Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 947 Scott Adams： Talking With Dave Rubin About His New Book Don't Burn This Book, Biden and Therapeutics

00:00:00.000 Bum, bum, bum.

00:00:01.820 Bum, bum, bum, bum.

00:00:03.760 Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. 0.97

00:00:08.260 Hey, everybody.

00:00:09.540 Come on in.

00:00:10.600 This might be the best coffee with Scott Adams of all time.

00:00:16.560 Yes, I'm going to be talking to a very special guest if our technology works.

00:00:21.400 We'll have Dave Rubin on here to talk about his book.

00:00:24.600 But that doesn't happen until we do the important stuff first.

00:00:28.620 You know what I mean.

00:00:30.000 You know what I mean.

00:00:31.300 It involves a little thing called the simultaneous sip.

00:00:34.200 It's famous all over the world.

00:00:36.260 I would call it a worldwide event, possibly more than worldwide.

00:00:42.820 You never know.

00:00:44.020 But let's do the simultaneous sip, and then we're going to talk to Dave.

00:00:48.200 And all you need to begin, do you know what you need?

00:00:52.860 You know what you need, right?

00:00:54.780 Yeah.

00:00:56.540 You need a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein,

00:00:59.520 and a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.

00:01:01.920 Fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:01:04.240 I like coffee.

00:01:05.900 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, 0.99

00:01:09.840 the thing that makes everything better, including the damn pandemic. 0.97

00:01:13.940 It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now. 0.99

00:01:18.080 Go.

00:01:18.300 Go.

00:01:22.760 Oh, sublime.

00:01:25.480 Well, let's see if our technology is working.

00:01:31.940 It is.

00:01:33.340 Dave has showed up exactly at the right time and exactly the right place.

00:01:38.540 And if everything works, the gods of technology will allow me to say hi to Dave Rubin.

00:01:43.680 Dave, are you there?

00:01:47.420 Dave?

00:01:48.940 Dave?

00:01:49.340 Dave, I can hear some noise, but I don't hear your voice.

00:01:54.620 Are you talking?

00:01:57.200 Unmute your phone if it's muted.

00:02:03.560 Well, Dave, you are connected, but I am not hearing your voice.

00:02:09.020 So you might have a microphone problem on your device or possibly something else.

00:02:19.780 So you should be on a mobile device, Dave, and you should be talking to me right now.

00:02:23.860 I'll bet you can hear me, but I can't hear you.

00:02:28.180 But I do hear something.

00:02:30.780 All right.

00:02:31.500 I see that you disappeared, and you'll probably be coming back in one moment here would be my guess.

00:02:39.000 And I'll look.

00:02:40.160 Oh, there it is.

00:02:40.800 Probably back on a different device is my guess.

00:02:45.640 Dave, can you hear me?

00:02:48.480 Yay.

00:02:49.240 All right.

00:02:50.820 For the record, I did have the simultaneous sip with you.

00:02:55.000 Good, because I can feel the vibes all the way from here.

00:02:58.120 Now, I have your book, which I'm holding up so the audience can see.

00:03:04.240 Don't burn this book.

00:03:05.600 Hey, now, is this your first book?

00:03:07.720 This is my first book.

00:03:09.160 So as a guy that's written like 800 books, I now understand why there's not a hair on your head.

00:03:15.380 Because it takes work that's very different than just sitting across from somebody and interviewing them or talking to the camera.

00:03:24.980 I mean, there's a discipline involved in a book that I actually didn't realize I was going to enjoy, but ended up really learning a lot about myself, I think, just through going through the slog of it, you know?

00:03:34.940 Yeah, and then you get to the promoting part, and you find out that's harder than writing the book.

00:03:40.120 And you say, what?

00:03:41.600 What?

00:03:42.100 I didn't realize I was going to be getting up at god-awful times and talking to people all over the world.

00:03:47.660 So let's jump right into a few things.

00:03:52.440 I finished your book this morning.

00:03:54.200 I enjoyed the heck out of it.

00:03:55.640 I really especially liked your personal journey.

00:03:59.140 We'll talk about some of these things.

00:04:01.460 But I have to point this out.

00:04:03.460 You know you've got a good book when you look at the reviews on Amazon, and there are no two-, three-, and four-star reviews.

00:04:11.280 You have none.

00:04:12.520 You have none.

00:04:14.520 It's all ones and fives, huh?

00:04:15.920 Yeah, it's all ones and fives.

00:04:17.200 And the ones are – you go to the ones because you want to see what the haters are all about.

00:04:22.080 And it's obviously just people who are stuck in their little bubble, and they're just angry at you because you have a different opinion.

00:04:29.740 And so the ones are really just about how they feel about themselves or something.

00:04:34.880 I don't know.

00:04:35.140 Yeah.

00:04:35.820 Well, it's funny because – so you're totally right.

00:04:38.560 All we're getting are – we're getting mostly fives, and then we're getting this burst of ones, and it has nothing – these are obviously people who didn't read the book.

00:04:44.860 They don't comment on anything in the book.

00:04:47.020 It's mostly just they don't like me, which is fine.

00:04:49.500 But it's funny because, as you know, I toured with Jordan Peterson, and every time I read one of those ones, I think, man, these people just need to read 12 Rules for Life.

00:04:58.780 Because they're not really saying anything about me.

