you before how reality can be viewed through different filters, and still all the facts can make sense.

00:01:33.000 In other words, you could be imagining the world through your filter, your movie, and all the parts work.

00:01:39.000 You can still go to the store. Everything still works.

00:01:42.000 So I'm going to give you a filter that fits all of the facts and is completely different than the one you're watching in the impeachment.

00:01:51.000 Because the one you're watching is probably there's an impeachment trial, has something to do with the Constitution.

00:01:57.000 We're trying to decide whether a president should be removed. That's probably what you're thinking, right?

00:02:02.000 But watch how well this completely different filter fits all of the observed facts.

00:02:09.000 Just imagine that instead of an impeachment trial, what it really is is an elaborate prank on Chief Justice Roberts.

00:02:19.000 And the prank goes like this.

00:02:21.000 The Republicans and the Democrats are all in on the prank. 1.00

00:02:26.000 And the job is to see who can get Chief Justice Roberts to read in public out loud the most ridiculous bullshit. 0.99

00:02:36.000 Now, and the competition is pretty, pretty stiff. 0.99

00:02:42.000 So it turns out that Chief Justice does have his limits.

00:02:46.000 He won't read everything they say.

00:02:49.000 And with at least one case, his reading of it came with a scowl.

00:02:54.000 He read Elizabeth Warren's question about whether this whole process is degrading the credibility of the Supreme Court.

00:03:04.000 And he just reads the question.

00:03:05.000 He just looks at her.

00:03:07.000 Now, I'm generally a big fan of the founders of the country and the framers of the Constitution.

00:03:19.000 Now, when I say I'm a big fan, I don't say I like everything they did.

00:03:23.000 For example, owning slaves.

00:03:26.000 Not a fan of that.

00:03:29.000 But otherwise, you know, making the Constitution, they did a great job creating.

00:03:33.000 Well, they were also, you know, sexist misogynists, you know.

00:03:38.000 But if you don't count the slave owning and the sexism, the racism, if you don't count that, they did a really good job making a Constitution.

00:03:48.000 Well, they also discriminated against poor people.

00:03:50.000 They weren't going to let them vote unless they had property. 0.99

00:03:53.000 So there were racists, elite, sexists who largely raped their own slaves. 0.98

00:04:01.000 But if you don't count that, they were pretty good at making constitutions. 0.99

00:04:06.000 I think we'd all agree.

00:04:08.000 But they weren't perfect.

00:04:11.000 And as you're watching this impeachment process, it makes you think that this was the part that they were too tired to finish.

00:04:19.000 Have you ever worked on a project where, you know, you've been working, working, you spend days, you're up late, you're working weekends, and you're almost done.

00:04:28.000 And you've almost done a perfect job on whatever it is, your project, but there's just this one thing left over you got to take care of, it's a loose end, and you don't give it your best effort.

00:04:40.000 Kind of typical, right?

00:04:42.000 You get everything, most of the stuff right, but there's just some little trailing, you know, little details that you don't give it your best effort.

00:04:52.000 And it seems to me that what we're watching in this so-called impeachment process is not their best effort.

00:05:01.000 I don't know for sure, but I think by the time they designed the impeachment clauses, they had already been drinking, perhaps.

00:05:11.000 Because who designed a process where the Chief Justice of the United States sits in front of the public, now on television, but in front of the public before, 0.89

00:05:22.000 and is forced to read whatever ridiculous bullshit the two sides of the political spectrum decide to hand him on a little piece of paper? 0.95

00:05:34.000 Who came up with that plan? 1.00

00:05:37.000 That is the worst plan I've ever heard.

00:05:40.000 Now, I think maybe the Senate actually came up with a specific version of it, but the Constitution allowed the Senate to kind of do whatever they wanted.

00:05:51.000 And what are we all arguing about if we're talking about impeachment?

00:05:58.000 We're talking about the process.

00:06:00.000 We're talking about, you know, can the Senate be badgered into requiring witnesses or is that just the House's job?

00:06:09.000 How about the framers of the Constitution do a little less raping of slaves and put a little more effort into that impeachment part of the Constitution? 1.00

00:06:20.000 Maybe give us a little more clarity. 0.80

00:06:21.000 Maybe think you're through a little bit more so that we're not arguing dumbass things like, well, it's a trial.

00:06:29.000 If we use the word trial, that tells us everything we need.

00:06:33.000 Because the word, what about the word?

00:06:36.000 I use the word trial over here.

00:06:39.000 And so, therefore, if it's the same word, then all of the things that apply to the other word in a different context, a criminal context, well, doesn't that apply?

00:06:49.000 Because it's the word.

00:06:51.000 How could I be wrong?

00:06:52.000 What about my logic?

00:06:53.000 My logic connecting those two things?

00:06:55.000 Because it's the same word.

00:06:56.000 T-R-I-A-L. 1.00

00:06:59.000 Therefore, logically, everything about that word in a different context must apply.

00:07:05.000 When did the founders of the Constitution come up with the worst process you've ever seen?

00:07:13.000 Let's be honest.

00:07:14.000 The Constitution in general, pretty solid work.

00:07:18.000 A-plus, you know, for designing the Constitution.

00:07:23.000 But the impeachment part?

00:07:25.000 D-minus.

00:07:28.000 I can't give you a good grade, founders.

00:07:31.000 So maybe doing a little less slave owning and a little more work on that part would have been good.

00:07:38.000 All right, what else is funny about this?

00:07:41.000 Have you listened to any of the things that the senators are making Roberts read?

00:07:51.000 They, you can't listen to them without wanting to punch your television.

00:07:56.000 Because the whole thing is just turned into a mockery.

00:08:00.000 Nobody should be proud about participating in this.

00:08:03.000 Nobody's coming out of this process smelling clean.

00:08:08.000 Now, I told you before that one of the ways that I predict the future, and it's just one way,

00:08:15.000 and I'm not saying that this is a 100% good predictor, but it's fun.

00:08:20.000 So I'm going to mention it.

00:08:21.000 And it's what I call the best story filter.

00:08:25.000 You could call it a movie filter, but I don't like to confuse things.

00:08:29.000 So that filter says that if you can anticipate what would be the best story in the future,

00:08:38.000 that's usually the way things go.

00:08:40.000 I don't know why.

00:08:42.000 You know, it could be just coincidence or cognitive dissonance or something on my part.

00:08:48.000 But so often it looks like you can predict based on what the best story would be.

00:08:53.000 Now, what would be the best story going forward?

00:08:56.000 Well, you've got two competing stories.

00:09:00.000 One, by the way, all of my, all of my, uh, Paula problems came back, but that's another story.

00:09:09.000 That's the third story, one you don't care about.

00:09:12.000 Um, so one story says that we'll get witnesses.

00:09:18.000 And the reason that that would be predicted by the best story,

00:09:22.000 is that it makes this impeachment thing go on and there's more to argue about and there's more drama.

00:09:28.000 There's more surprise.

00:09:29.000 There's mystery.

00:09:30.000 So having the witnesses would be a much better movie than not having witnesses.

00:09:36.000 So the best story filter says we'd get witnesses,

00:09:39.000 even if the news is reporting that it looks like it's not going to go that way.

00:09:43.000 But there's a second movie.

00:09:46.000 And this was really fun.

00:09:48.000 Howard Kurtz mentioned this in the piece he wrote on foxnews.com.

00:09:53.000 And I don't know if this is true, but Howard Kurtz is saying it.

00:09:58.000 So it's probably true.

00:09:59.000 He's, he's, he's a credible voice.

00:10:01.000 So he's saying that if the Republicans stay on track,

00:10:04.000 president,

00:10:05.000 this is so delicious.

00:10:10.000 I almost can't say it.

00:10:12.000 It's so good.

00:10:13.000 If the Republicans stay on track,

00:10:16.000 president Trump could be spiking the football about his acquittal with Sean Hannity during the Super Bowl interview.

00:10:23.000 Oh, could that be better?

00:10:29.000 Because there's nothing that gives more attention than the Super Bowl.

00:10:32.000 There's nothing that people are, are more paying attention to than that on that day.

00:10:37.000 If, if the way this turns out is that Trump ends up celebrating his total acquittal during the Super Bowl.

00:10:50.000 Oh, I'm sorry.

00:10:53.000 That's just so good.

00:10:55.000 That is so good.

00:10:57.000 That we have competing movies now, and they're both pretty good.

00:11:00.000 On one hand, I wouldn't mind a little bit more of these witnesses just, just because I don't think it'll change the result,

00:11:07.000 but it could make things fun.

00:11:10.000 But if we don't get them, what would be better than Sean Hannity interviewing President Trump during the Super Bowl?

00:11:18.000 Break, I guess, halftime or something?

00:11:21.000 After acquittal.

00:11:22.000 There's nothing better than that.

00:11:24.000 All right.

00:11:27.000 Howard Kurtz also wrote this funny sentence in the same piece.

00:11:30.000 He said,

00:11:31.000 The media's tone drastically shifted yesterday morning as it looked increasingly like the Senate Republicans would hold the line and block any witnesses from testifying.

00:11:41.000 The mood on MSNBC was practically funereal.

00:11:46.000 I didn't even know that was a word.

00:11:49.000 Is it funereal?

00:11:51.000 F-u-n-e-r-e-a-l. 1.00

00:11:54.000 Now, generally, as a writer, I have a rule as a writer that if you use a word, a vocabulary word, that you can reasonably know your entire audience won't understand, don't use that word.

00:12:10.000 So, generally speaking, don't use a word that your readers are unlikely to know.

00:12:17.000 But, this is a perfect exception.

00:12:19.000 This is good writing.

00:12:20.000 It's great writing, actually.

00:12:22.000 It's very good writing.

00:12:23.000 Because you know what funereal means, even if you can't pronounce it.

00:12:28.000 Okay, it's like a funeral.

00:12:30.000 It was practically funereal.

00:12:33.000 All right.

00:12:36.000 Here's some fun.

00:12:38.000 You want to see some real fun?

00:12:40.000 Find the Wikipedia page for President Trump.

00:12:44.000 Somewhere on his Wikipedia page, there'll be mentioned, of course, about the impeachment process.

00:12:51.000 When the final result comes in, the Wikipedia page will be updated to reflect the result.

00:12:58.000 Because it happens pretty quickly, right?

00:13:01.000 This is going to be fun.

00:13:04.000 Watch what happens.

00:13:05.000 Because Pelosi is already starting to frame things this way.

00:13:10.000 She says, quote, he will not be acquitted.

00:13:13.000 Quote, you cannot be acquitted if you don't have a trial.

00:13:17.000 So, this is Pelosi saying this.

00:13:19.000 You don't have a trial if you don't have witnesses and documentation and all of that.

00:13:24.000 Does the President know right from wrong?

00:13:26.000 I don't think so.

00:13:28.000 So, you can tell that Pelosi and the Democrats are already getting ready for their loss.

00:13:35.000 And in losing, they're going to claim that the President was impeached and that he's still impeached.

00:13:41.000 And their argument will be that the Senate didn't do its job, so the House impeachment stands.

00:13:47.000 It's unresolved, but it's not acquitted.

00:13:50.000 So, that's going to be their version.

00:13:54.000 Now, the President's version, of course, will be that he was acquitted.

00:13:59.000 And here's the fun part.

00:14:01.000 Was it Lindsey Graham who said this?

00:14:04.000 Somebody smart said this.

00:14:05.000 I forget who it was.

00:14:07.000 They said that if he's acquitted in the Senate, he can claim, and it would be a valid claim even if you disagree with it,

00:14:15.000 he could validly claim that he was not impeached because it didn't go through to the final removal.

00:14:22.000 Now, you're going to have two movies that are completely different.

00:14:27.000 He was impeached totally.

00:14:29.000 He was not impeached.

00:14:32.000 Those can't both be true, but Wikipedia is going to have to choose.

00:14:37.000 And there's going to be a fight like you've never seen, like in all of the, probably in all the years of Wikipedia,

00:14:44.000 probably there would never be more fighting of the volunteer editors over how to word this situation.