00:05:01.660 They're saying far more about themselves and their own sort of internal chaos and lack of worth or something.

00:05:08.740 But it's fine.

00:05:10.240 I mean this is the internet.

00:05:11.940 There's something going on, and I should emphasize it's overwhelmingly five-star reviews.

00:05:17.000 I just think it's funny because the same thing happens to me.

00:05:20.560 As soon as I put a book out, all the people who hate me for something completely unrelated to the book storm into the reviews.

00:05:27.120 Just to put – finally, finally, I've got him.

00:05:29.960 He can't go anywhere.

00:05:30.960 People are going to read these reviews.

00:05:32.780 All right.

00:05:33.100 So I especially liked your story of your journey because it had these little turning points that all had these interesting stories.

00:05:42.020 So you could really see your evolution.

00:05:45.540 And one of them struck me because you and I had a date in common that something happened.

00:05:54.160 What happened to me was I was promoting one of my books, and it came out on a week that something else happened.

00:06:00.880 It was called 9-11.

00:06:03.860 And needless to say, 9-11 was not a good week to promote a book that wasn't about 9-11.

00:06:09.300 So that didn't work out.

00:06:11.020 Now, something happened the day before 9-11 in your life's journey.

00:06:15.500 Tell us that quick story.

00:06:17.460 Yeah.

00:06:17.820 So I'm 43 years old.

00:06:19.680 I was born in 76, which I guess is starting to sound old, especially to these Zoomers. 1.00

00:06:25.240 But I was 25 at the time, and I had been closeted about my sexuality really my whole life, or at least into my 20s,

00:06:34.140 when I started sort of realizing where I was, which I know is very late in life.

00:06:37.860 People find it hard to believe, especially young people now, because kids come out at, you know, 13, 14.

00:06:43.360 It's not thought of as a problem or something that's evil or broke about them.

00:06:47.480 But, you know, I was a child of the 80s.

00:06:49.140 It was just a different thing.

00:06:51.560 And I would say it's sort of just an inside job.

00:06:54.540 You know, people go, how could you be closeted for so long?

00:06:57.360 It's just life is weird.

00:06:59.740 You know, it just is.

00:07:01.180 It just is.

00:07:01.780 And I think the other thing I get into this a little bit is that, you know, because I don't seem stereotypically gay.

00:07:06.920 I never felt gay, per se.

00:07:08.380 Like, I thought gay meant, oh, you like the theater, you like to dance, all this other stuff.

00:07:13.140 And you know the type of things that I like, because you've been in my house many times.

00:07:17.300 I like basketball.

00:07:17.860 I like video games.

00:07:19.020 I like things like that.

00:07:19.740 In any event, I had never come out to anybody.

00:07:21.860 And then literally at about 1230 a.m.

00:07:26.380 On September 11th, 2001.

00:07:29.020 So this is now about seven hours before the attack.

00:07:31.440 I was in the Times Square subway station, which I'm sure many people watching this have been to, standing by the shuttle train, which I'm sure, as you know, all it does is go from Grand Central to Times Square, back and forth.

00:07:43.580 So you sort of feel like you're in purgatory over there.

00:07:45.600 And I was with my friend Mike, who was a comedian who was openly gay, and we'd become friends over the past year.

00:07:52.960 And I said, I told him I was gay, and he sort of didn't realize that it was like my big coming out.

00:07:59.340 So he was like, oh, well, that's great.

00:08:00.820 You know, I'll see you tomorrow.

00:08:01.780 And he walked away.

00:08:03.300 And I thought, you know, in my mind, I had just sort of released this, you know, evil, horrific, damaging secret into the world.

00:08:11.060 And then I woke up the next morning to a phone call from my dad, and he worked in Manhattan, and he could see the Twin Towers, and he actually called me between the first and second one.

00:08:22.840 So he ended up seeing the second one hit, but he had already seen the first one hit.

00:08:26.140 And I know it sounds crazy, and I do write about this, but I genuinely thought it had something to do with me.

00:08:35.020 Which is, that just says so much, but yeah.

00:08:41.060 And I struck back, but struck back at my own city where I lived.

00:08:45.740 I lived in New York City at the time.

00:08:47.100 My dad was, as I said, was right there.

00:08:49.240 My grandma lived in the city.

00:08:51.580 And that did serious psychological damage to me.

00:08:54.660 It sounds crazy to talk about, but it really did.

00:08:57.440 You know, the part of the story that I was relating to that I thought was the funniest is that this was like the biggest thing in your life, I imagine, based on the way you tell the story.

00:09:06.440 And the first thing, the first person you tell is sort of like ho-hum, and then the next day is 9-11, and suddenly your little problem didn't mean anything.

00:09:16.320 It didn't mean anything.

00:09:19.300 In a way, that, I guess, sort of helped, because, you know, obviously we don't have to go too far into 9-11.

00:09:24.480 But, you know, I had ended up, people got trapped in the city.

00:09:27.080 I had friends that walked from Wall Street.

00:09:29.560 I lived on the Upper East, 90th and 1st.

00:09:31.320 I mean, that's a heck of a walk.

00:09:32.820 I had friends that ended up staying with me.

00:09:34.580 My dad couldn't get out of the city.

00:09:35.920 He stayed with my grandma, all that.

00:09:37.560 So it did get my mind off it in a certain way.

00:09:39.620 But I had this, you know, when you just have these thoughts behind you.

00:09:42.500 And the thought behind me was, my God, I just said something, and the freaking world started imploding.

00:09:49.140 And that really tells you a lot about the closet, because when you're alone in your thoughts, anything's possible.

00:09:54.920 You know, like, you can make up almost anything.

00:09:57.640 Yeah.

00:09:59.360 So I have to ask you this question.

00:10:01.560 I've always been curious about this.

00:10:03.660 But you and I have a similar experience, not in the coming out of the closet part, but in the being among the conservatives more than the liberals,

00:10:12.980 but not really feeling like you have all the same opinions as them.

00:10:16.700 And I found that conservatives are far more open-minded than the left.

00:10:24.400 But as long as you meet these conditions, you must treat them respectfully, even if you disagree.

00:10:32.300 That's just, you know, that has to happen.

00:10:34.920 Secondly, if you follow the Constitution, meaning you buy into the principles,

00:10:39.780 I found that every conservative will accept you completely, as long as you're living an honest life.

00:10:46.840 And you're compatible with the Constitution.

00:10:49.260 They're pretty much good.

00:10:50.360 Are you finding that the left is harder on you than the right?

00:10:54.300 Oh, for sure.

00:10:55.260 And, you know, in some ways, to get to the second part of that first, I don't blame the left for being harder on me than the right is.

00:11:03.060 I don't blame them for that, in that I am much harder on the left.

00:11:06.420 But the reasoning for that, though, is exactly what you just said there.

00:11:10.400 I mean, I have found, look, you know, I know you do it every now and again, too, where you'll sort of lay out your lefty cred.

00:11:15.240 I mean, look, I'm gay married.

00:11:17.460 That's supposed to be a sort of lefty issue.

00:11:19.400 I am pro-choice, and I write about it in the book.

00:11:22.280 I am against the death penalty.

00:11:24.000 I'm for some level of public education.

00:11:26.680 I'm for euthanasia.

00:11:28.400 I mean, there's a series of, like, big things that I believe in that are supposed to be lefty issues.

00:11:35.320 But I get literally nothing but hate from the left, and I get nothing but love from the right.

00:11:41.480 So think about it.

00:11:42.160 Think about the abortion one. 0.87

00:11:43.120 I mean, that's the one for – I'm actually not totally sure your opinion on abortion.

00:11:46.840 I'd be happy to hear it.

00:11:47.900 But that's the one for the people on the right that's, like, the biggest no-no.

00:11:51.520 Like, you have to be pro-life.

00:11:53.820 And yet all of the people who I now consider my allies who have promoted the hell out of my book and treat me well all the time, from Shapiro to Prager to Beck.

00:12:02.500 I was on Laura Ingraham last night, Tucker Carlson, Dana Perino, Gutfeld, all of these people.

00:12:07.680 We have all these political differences.

00:12:09.820 We talk about them on air.

00:12:11.220 I mean, I go on Tucker, and I talk to him about why he's about getting the government involved in big tech.

00:12:17.220 And I think you and I might even have a little difference of opinion there.

00:12:20.400 But it's like, yes, you're right.

00:12:21.840 If you treat them respectfully, there's an understanding that we want to live in a country with people with different opinions.

00:12:29.160 And if you believe in the Constitution and basically the idea that we should all have equal rights, and that doesn't mean we're all going to make it and it's going to be perfect for everybody.

00:12:39.200 But that's the best that society can do.

00:12:41.040 So that's been, I think, the craziest shift for me, that I went from being a lefty, and then all I did was say, oh, you know, these conservatives aren't that bad.

00:12:51.420 And I realized maybe they were the good guys the whole time, which is a really weird thing that I think a lot of young people are starting to realize.

00:12:59.140 Yeah, I'm not sure I see it as good guys or bad guys.

00:13:01.680 I just know who's more willing to accept me, and I just feel more comfortable in people who are willing to say, I totally disagree with that.

00:13:10.040 But you're okay.

00:13:11.260 Yeah.

00:13:11.580 Well, I think there's a reason for that.

00:13:13.480 You know, I think there's actually a fundamental reason for that, which is that if you're a conservative or someone on the right, libertarian or something like that, you believe in individual rights.

00:13:22.440 Like, that's a fundamental constitutional precept.

00:13:25.420 You believe that everyone should have equal rights regardless of any of the immutable characteristics.

00:13:30.340 And on the left, unfortunately, I don't know what the unifying principle is anymore.

00:13:35.020 The unifying principle really seems to be just government.

00:13:37.740 Well, you know, I've got a theory, which is that people on the left have been bullied or they feel victims and maybe there's something in their life that, you know, led them to that decision.

00:13:49.440 Because I think they're triggered by people like Trump because he just has a bully vibe.

00:13:56.020 So let me ask you this.

00:13:58.060 Were you ever bullied as a kid?

00:14:00.020 Is that a big part?

00:14:01.520 I mean, everybody was, right?

00:14:02.720 But was it a big part of your experience or do you think you got through it okay?

00:14:07.300 You know what, Scott?

00:14:07.980 I'll show you that I'm not a virtue signaler here.

00:14:10.240 I was as much a bully as I was bullied.

00:14:13.100 That is the truth.

00:14:14.200 I was 50-50.

00:14:15.200 I always describe it with my friends.

00:14:16.940 Like when I think of junior high and high school, it's not that I was a bully.