00:14:51.000 Now, I think they, if they were, you know, if everybody was playing fair, and I don't think that's going to happen,

00:14:57.000 but if everybody involved in Wikipedia were just trying to get it in the most accurate way, they would just describe it.

00:15:04.000 They would say, here's what happened.

00:15:06.000 The Senate voted this way.

00:15:08.000 Democrats say it doesn't count.

00:15:10.000 Trump says it counts.

00:15:12.000 Just describe it.

00:15:13.000 But I don't know if it's going to go that way.

00:15:15.000 I think they're going to fight tooth and nail because Wikipedia, whatever you think of its accuracy overall,

00:15:22.000 becomes sort of a depository of what I would call common knowledge or our agreed truth.

00:15:33.000 And agreed truth is where society says, well, yeah, okay.

00:15:38.000 Yeah, that version looks, I'll go with that.

00:15:42.000 Some people might disagree, but it's sort of the consensus truth ends up on Wikipedia.

00:15:48.000 It's almost brute force of opinion more than what's right or wrong in some cases.

00:15:55.000 So watch that.

00:15:56.000 Wikipedia will be the battleground.

00:15:58.000 I'd like to see the news organizations reporting on it in real time,

00:16:03.000 because I think you'll be able to watch the edits going in and out so quickly, probably in real time.

00:16:10.000 I don't know how quickly that could happen.

00:16:12.000 But that page is going to be just changing while you watch it.

00:16:15.000 All right.

00:16:19.000 What else we got going on here?

00:16:22.000 So do you remember my prediction yesterday morning?

00:16:27.000 Possibly one of my most accurate predictions.

00:16:31.000 And I said that the entire day yesterday would be spent with the anti-Trump media willfully misinterpreting what Alan Dershowitz had said at the impeachment proceedings the day before.

00:16:44.000 Was I right?

00:16:46.000 Did we not watch the entire media landscape acting as one misinterpreting Dershowitz in just the most obvious way?

00:16:55.000 I mean, it wasn't even a clever misinterpretation. 0.94

00:16:59.000 It was just such a heavy handed, ridiculous misinterpretation. 0.95

00:17:03.000 They all did it. 0.98

00:17:05.000 They all did it the same way.

00:17:07.000 And Dershowitz, to his credit, he went full Dershowitz on him.

00:17:13.000 And, you know, he actually got back on CNN.

00:17:16.000 Now, if you didn't see Dershowitz on CNN last night, find yourself a clip.

00:17:22.000 OK, find yourself a clip because it's good TV.

00:17:27.000 And here's what's good about it.

00:17:29.000 Obviously, Dershowitz, he's mentioned it before.

00:17:32.000 The CNN sort of stopped inviting him when he started saying things that could be construed as positive for Trump.

00:17:39.000 But they had him back last night because you couldn't you couldn't not have him on last night.

00:17:44.000 Right.

00:17:45.000 I mean, I don't know who initiated the interview, whether it was CNN or Dershowitz may have pinged him and said, you know, you've been saying stuff about me.

00:17:54.000 Put me on and I'll clear it up.

00:17:55.000 So I don't know who initiated.

00:17:57.000 But he was such big news yesterday.

00:18:00.000 They couldn't not have him on if he's willing to go on.

00:18:03.000 So he goes on CNN and says as clearly as you can write to their collective faces.

00:18:10.000 You are completely misinterpreting what I said.

00:18:13.000 Here's what you're saying out of context.

00:18:16.000 Here's the full context.

00:18:17.000 So you can see how completely misinterpreted I have been.

00:18:21.000 And now you should retract it.

00:18:23.000 And I'm paraphrasing, of course, but he basically said you're completely misinterpreting it.

00:18:29.000 What do you think Wolf Blitzer did when the person who knows the most about what's inside Alan Dershowitz head, which happens to be Alan Dershowitz?

00:18:41.000 He's the one who knows the most about what he said and what he thinks.

00:18:44.000 He goes on their show and tells them their news reporting is completely wrong on really the biggest story of the day.

00:18:51.000 And he shows them why in unambiguous certain terms, things they could check.

00:18:57.000 They could just go back to the tape and say, oh, yeah, that's right.

00:19:00.000 When you look at the full context, it's obvious.

00:19:02.000 What did Wolf Blitzer do?

00:19:04.000 Did he say, oh, my goodness, you've just pointed out that the network I work for has been spreading fake news all day,

00:19:13.000 and they really should have known because, I mean, everybody could just see it.

00:19:17.000 If you didn't take it out of context, it's obvious that it's wrong.

00:19:20.000 Did he say that?

00:19:22.000 Did he say, did Wolf Blitzer say, I would like to apologize to you for completely smearing you on our network all day long,

00:19:32.000 so you have my personal apology, Alan Dershowitz?

00:19:36.000 Did that happen?

00:19:37.000 No, no, it didn't.

00:19:39.000 It didn't.

00:19:40.000 Wolf Blitzer push back and say, no, Alan Dershowitz, I know you think you know your own opinion,

00:19:47.000 but let me clarify for you why CNN knows your opinion more clearly than you do.

00:19:54.000 So let me explain what your opinion is and why we got the reporting right.

00:19:58.000 And don't give us this BS about you know what your opinion is, because we know what your opinion is.

00:20:03.000 We're the news.

00:20:05.000 You're just a guy that we sometimes let on but not very often.

00:20:09.000 So did Wolf Blitzer say something like that?

00:20:14.000 No, no.

00:20:16.000 He ignored it.

00:20:18.000 What?

00:20:20.000 He ignored it.

00:20:21.000 Alec Dershowitz, the most important person in the whole country yesterday.

00:20:27.000 You know, I mean in terms of the news cycle.

00:20:30.000 The most important person in the country.

00:20:32.000 Probably.

00:20:33.000 No, not even probably.

00:20:35.000 Absolutely.

00:20:36.000 The most critical opinion about impeachment on the biggest question in the country.

00:20:43.000 Highest operating, most experienced, you know, best voice on this topic, the constitutionality

00:20:49.000 of impeachment and the president.

00:20:52.000 And they have him on and he tells them that they've been reporting fake news all day, shows

00:20:57.000 exactly how and why.

00:20:59.000 And they freaking ignored it.

00:21:01.000 It was like he hadn't been talking.

00:21:04.000 It was, it was crazy to watch that and have them just act like it didn't happen.

00:21:11.000 And then I thought to myself, okay, maybe, you know, maybe Wolf didn't know how to react

00:21:16.000 on camera.

00:21:17.000 So he was just, he was just playing it, you know, down the line and let people make their

00:21:21.000 own decision, which would be fine.

00:21:23.000 But I thought to myself, now that Dershowitz has gone on their network, clarified what it

00:21:29.000 meant.

00:21:30.000 They will never again report the wrong news.

00:21:35.000 Wrong.

00:21:36.000 Today, John Avalon, who's one of the big anti-Trumpers smirking faces on CNN.

00:21:42.000 If you've ever seen him, he's the one with the smirky face.

00:21:45.000 So whenever somebody else on the panel is reading something that makes the president

00:21:50.000 look bad, he's got his little smirky face.

00:21:53.000 If you're only listening to this, you can't see the incredible impression I'm giving of

00:21:58.000 John Avalon's smirky face.

00:22:00.000 I'll do it again.

00:22:01.000 Okay, that was pretty good, I think.

00:22:06.000 Thank you for bearing with that.

00:22:10.000 So he writes, with this argument, Dershowitz completely conflates a president's self-interest

00:22:16.000 with the national interest.

00:22:18.000 Did he do that?

00:22:20.000 Did Dershowitz conflate the president's self-interest with the national interest?

00:22:24.000 No.

00:22:25.000 No, that didn't happen.

00:22:27.000 That did not happen.

00:22:28.000 If a president thinks, quote, so this is Avalon misinterpreting Dershowitz.

00:22:36.000 If a president thinks, quote, I'm the greatest president there ever was.

00:22:40.000 If I'm not elected, the national interest will suffer greatly.

00:22:43.000 Dershowitz believes that cannot be impeachable.

00:22:46.000 So he's putting words into Dershowitz's mouth that are not Dershowitz's words and not his

00:22:51.000 point and completely wrong.

00:22:53.000 So, did Dershowitz succeed in getting CNN to stop reporting the most obvious fake news?

00:23:03.000 It couldn't be more obvious.

00:23:04.000 You just have to look at what he says and then look how they reported what he said.

00:23:08.000 They're not even close.

00:23:10.000 And they just write another opinion piece like Dershowitz had not just debunked their entire

00:23:16.000 coverage.

00:23:17.000 It's just mind-boggling to watch this.

00:23:21.000 Now, even Howard Kurtz was a little bit tough on Dershowitz for the way Kurtz put it had

00:23:29.000 more to do with some ambiguity of the way he explained himself that offered the other

00:23:35.000 side a club.

00:23:36.000 So that's, you know, I think he went a little tough on Dershowitz, but he's got a point that

00:23:42.000 Dershowitz did explain things in a way that made it easy to take it out of context.

00:23:48.000 Now, I don't know if that's a fair criticism.

00:23:54.000 As someone who is experienced in media interviews, you definitely want to avoid saying things that

00:24:02.000 could be taken out of context.

00:24:05.000 It took me years and years of practice to be able to do that because you have to be thinking

00:24:10.000 of what you're going to say while the cameras are rolling and you're, you know, you've got

00:24:13.000 pressure, you're in public or whatever.

00:24:15.000 So you're thinking about what you're going to say, which takes a lot of energy.

00:24:18.000 At the same time, you've got to run a separate process in your head that's checking what you're

00:24:23.000 saying and taking each sentence out individually and saying, okay, what would they do with this

00:24:28.000 sentence?

00:24:29.000 Okay, what would they do with this sentence out of context?

00:24:32.000 So it's really hard.

00:24:33.000 It takes a lot of skill to talk in public and craft a coherent thought that can't be taken

00:24:39.000 out of context.

00:24:40.000 I'm only just able to do it at this level of experience.

00:24:46.000 Now, obviously, Dershowitz has even more media experience than I do.

00:24:51.000 And he would be able to do that.

00:24:53.000 So he would easily be able to do an interview in which he cannot be taken out of context.

00:24:59.000 But if he's doing a lengthy scholarly constitutional argument, I'm not sure that's possible.

00:25:09.000 Because in order for him to do the lengthy, you know, the big picture where you've got the

00:25:14.000 simple canvas, you can see the examples, you can see the larger context.

00:25:18.000 In order to do that, I don't know that there's any way you could avoid leaving little nuggets

00:25:23.000 that can be taken out of context.

00:25:25.000 So I don't know it was achievable.

00:25:29.000 But the context that, well, it doesn't matter.

00:25:32.000 It was taken out of context.

00:25:33.000 You can see it yourself to see why.

00:25:35.000 All right.

00:25:36.000 The funniest weird thing, I talked about this yesterday, but there's a new wrinkle to it.

00:25:41.000 So we'd heard the story that Rand Paul had submitted a question that Chief Justice Roberts would have to read in front of the Senate.

00:25:51.000 And in it, he allegedly, according to the news coverage, not according to me, but according to the news coverage,

00:26:01.000 the question would have revealed the name of the whistleblower.

00:26:05.000 Now, here's the clever part that I didn't know yesterday.

00:26:08.000 Rand Paul's question had the name of two individuals in it, but did not, in the body of the question, it did not refer to them as whistleblowers.

00:26:18.000 It was simply a question about their involvement and whether they had some involvement that was relevant.

00:26:24.000 Now, Chief Justice Roberts looks at it and says the presiding officer declines to read this question without explanation.

00:26:35.000 Now, of course, most people knew it was because it would give away the name of the whistleblower.

00:26:40.000 But here's what was so clever. The question did not accuse anybody of being a whistleblower.

00:26:47.000 It simply used the name of somebody that the press has, you know, in social media mostly, has continuously reported as being probably the whistleblower.