00:14:20.440 I was also not.

00:14:21.140 I didn't really have a growth spurt until really into college.

00:14:24.180 So I was kind of on the small side of things.

00:14:26.100 But I remember one day in around eighth grade thinking, you know, right now I could be one of the popular kids or I could be a not popular kid.

00:14:35.920 I really remember that.

00:14:36.780 And I remember thinking, I just don't want to put in the work to be a popular kid.

00:14:41.080 Like I like – like it would be work.

00:14:43.160 I'd have to dress differently and get a different haircut and all of that stuff.

00:14:47.300 And I liked – my friends, we played video games all night.

00:14:50.520 We played basketball all day.

00:14:51.760 I do not – I never even had a sip of alcohol in high school.

00:14:54.880 The first beer I ever had was at high school graduation.

00:14:57.580 I had a sip of a Coors Light out of a can and I hated it.

00:15:00.200 But in terms of bullying, so I was kind of like I got bullied by the kids that were more popular than me and sometimes I bullied the kids that were less popular than me.

00:15:09.420 It just is.

00:15:10.220 I know that, you know, to feel like a proud human, a proud adult, you have to say you were bullied all the time.

00:15:14.860 You were bullied relentlessly and that makes you good now.

00:15:18.220 But the truth is it was really 50-50 for me.

00:15:20.720 All right, so the other parts of your story that I found fascinating is I didn't realize that you interned for The Daily Show when you were really young.

00:15:31.420 Yeah.

00:15:32.480 You know, it's funny.

00:15:33.520 It's hard for people to remember what that was like because, you know, The Daily Show, at least for the Jon Stewart Daily Show, was like this just sort of – it was this everything.

00:15:44.880 Like it started becoming this thing where, you know, everybody said that this is where young people get the news and it was like this endlessly sort of cool thing that everyone wanted to be part of and all that.

00:15:54.960 And I interned there right when Jon Stewart took over.

00:15:58.200 So this was in the fall of 99 going into 2000 and Jon had just taken over.

00:16:04.320 And do you remember Craig Kilbourne was the host of the show before that?

00:16:07.120 He was a SportsCenter anchor who I loved, absolutely loved.

00:16:10.160 But he was a real like sort of – it was all about him and Jon obviously was very self-deprecating.

00:16:14.880 So it was a bit of an odd time to be there because people were getting fired left and right because, you know, they were turning over the staff and everything.

00:16:21.020 And it wasn't like the popular Daily Show that everyone came to know.

00:16:25.100 On a side note about The Daily Show now, it's like since Trevor Noah took over, that show is just beyond irrelevant.

00:16:31.880 I mean it's almost – and it's almost like you're not allowed to talk about it because it makes – you know, they'll call you a racist if you say it.

00:16:37.460 But literally nobody watches it and for some reason that doesn't get written about anywhere.

00:16:43.100 So let me ask you this.

00:16:44.840 I have a theory that people who become successful in their adult life often had brushes with other successful people when they were young enough to be impressionable.

00:16:57.540 And it gives you a sense that you could do it too because you realize these famous people are actually just normal.

00:17:03.220 Now did you have that experience that famous people were normal and you said, hey, I could do this?

00:17:07.220 Yeah, you know, actually we cut out – there's only one chapter of the book that we cut out and that's where I go into a little more of my life in New York City as a stand-up and the struggles around that.

00:17:17.300 I talk about it a little bit.

00:17:18.720 But one of the things that I cut out, which is related to The Daily Show, is right before my internship ended.

00:17:24.600 So I would intern in the city three days a week.

00:17:26.540 I lived with my parents in Long Island.

00:17:27.900 And I don't want to brag, but on my two days off, I was a part-time video game salesman at Electronics Boutique in the Garden City Mall.

00:17:36.840 But right before the internship ended, I went up to Jon Stewart at a party and I said – I had only met him once or twice throughout the whole thing.

00:17:44.140 You know, he's the big star.

00:17:45.060 I'm the intern, so it's not like we're, like, sitting down all the time.

00:17:48.020 But I wanted to make sure I said something to him before the internship ended.

00:17:51.060 I said, Jon, can you just give me one piece of advice about stand-up?

00:17:56.880 And without pausing, without any hesitation, he looked at me right in the eye and he goes, don't stop.

00:18:03.640 And to me, it encapsulated everything that stand-up sort of is. 0.99

00:18:07.860 Like, stand-up sucks. 0.75

00:18:09.520 Like, not the being on stage, but, you know, standing out on street corners, handing out tickets, performing in front of three people at 2 a.m., all of that. 0.95

00:18:17.680 And just this – the fact that he said, don't stop, when every comic, no matter how bad it gets, it's like you just got to keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.

00:18:27.300 And I know plenty of guys – I can tell you this for sure, and I'm sure you've seen your version of this – the best comics that I knew, most of them disappeared.

00:18:36.160 And in many cases, it was the worst ones who survived because they didn't even know they were supposed to stop.

00:18:41.840 And I think that he just planted that seed within me, that, you know, that the only way you make it is if you don't stop.

00:18:48.440 And I think that got in there.

00:18:49.800 And then over the years, I started meeting a lot of people that were my heroes on the Upper West.

00:18:54.100 I lived a block away from Jerry Seinfeld.

00:18:56.080 I used to bump into him on the street often and have some exchanges.