00:26:56.000 So, the news reports this, the same news that refuses to give the name of the whistleblower for ethical, maybe legal reasons, I don't know, but moral, ethical, you know, what's good for the country reasons.

00:27:11.000 They don't name them because they want whistleblowers to remain private.

00:27:14.000 But, in reporting the story the way they did, by saying, we're not going to talk about the names in this thing because we don't want to reveal the whistleblower, they revealed the whistleblower.

00:27:29.000 There wasn't, there was, there's no way around it.

00:27:32.000 If they said, you can't say this name that I'm not going to say in public, you can't say this name because it would reveal the whistleblower, and then everybody says, what name?

00:27:42.000 And then they look at the name, and they say, I can't say this name in public because that would reveal the whistleblower.

00:27:49.000 Didn't you just tell me the whistleblower in public?

00:27:54.000 I mean, sure, I had to connect two dots, but you gave me both of the dots.

00:28:02.000 I didn't even have to look for the second dot.

00:28:05.000 Dot one, what did Rand Paul's question say?

00:28:08.000 There it is, here it is, here's a dot, hold on to this dot, let's see if we can find another one.

00:28:13.000 Dot number two, the Chief Justice didn't want to read it because the name on there was the whistleblower.

00:28:19.000 What?

00:28:21.000 Okay, I guess that's morally okay.

00:28:27.000 That's morally and ethically okay to report that because they didn't say who the whistleblower is.

00:28:34.000 They just gave you two dots, placed them gently in your hand and said, see these two dots?

00:28:40.000 Yeah, well, I'm not saying who the whistleblower is, but look at those two dots.

00:28:46.000 I'm in the clear.

00:28:47.000 I didn't say it, but the two dots said it.

00:28:50.000 All right, that's enough on that.

00:28:55.000 In this impeachment process, we keep hearing this claim that our intelligence sources have been saying that Russia is behind the rumor that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.

00:29:10.000 Now, since I don't know enough of the details here, and I know that Politico reported at least four times that there was some alleged Ukraine interference in the election in 2016, was Politico reporting based on what our intelligence sources said?

00:29:33.000 Or did our intelligence sources not know what Politico said?

00:29:38.000 Or how do you square those things?

00:29:40.000 How do you square the fact that Politico was reporting Ukraine was meddling and gave specific examples that nobody's questioning?

00:29:47.000 At the same time, our intelligence sources say, no, no, it's a Russian rumor.

00:29:52.000 Who do you trust more?

00:29:54.000 The fake news in general.

00:29:58.000 I'm not calling Politico fake news on this story.

00:30:01.000 I'm just saying in general, you know, a member of the press, Politico.

00:30:05.000 Who do you trust, them or are the United States intelligence sources?

00:30:10.000 Which one would you trust?

00:30:13.000 Neither, right?

00:30:14.000 Yeah, you wouldn't trust either one of them.

00:30:16.000 But was the president justified in saying there's something to look into?

00:30:23.000 Well, according to Politico, he was.

00:30:25.000 Now, Politico could be right and they could be wrong.

00:30:29.000 But there's something there that makes you say, well, I'd like to know more about that.

00:30:34.000 Whether they're right or wrong, it's enough to look into it.

00:30:38.000 One of the good questions that came from I think Ted Cruz was was one of the questioners asked, why is it so different that the Hillary Clinton campaign can use foreign interference with a steel steel dossier?

00:30:54.000 What makes that different than somebody getting some foreign interference from Ukraine in the process of investigating something that was worth investigating?

00:31:06.000 So that's a pretty good question.

00:31:09.000 Because we think in terms of analogies, you know, even though we shouldn't.

00:31:14.000 So people's minds say, yeah, what is different about that?

00:31:18.000 Now, the first thing you say to yourself is Great Britain is a an allied country and Russia is not in the same way.

00:31:25.000 Does that matter?

00:31:27.000 Does that matter?

00:31:28.000 It doesn't matter at all.

00:31:29.000 If the United States interfered with an election in France, do you think France would say, what, the United States interfered with our election?

00:31:38.000 Oh, wait, you said the United States?

00:31:41.000 That's okay.

00:31:42.000 They're allies.

00:31:43.000 Who would say that?

00:31:45.000 Nobody in France.

00:31:47.000 If you interfere with another country's election, it doesn't matter if you're allies.

00:31:52.000 That's not really relevant.

00:31:55.000 And it doesn't matter if you paid for it.

00:31:58.000 Not really relevant, in my opinion.

00:32:01.000 All right.

00:32:02.000 So I would say I would not trust our intelligence forces to say that Russia is the only reason that people are looking at Ukraine for interference.

00:32:13.000 They might have boosted that signal, but I can't imagine it's the only one.

00:32:17.000 Have all of you seen Joe Lockhart appear on CNN yet and talk crazy talk?

00:32:25.000 I think he was going full Hitler on Dershowitz, I guess. 0.89

00:32:30.000 And there's some things you can't stop noticing.

00:32:36.000 What is wrong with Joe Lockhart's eyes?

00:32:40.000 You know what I'm talking about? 0.97

00:32:43.000 He has crazy eyes. 0.89

00:32:45.000 Like, you look at him, and before he even talks, you say, well, whatever comes out of that mouth, if that mouth is connected to those eyes, that's going to be some serious crazy talk coming out of that hole. 0.90

00:32:59.000 And I ask myself, all right, who else in the public political sphere has crazy eyes?

00:33:06.000 You know, Adam Schiff, of course, Cory Booker, some would say, AOC, some would say. 0.84

00:33:12.000 And then I think to myself, are there any Republicans who have crazy eyes? 0.91

00:33:20.000 I couldn't think of one. 0.98

00:33:23.000 Right?

00:33:24.000 Can you think of a Republican who, when you look at them, their eyes say, I'm crazy?

00:33:31.000 Is this a coincidence?

00:33:34.000 I'm totally open to the, I'm open to the possibility that this is just anecdotal nonsense, coincidence, confirmation bias, something like that.

00:33:46.000 Oh, somebody, I see some other mentions here, Michael Moore and Elizabeth Warren, Ilan Omar.

00:33:54.000 Now, I don't think any of them have crazy eyes.

00:33:56.000 I would not say that at all.

00:33:58.000 But the people who do have crazy eyes all seem to be on the same team.

00:34:02.000 Somebody says Lindsey Graham, he doesn't have crazy eyes.

00:34:08.000 Mitt Romney, no, I guess it's pretty subjective. 0.90

00:34:11.000 But I can't look at Joe Lockhart without thinking that his eyes are screaming crazy.

00:34:18.000 Just, just the way they look.

00:34:19.000 I know.

00:34:20.000 It's a, it's an interesting look.

00:34:23.000 All right.

00:34:26.000 Let's talk about the coronavirus.

00:34:30.000 So I tweeted this question, which is, if the U.S. government does not close flights,

00:34:36.000 or ban flights from China temporarily until we get a hold on this coronavirus situation.

00:34:43.000 If we don't do that, would that be Trump's biggest error in risk management?

00:34:49.000 One of the things I've liked about this president is that he does seem to understand risk management like an entrepreneur.

00:34:56.000 And he, he, he seems to consistently, not every time, but nobody's, nobody gets it every time.

00:35:03.000 But he consistently seems to go with the best risk management decisions.

00:35:08.000 Um, you know, that's a longer story, but it's just something I've noticed about him that I've appreciated.

00:35:13.000 But I'm watching this situation and I, I'm totally stumped.

00:35:16.000 Cause he's got the risk management completely wrong.

00:35:21.000 And let me put it in these terms.

00:35:23.000 If, um, if we don't do anything and he gets lucky, you know, doesn't close the airport and he gets lucky.

00:35:31.000 And there's, you know, little or no problem in this country.

00:35:33.000 Just people get sick, but they recover.

00:35:35.000 If that's the worst that happens, well, then he got lucky.

00:35:37.000 But would you, would you make a policy based on having to get lucky?

00:35:45.000 Cause I think that would be mostly luck.

00:35:47.000 Cause nobody is smart enough to know what's going to happen.

00:35:50.000 You'd have to be lucky that it didn't turn into a big thing.

00:35:53.000 So, but what if it goes the other way?

00:35:55.000 Suppose, uh, suppose a number of people get infected in this country and some of them die.

00:36:00.000 How many people in this country would have to die from the Corona virus?

00:36:05.000 Before you would say that it's a gigantic error by the president.

00:36:12.000 I mean, just the biggest error probably is of his presidency.

00:36:17.000 How many I'm thinking 10, but I also think somebody's job needs to be to explain the cost benefit to us.

00:36:27.000 Uh, you know, when, when we have a war or something, you often see the estimates, at least by the,

00:36:33.000 sometimes by the military, sometimes by the, you know, the pundits or whatever.

00:36:37.000 And we say, okay, we're going to, we can have a war or a military action.

00:36:42.000 We think the risk to our troops is X, you know, we might lose this many.

00:36:46.000 There's always an implied, we'll try to get this benefit, but it's going to cost us this much in lives.

00:36:51.000 And, and be aware that every big decision the government makes ends up, you know, killing somebody or saving somebody.

00:37:00.000 You know, if the government says bicycles are legal, people die on bicycles.

00:37:06.000 If somebody, if the government says, yeah, you can have a swimming pool in your backyard, somebody is going to drown in a swimming pool.

00:37:13.000 So when the government makes, makes decisions or even decides not to make a decision, which is the same thing, almost anything big has an implication that people die.

00:37:24.000 So the coronavirus would be no difference.

00:37:27.000 But what is different about it?

00:37:29.000 And here, and here's my big point.

00:37:31.000 I'm seeing the people arguing against closing, against banning flights are saying that Scott, Scott, Scott, do you not understand Scott? 0.99

00:37:42.000 You poor, simple bastard. 0.97

00:37:45.000 Don't you understand that the regular virus, you know, the normal flu is infecting way more people, like tens of thousands of people in this country alone, or billions? 1.00

00:37:55.000 It's a lot, whatever it is.

00:37:57.000 And that a bunch of people die from that.

00:38:00.000 It's usually people with degraded systems, et cetera.

00:38:04.000 So Scott, don't you see that this coronavirus is not such a big deal because our just plain old regular virus is just killing lots of people.

00:38:13.000 And it's way more than this tiny little coronavirus.

00:38:16.000 So let's not panic about it.

00:38:19.000 That, my friends, is a form of loser think.

00:38:24.000 Loser think, the way I define it, is people who do not have experience in different domains think they know how to think,

00:38:33.000 but they don't know what they don't know.

00:38:35.000 In other words, if you've never studied economics, you might think your common sense is good enough,

00:38:41.000 but you wouldn't know that there's something important that you didn't know how to consider.

00:38:46.000 This is a perfect example.

00:38:48.000 This is an apples to orange comparison.

00:38:51.000 It's something no scientist would do.

00:38:53.000 It's something no economist would do.

00:38:56.000 Nobody who had an MBA would be likely to make a comparison to the coronavirus to the normal flu.

00:39:03.000 Here's one reason why.

00:39:06.000 The regular flu, we can't stop.

00:39:09.000 I mean, you can't stop it by banning a flight.

00:39:12.000 The regular flu, as far as I know, we do not identify with a certain border in a certain country,

00:39:19.000 and therefore there would be no way to stop it by closing off that country and say,

00:39:24.000 all right, you know, you Elbonians are always giving us flu, so we're going to close the airports there. 1.00

00:39:29.000 It wouldn't work, right?

00:39:31.000 Now I'm looking, I could be fact-checked on this.

00:39:33.000 So it could be that maybe we do know what countries they come from, but for whatever reason we don't close those borders.

00:39:39.000 So here's my point.

00:39:41.000 You could make a big difference in the coronavirus by stopping flights from one country and checking passports from people who may have, you know, tried to do a circuitous route.

00:39:54.000 You could at least tell that they came from China.

00:39:59.000 That's completely different than a flu that we don't have a better way to stop than whatever we're already doing.

00:40:06.000 They're just, it's apples and oranges.