00:18:59.320 And I got to meet Richard Lewis and a whole bunch of other comedians that you start seeing them as humans.

00:19:04.900 And then you're like, well, I'm a human too, and if they can do it, maybe I can do it.

00:19:09.980 Yeah, I feel like that's a big part of a lot of people's stories and that it's just so automatic that you have that association with them and it changes you.

00:19:19.760 Now, you had another story here about being on the Young Turks, which I didn't realize until I read it in your book that you were on the Young Turks for a short period.

00:19:29.580 And that was where you sort of accidentally got red-pilled, is how it sounded like.

00:19:35.260 You know, if you go into the belly of the beast, you might find something that can red-pill you, basically.

00:19:40.000 Yeah, I lay out three stories there, but sort of briefly, you know, when I got there, I always considered myself a New York liberal.

00:19:47.940 What I mean by that is sort of like a JFK-esque, not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

00:19:52.920 You know, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ed Koch, that there used to be good, decent liberals.

00:19:58.420 And something sort of happened about five years ago where the progressives came in and they started screaming about everything and they were angry.

00:20:07.040 And I think you are right. It was maybe because they were bullied so that they started bullying.

00:20:11.340 I think there's something there.

00:20:12.560 And, you know, after about a year there, it started to wear thin on me because I suddenly thought, this can't be right.

00:20:19.780 It can't be right that we're so morally right.

00:20:23.100 We're so good.

00:20:24.560 And everyone who we oppose is evil and a racist and a bigot and the rest of it.

00:20:31.620 And, you know, I tell the story in the book about how I was on air with them and they were showing a clip of David Webb, who's a conservative commentator on Fox News. 0.96

00:20:40.800 And he happens to be black and they're going on and on about how he's a sellout and he's an Uncle Tom and all of this stuff.

00:20:46.740 And what they didn't know was I had a show on SiriusXM years before and I had become good friends with David Webb.

00:20:52.200 I was a lefty. He was on the right, but we used to talk it out on air all the time.

00:20:55.400 And I knew that not only was he a good man, but he believes what he says.

00:21:00.220 And here they are, the quote unquote tolerant lefties who see a black man who behaves differently than they want black men to behave. 0.76

00:21:06.960 And then they're allowed to call him all the worst things in the book.

00:21:09.480 And that's when I realized that that was just a new what I would say is sort of like an insidious or pernicious racism.

00:21:15.400 It's not it's not overt. You can't go to the water fountain, you know, something much more dangerous in a way.

00:21:20.980 Now, this is a you've probably heard of the Gell Mann idea.

00:21:26.120 Gell Mann was a physicist who said that if you if you read the news for a story that you actually know the facts, you see it's all fake.

00:21:35.060 But then you read you read the very next story that you don't know anything about and you accept it as true.

00:21:40.000 Yeah, no. Everyone that you know about is fake.

00:21:43.000 So was this your first experience seeing that the news was fake because you actually knew the real story?

00:21:49.220 Well, not only did I know the real story, then I knew the people who were delivering the news.

00:21:53.500 So that sort of doubled it as well.

00:21:55.860 And, you know, one of the things that I do in the book is lay out what I think are four types of fake news.

00:22:01.240 And what I find to be the most dangerous one of them is the one that we're really, really seeing right now.

00:22:06.520 You know, people think fake news is just, oh, a fake headline.

00:22:09.160 And then and, you know, just like a made up story or a headline that doesn't match the story.

00:22:13.160 But what I think the most dangerous one is, is what we're seeing with Biden right now, which is that we all heard about any any of us.

00:22:20.160 Right. Scott, we're we're creatures of the Internet and Twitter and YouTube.

00:22:23.240 It's like we've all been hearing about this Tara Reade stuff for probably two months.

00:22:27.260 And it wasn't it wasn't until literally last Saturday.

00:22:30.520 So I believe it was five days ago or so that CNN finally talked about it.

00:22:35.160 And then apparently this morning, I guess, MSNBC talked about it.

00:22:38.840 But it's like that's a type of fake news when they intentionally ignore a story because it goes against their narrative.

00:22:46.440 That's fake. And we know that's clearly not what they did with Kavanaugh.

00:22:49.900 So I think knowing some of the tips, I mean, I think you're probably one of the best communicators on this kind of stuff of like getting people to understand, like, the basic framework for the nonsense, because we really need it these days.

00:23:01.440 Yeah. One of the things that made me laugh out loud is your your tips for recognizing fake news.

00:23:07.760 There's one of them there that should never have to be said.

00:23:10.460 But the fact that it had to be said made me laugh, which is to check the story to see if it matches the headline.

00:23:17.120 Yeah. I thought, you know, you if you didn't know that that happens all the time, like it's just the most common thing that the story doesn't match the headline.

00:23:26.980 But you the first time you read that, you say, come on. How how how often I mean, really, Dave, how often does that happen?

00:23:34.380 Did that happen once in your general? No, it's like a common thing every week.

00:23:39.700 Not only is it a common thing, but, you know, because of Twitter and the way we all ingest news, it's an intentional it's an intentional shell game.

00:23:47.760 You know what I mean? They know that that probably I would guess I'd love to see some numbers on this, but I'm guessing that something like 90 percent of the people only look at the headline and they know they know that they can play that game.

00:24:00.340 Yeah. You had another tip for funding fake news. I do a version of this.

00:24:05.660 You said if it looks too good to be true, I say if it's too on the nose.

00:24:10.880 Yeah. In other words, it's the same thing. It's it's it's exactly what you'd expect.

00:24:16.560 Your critics would expect from you, basically. It's like it's just too perfectly the narrative.

00:24:21.700 And you see this so often when I was listening to the the latest story about the president was mad at Brad Parscale and yelled at him on the phone and was going to sue him as if that made sense.

00:24:35.760 And then, of course, it took 24 hours for the president to say, no, none of that happened.

00:24:39.800 Yeah, it's it's just endless. All of this stuff.

00:24:44.440 You know, the Jesse Smollett one is the is the perfect example of that one.

00:24:47.420 It's right. It fit what every blue check journalist and what every progressive that was at the time running for president from Cory Booker and and Kamala Harris. 0.72

00:24:57.380 And then, you know, it leaked it to Pelosi and Schumer. It fit their narrative perfectly.

00:25:01.760 You know, this black gay man assaulted and it's MAGA country and he's got a noose and the whole thing.

00:25:07.160 And it's like I purposely didn't tweet about it for those first couple of days because I was like there is this is way too storybook for the whole thing. 0.88

00:25:17.020 And then, of course, what happens? It's all a lie. Right.

00:25:19.820 And then the close cousin of that one is the Scott Alexander, a famous blogger, said this, that if there's something that's too hard to believe, it probably didn't happen.

00:25:30.820 It's like, you know, and there was a conservative who, you know, ate a liberal for dinner and something.

00:25:36.580 You say, you know, just on the surface, I'm going to say that probably didn't happen.

00:25:40.920 Then you wait 24 hours and didn't happen.

00:25:43.180 So then sort of bookending your journey, which which I found fascinating, really, the whole the whole way, just just watching your, you know, a good movie script.

00:25:55.300 This is a script reader script writer's trick is that it's a journey of the star.

00:26:01.000 The star starts out in a certain way and you watch their arc as they they learn and become a different person in the end.

00:26:06.940 And you naturally have that in your story. So that made that it just made it come to life.

00:26:11.320 But I love the part where you met your mentor.

00:26:15.580 Yeah. Let's let's say that. Give us give us the quick version of that.

00:26:20.720 Yeah, well, it's absolutely true. What I write in the book, I was doing a show with Jordan and Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro here.

00:26:27.460 And that night he was doing his first tour show. So it's sort of hard to remember because this is over two years ago now.

00:26:32.860 You know, we all think of Jordan like this sort of Jesus character or just that he was always this like massive, you know, intellectual rock star.

00:26:40.760 But he was doing his first test show, a theater show here at the Orpium in L.A. that night.

00:26:46.020 And I finished up the show with him and Ben. And really, as a joke, it was more like it was just like a passing comment.

00:26:51.600 I was like, hey, you know, if you want me to come down with you tonight and warm up the crowd, I'll tell a couple of lobster jokes and, you know, we'll see what happens.

00:26:58.280 And without missing a beat, he's like, yeah, let's do it. I'll see you there.

00:27:01.520 And I went. And and I think really this this moment that I'm about to tell you,

00:27:06.080 I think was the moment that actually like sort of gave me the confidence to do everything that's happened over the last couple of years.

00:27:11.760 There's about three thousand people there. I'd never done.

00:27:14.520 You know, I've done stand up for hundreds of people, but never done something for that many people.

00:27:18.620 Nobody knew I was going to be there, obviously, because it was it was our little secret.

00:27:22.160 And when the P.A. announcer, he said, and now welcome the host of The Rubin Report, Dave Rubin.

00:27:26.640 And the crowd went completely insane.

00:27:30.000 And I remember walking on stage and I was like I was like, this can't be real.

00:27:34.240 Like, how did this happen? I I do a YouTube show out of my garage.

00:27:37.800 Like, how did this happen? And and I crushed it on stage.

00:27:41.640 And, you know, I just made all the silly jokes about Jordan.

00:27:44.620 He sounds like Kermit the Frog and all this stuff, but all this insider stuff that people want to laugh about.

00:27:49.640 Because, you know, a lot of his stuff, obviously, is sort of fire and brimstone and and serious stuff.

00:27:54.380 And immediately the agents at CAA were there.

00:27:57.080 They're like, listen, this thing's success. We're sending him on tour.

00:28:00.360 We want you to go. I was like, yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

00:28:04.240 And and then we toured. We did about one hundred and twenty stops in about twenty countries.

00:28:09.460 And I'll tell you this, the most I mean, I can tell you a million amazing things about him.

00:28:13.240 But the man literally gave a different speech every single night.

00:28:18.020 I never saw him give the same speech twice, which is off the charts insane.

00:28:22.580 And and that and that he lived those twelve rules.

00:28:25.020 You know, I tell a couple of stories about it in the book, but I he was always kind to people,

00:28:29.760 no matter how tired he was, no matter what time it was, no matter how many hands he had

00:28:34.060 to shake. Like he really lived up to it to the best way that I think any human being could

00:28:38.860 do. And I think I just threw osmosis.

00:28:41.320 It wasn't like we didn't have like a Jedi Padawan learner relationship where it was like

00:28:44.840 he was sitting me down to teach me things.

00:28:46.760 It was just being around that and being around someone genuinely changing the world for the

00:28:52.140 better.