00:40:08.000 You can't compare it to car crashes, alcohol, cigarettes.

00:40:12.000 They're just different things.

00:40:14.000 Now, if you could stop those other things by closing the flights for 30 days from one country, I would be in favor of it.

00:40:24.000 But it wouldn't work.

00:40:26.000 What's different about the coronavirus is that we have a very specific thing you can do that wouldn't kill you,

00:40:33.000 it would be a little annoying, a little inconvenient, and it would last maybe 30 days.

00:40:39.000 That's it.

00:40:40.000 So anybody who's comparing those two things and saying it's relevant that there's some other unrelated flu that's worse,

00:40:48.000 doesn't know how to compare things.

00:40:51.000 And I almost can guarantee you that the people who are saying that don't have a background in economics, science,

00:40:58.000 probably engineering, maybe the law, they're likely to be artists, writers, philosophers, that sort of thing.

00:41:06.000 All right.

00:41:11.000 The State Department announced a high-level warning on Thursday not to travel to China because of the coronavirus.

00:41:18.000 So explain this to me.

00:41:21.000 If the State Department is saying that we should not go there,

00:41:25.000 why would they not ban flights from there to here?

00:41:28.000 Which, in my opinion, has got to be the bigger problem.

00:41:31.000 I don't think the problem is that we're sending people over there as long as they stay there. 0.65

00:41:37.000 It's coming back.

00:41:38.000 It's the coming back problem.

00:41:40.000 All right.

00:41:41.000 And I ask you whose job it is in the government to explain to us, the people, the cost-benefit analysis.

00:41:50.000 Because that's missing, and that is complete governmental incompetence and malfeasance, in my opinion.

00:42:00.000 The lack of that explanation guarantees that the explanation is corrupt.

00:42:09.000 Let me just say that as clearly as I can.

00:42:12.000 The only reasonable assumption you could make about why our government does not have whatever representative,

00:42:19.000 it might be Health and Human Services, but whoever's sort of the lead person on this,

00:42:24.000 the only way you can explain that they have not come out and said,

00:42:28.000 we've considered closing the airports for flights from China, but here's the cost-benefit.

00:42:33.000 We think if we keep them open, we might have zero to ten deaths in this country.

00:42:40.000 And on the other side, if we close them, we think that that might have an economic impact of whatever,

00:42:49.000 and that economic impact also translates into people living and dying.

00:42:54.000 Because we know that as the economy goes up and down, the people who are sort of on the margin

00:42:59.000 can move from being in a lot of trouble to not being in a lot of trouble with a small move.

00:43:04.000 So if you have a big impact on the economy from one of your government decisions, it could end up killing people.

00:43:11.000 But if you don't stand in front of the United States public and say, here's what we're weighing.

00:43:19.000 We don't know if this would kill people. We think it would be a low number.

00:43:23.000 But we don't know if this would kill people either. We think this could be a low number.

00:43:27.000 So the reason that we're going with this is that we think the risk management makes more sense.

00:43:32.000 We can get to the best result through this path, and here's why.

00:43:36.000 Now, if my government explains that to me, and even if I disagreed, I would say, okay, well, at least it's not corrupt.

00:43:46.000 It could be wrong, because risk management is about playing the odds.

00:43:51.000 You can correctly play the odds and still be wrong.

00:43:55.000 And that's not a crime. That's just bad luck.

00:43:58.000 But if your government does not stand in front of you and say in public, here's why we're doing this.

00:44:06.000 The alternative was this. Here's the cost benefit as best we can estimate it.

00:44:11.000 Short of that, you have to assume corrupt, something corrupt.

00:44:17.000 Either there's somebody with money who is influencing somebody.

00:44:21.000 There's somebody who has, I don't know, political, financial, some kind of interest that is conflicting with your interests.

00:44:29.000 So your interests and mine are being put at a lower priority than somebody's profit.

00:44:38.000 Now, I don't know that, but that is the reasonable assumption, because we've gone so long without the obvious thing happening, which is somebody explaining what the reasoning is.

00:44:49.000 In fact, I just saw Trump being interviewed by, I guess it was Fox News, and he was asked about it.

00:44:57.000 And he just gave general statements about we're working with China and other countries and we're working hard and stuff like that.

00:45:04.000 And I thought, that's not good enough.

00:45:06.000 That's, you know, that is not a performance I want from my president.

00:45:12.000 Now, if the president said we're looking hard at closing the airports and we're working out the cost benefit analysis, we'll tell you tomorrow.

00:45:21.000 I would say, OK, OK, that's on the right track.

00:45:24.000 You know, it looks that's that's what I would do.

00:45:27.000 That's the reasonable thing to do.

00:45:28.000 But he didn't.

00:45:29.000 He just he just waved his hand at, you know, we're working hard.

00:45:33.000 And that's not nearly enough.

00:45:35.000 That's not nearly enough.

00:45:37.000 So I think President Trump has to explain that.

00:45:40.000 And and if people start dying in this country while the airports are still open to China, I, you know, I'm not sure I'm going to be OK with that. 0.99

00:45:52.000 Well, I'm not going to be OK with that.

00:45:55.000 I tweeted today a weird little story in which scientists have created the first living robots.

00:46:04.000 What?

00:46:05.000 That's right.

00:46:06.000 That's right.

00:46:07.000 They've they figured out how to take unrelated cells and sort of just stick them together.

00:46:13.000 And I guess cells like to stick together so you can take unrelated cells and just put them together and they stay.

00:46:20.000 And then they start acting independently because there are different kinds of cells and one cell will be, you know, trying to move and another one won't be trying to move or whatever.

00:46:29.000 But if they they use supercomputers to figure out the nature of all these different kinds of cells and then they they rapidly simulate all the combinations of how you can put cells together.

00:46:40.000 And they can actually put cells together that can move, you know, under a microscope so they can connect them together in such a way that the the computer accurately determined it would move forward or move in a circle.

00:46:55.000 So they're actually programming robots out of living cells that have different characteristics and they can put them together.

00:47:05.000 Now, I don't know where that ends up, because at some point it might it might achieve consciousness or something like it, something like free will.

00:47:16.000 You know, you know, that's an illusion, but there could be a computer, you know, robot version of that.

00:47:21.000 So that's coming down the line at you in the weird story, some element of Antifa.

00:47:31.000 And I don't know what it takes to be an Antifa besides just saying you are are planning some kind of police subway fair protest in New York City.

00:47:42.000 And it has something to do with they don't like paying two dollars and seventy five cents for the subway.

00:47:47.000 So it's going to be some kind of a mass, I don't know, civil disobedience about paying the paying the fares.

00:47:55.000 And I'm thinking to myself, has has Antifa, have they drifted from, hey, I like what they're saying, because they're saying bad things about they're saying bad things about bad people.

00:48:08.000 So I like them. You know, they're they're against the racists.

00:48:11.000 So so that's OK, even if they do some bad stuff, at least they're against the racists.

00:48:16.000 But it seems that Antifa being an organization which and by the way, if you ever want to create an organization that's guaranteed to fail, one way to do it is to let anybody join. 0.86

00:48:34.000 If you create an organization that lets anybody join sooner or later, your organization is going to be filled with psychos.

00:48:41.000 Right. And they're going to be running the show.

00:48:44.000 So Antifa being their preference for not having a central control.

00:48:49.000 You know, they don't like the government in general.

00:48:51.000 They don't like any kind of government.

00:48:53.000 So, of course, their organization is sort of independent people doing independent things without a central control.

00:48:59.000 And what do you get instead of fighting the good fight for, I don't know, social equality or or whatever they might like?

00:49:09.000 Now they have an Antifa planning to to protest paying money for services.

00:49:16.000 That's right.

00:49:18.000 Antifa is going to protest the concept of paying money for stuff.

00:49:24.000 I don't know if they've thought this through.

00:49:27.000 I'm going to go out on a limb here.

00:49:30.000 I don't know this to be true.

00:49:32.000 Just a suspicion.

00:49:34.000 Nobody in the Antifa protest against the idea of paying for stuff has a degree in economics.

00:49:41.000 I'm just just guessing.

00:49:43.000 Probably none of them have an MBA.

00:49:46.000 Probably nobody in Antifa has a history degree.

00:49:50.000 Because I don't think they know what the alternative is to a world in which people don't pay for services that other people had to pay to create to provide.

00:50:03.000 I don't think they've thought this through is all I'm saying.

00:50:06.000 They're not even communists.

00:50:07.000 They haven't even thought it through that.

00:50:11.000 All right.

00:50:12.000 That's about the big and the small of it.

00:50:20.000 Anything else happening today?

00:50:23.000 You're all going to be watching for the vote.

00:50:26.000 If the news coverage is right, we will see the end of witnesses.

00:50:31.000 We will see a vote to acquit.

00:50:33.000 And then we'll break into two complete different movies in which some people say he was impeached.

00:50:43.000 And some say he wasn't.

00:50:45.000 Scott, please address how Roberts knew the whistleblower's name.

00:50:53.000 Well, same way you do.

00:50:55.000 You know, Roberts reads the news same as everybody else, I guess.

00:50:59.000 So everybody in the public has been exposed to the whistleblower's name.

00:51:03.000 And I wouldn't say that it was Chief Justice Roberts who gave away the whistleblower.

00:51:10.000 He just knew that it was dangerous territory.

00:51:13.000 So I think he did the right thing.

00:51:14.000 I would support what he did.

00:51:17.000 I'm not sure I support him continuing to put up with what he's putting up with.

00:51:22.000 Here's what I'd love to see.

00:51:24.000 I would love to see Chief Justice Roberts maybe at the end of it or something say,

00:51:30.000 you know, I just got to give you my feedback on this process.

00:51:34.000 This was totally corrupt, totally botched, 0.99

00:51:38.000 because you made me sit in public and read bullshit for two days 0.99

00:51:43.000 and you degraded the credibility of the Supreme Court. 1.00

00:51:47.000 You should be ashamed of yourselves.

00:51:49.000 You know better. 1.00

00:51:51.000 You should not have fed me one bullshit question filled with fake news after another and cause me to read it. 0.99

00:51:58.000 You know, in theory, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court should be, see if you agree with me, 0.99

00:52:04.000 should be the most credible person in the country, period.

00:52:08.000 Am I right?

00:52:10.000 Who would you want to be more credible, more fair, more nonpolitical than the Chief Justice?

00:52:17.000 He's it.

00:52:18.000 Like, you know, that's the one person you want to feel confident that that person at least could go either way,

00:52:26.000 follows the facts, is not driven by politics.

00:52:28.000 And to force that guy, to force him to read lies in front of the country and read them straight without an opinion is grotesque.

00:52:42.000 I mean, to me, it just felt grotesque.

00:52:46.000 I think he needed the Silkwood shower after that.

00:52:49.000 And I know that Chief Justice Roberts is not fond of making himself the story.

00:52:56.000 He likes to stay out of the spotlight.

00:52:58.000 And he, you know, he maybe made a slight exception by not reading the whistleblower, alleged whistleblower question.

00:53:08.000 But I feel like he needs to step up and say something.

00:53:13.000 Do you?

00:53:14.000 I mean, it'd be OK if he didn't, because at least that would be consistent with staying out of the spotlight.

00:53:19.000 And there's a lot to be said to that.

00:53:21.000 But I think he should he should say that he's disgusted with it.

00:53:25.000 I think he should present a complete if he feels this way.

00:53:31.000 And I'm assuming he probably does.

00:53:33.000 This is an assumption.

00:53:34.000 Can't read his mind.

00:53:35.000 But don't you think he's pretty, pretty unhappy with the people who gave him those questions and made him read those out loud?

00:53:42.000 I think that's just a broken system.

00:53:44.000 He should say something about that.

00:53:46.000 All right. That's all I got for now.

00:53:47.000 And I will talk to you all later.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - January 31, 2020

Episode 804 Scott Adams： Elaborate Prank on Chief Justice Roberts, Coronavirus Malfeasance, Other Fun

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