00:28:52.380 I remember thinking in the middle of it, I was like, if I walk out of this thing and

00:28:56.380 I'm not better, if I'm not dealing with my demons better, whatever is left, then that

00:29:00.560 says more about me than it says about him.

00:29:02.320 And I'm truly better since then.

00:29:04.440 Yeah, I like the fact that he has sort of a structure of, you know, this is the way to

00:29:10.180 approach life, the way to look at it, even if you disagree, it always helps to start with

00:29:13.980 something.

00:29:14.860 Yeah, it's got a structure.

00:29:16.620 That's it.

00:29:17.040 And most people don't, by the way.

00:29:18.280 That's why that's why his message has resonated, I think, especially with young men, but really

00:29:22.580 with everybody, is that something happened in the last 10 years or so where just the

00:29:27.440 basic structure of what the foundation of what young people need to sort of flourish

00:29:33.020 just kind of disintegrated.

00:29:34.920 But I feel I feel like he and to some extent, I feel like I'm filling this that role by accident,

00:29:42.140 which is there's a whole bunch of younger people who didn't have a father figure that did

00:29:47.860 the things you think a father figure should do, sort of give you your code of life, you

00:29:52.740 know, give you your structure and stuff.

00:29:54.680 You know, a lot of people were raised as like free-range chickens, I think.

00:29:58.780 They just sort of had to figure it out on their own and found out that that's not easy.

00:30:03.280 It's hard to figure out life on your own.

00:30:05.500 So having somebody who can say, look, you don't have to accept this, but here's a bunch

00:30:09.660 of rules that hang together pretty well.

00:30:11.860 You know, it could be Christianity.

00:30:13.940 That could be a set of rules.

00:30:15.080 It could be Jordan Peterson, and they're not incompatible.

00:30:18.380 It could be another set of rules.

00:30:20.300 And the reaction that I get is, you know, small compared to Jordan Peterson.

00:30:26.840 But the number of people who say, I'm just not getting this kind of view of the world

00:30:32.740 anywhere else.

00:30:33.900 It didn't come from my father.

00:30:35.520 I don't know what books I'm going to get it from, but Jordan Peterson delivers it.

00:30:39.680 Well, Scott, I'll tell you this.

00:30:41.020 I mean, I've told you this in person.

00:30:42.420 I've told you this on the show before, so you won't even have to say it about yourself.

00:30:46.140 But you were one of those people that helped me make a little sense of the world.

00:30:50.000 When the Trump thing started happening and I was trying to find somebody who, you know,

00:30:55.000 who was an established person who could talk about Trump, you know, not just a random Twitter

00:30:59.160 person.

00:30:59.560 And then I came across you and obviously I knew Dilbert, but then I started reading what

00:31:04.560 you were saying and then I interviewed you and you, you weren't crazy.

00:31:08.060 You were just trying to make sense of the world as it is, not as you wanted it to be

00:31:12.720 or, or that you were pretending that he was some sort of God King or something like that.

00:31:17.300 And I think that actually was one of the reasons that when the election rolled around, I was

00:31:21.620 on Joe Rogan's show the day, the day before the election.

00:31:24.000 And I was like, yeah, Trump might win because even though everybody was saying he couldn't,

00:31:28.040 I was, I had listened to you.

00:31:29.200 I had had Cernovich on and I, and I sort of tasted what was happening online.

00:31:33.840 And if you do all that, you can sort of understand the way people think.

00:31:37.560 So I, I wasn't shocked because of that.

00:31:40.080 Have you noticed, uh, I think you and I know a lot of the same people cause doing a lot of

00:31:44.340 the same stuff, but there's a certain set of people that no matter which side they're

00:31:48.740 on, they're at least capable of looking at every situation individually.

00:31:53.520 So, so no matter what you think of, let's say Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, Mike

00:31:59.480 Cernovich, just to name a few, I'll put you in that category and I'll put me in that category,

00:32:05.100 which is we're at least willing to look at each situation without a political filter first.

00:32:10.620 It's like, okay, does that make sense?

00:32:12.020 Is this good for people?

00:32:13.560 Is it good for me?

00:32:14.620 Is it a system that would work in the long run?

00:32:16.740 Um, you know, and then, and then somebody will have to come along later and tell me

00:32:20.420 which side I'm on.

00:32:21.560 Yeah.

00:32:22.040 Right.

00:32:22.700 Then they'll tell you if you're far left or far right after you do it.

00:32:25.780 Yeah.

00:32:26.020 I mean, I think, I think the truth about that is that what we're trying to do here, you

00:32:30.880 know, I'm really not rooting for a side per se.

00:32:33.520 I, I, I even always say to people now, it's like, look, the conservative side and the right,

00:32:38.040 the sort of center right is way better than the left right now, but that could turn,

00:32:43.480 right?

00:32:43.680 These things are cyclical.

00:32:44.780 Well, let's not forget, it was only 20 years ago that Joe Lieberman and John McCain, who

00:32:50.160 were Republicans were attacking mortal combat violence in video games and wanted them banned

00:32:54.640 from stores.

00:32:55.320 I was literally a video game salesman at the time, you know, like, so it's, it's not that

00:32:59.080 the right has some like, you know, total ownership on decency and openness.

00:33:03.540 That being said, at the moment, there seem to be people who are a little libertarian minded

00:33:08.840 who are embracing, oh, some things can be right.

00:33:12.600 Some things could be left.

00:33:13.540 And you can try to make some sense of it if you're a decent person.

00:33:17.420 And, and that's also why I find the permanently political people.

00:33:20.460 I think you've talked about this a little bit too.

00:33:21.940 Uh, the people that are permanently political, if you look at their Twitter feed can only

00:33:26.160 tweet about the world through politics.

00:33:28.240 I find them to be the most boring people because if you only view the world through politics,

00:33:33.900 through that lens, it can only lead you to misery. 0.75

00:33:37.120 Politics is a, is a miserable game.

00:33:39.160 We can all enjoy it.

00:33:40.200 We can enjoy, enjoy the WWE kayfabe version of it now with Trump and the Pelosi and these

00:33:45.820 cartoon characters, but politics in and of itself, it's about controlling people.

00:33:49.800 That's not a, that's not a really fun game for a, you know, a happy life.

00:33:55.120 Yes.

00:33:55.920 Uh, so let me, uh, let me wrap up here and then I will, uh, let you go.

00:34:00.540 Cause I know you've got the busiest few weeks in the world having, having, having been on

00:34:04.920 these promotional tours.

00:34:06.020 So the name of the book is don't burn this book, Dave Rubin, and, uh, you can buy this

00:34:12.640 everywhere.

00:34:13.120 Fine books are sold.

00:34:14.320 It's already out.

00:34:15.380 And, uh, I saw it was number one in one of its categories on Amazon.

00:34:20.360 Uh, that's always good.

00:34:21.360 Was it political?

00:34:22.940 Yeah, we hit it political.

00:34:25.040 We did political thought.

00:34:26.140 We did liberalism, conservatism, political freedom.

00:34:29.540 Um, so yeah, so it's doing well.

00:34:31.160 Hey Scott, I just want to say, say one other thing, you know, when you, I found out this

00:34:34.860 week that when you release a book, um, it's probably like doing anything else, sort of

00:34:38.860 high profile that you suddenly find out who your friends are and the amount of people,

00:34:43.080 former guests and things, um, that have reached out and promoted the book and, you know, said

00:34:47.740 nice things about me publicly and all that.

00:34:49.500 And obviously I include you in, in that you, and you invited me to do this and you joined

00:34:53.360 locals this week, which is freaking fantastic.

00:34:55.620 And we, I'll have you on again to, to talk about that.

00:34:58.240 But I, you really do find out who your friends are because I've had a certain set of people

00:35:02.780 that have totally now embraced me and tried to help me here.

00:35:05.820 And I've had other people who I think people would be shocked to find out, you know, didn't

00:35:10.680 say a word, haven't even just couldn't even choke out a tweet.

00:35:14.020 And, you know, it's kind of disappointing to, to that point.

00:35:17.640 Let me see if you've found this, uh, this correlation.

00:35:20.280 My, my impression of the world is that, uh, Republicans and conservatives are more willing

00:35:27.800 to offer to help than the left, just in your career, your life, you need some help.

00:35:34.120 They just don't like it.

00:35:35.320 If you ask them, that seems to be the difference.

00:35:38.280 It's like, don't, don't ask for my money.

00:35:40.920 Like I, I'm not cool with that.

00:35:42.700 Like, you know, go get, go get your own money.

00:35:44.620 But if I see that you need a boost, if there's something I can do, I can introduce you to some

00:35:50.260 buddy, you can meet a friend, maybe you need some funding, little advice.

00:35:54.280 Don't you find that the conservatives are, are so free with that?

00:35:58.800 Yes, I absolutely do find that.

00:36:01.060 And again, it's, it's weird.

00:36:02.420 And that's partly what my book is about that, you know, if you come from the left and it's

00:36:07.840 not just that you have to wake up to what some of the bad ideas are, you also have to

00:36:11.880 recalibrate that the people that you thought were wrong, the people that you might've thought

00:36:15.760 were bad or evil, as I said before, which is obviously a bit much, but, but a lot of people

00:36:19.520 on the left do think the people on the right are evil and vice versa.

00:36:22.400 Then you have to recalibrate all of those things.

00:36:24.620 And then suddenly it's like, like, why am I having Dennis Prager and his wife over for 0.93

00:36:29.160 dinner while people will say he's a homophobe and I'm having, and I'm a self-hated gay.

00:36:32.860 Why is Lauren Abram putting on her show last night when she knows I'm pro-choice? 1.00

00:36:37.000 I mean, these people, you can't tell me these, these are the bad guys.

00:36:40.660 So there is an interesting dynamic and I, and I look forward to continuing it with you.

00:36:44.460 And truly I'm, I'm thrilled you're on Locals and I think you're going to crush it on

00:36:47.220 there and we're going to fix the internet as much as we can.

00:36:50.580 Dave, I talk about Locals quite a bit separately and I'll be talking about that some more so

00:36:55.000 they, my, my audience knows what that's all about and I send them there.

00:36:59.700 Thanks so much for taking the time.

00:37:01.180 I'm going to let you go to your day and I'll stay on here and talk about some, some events

00:37:05.460 of the day.

00:37:06.320 Thanks Dave.

00:37:07.180 Thanks so much, my friend.

00:37:08.080 Be good.

00:37:08.540 Bye.

00:37:08.940 Bye-bye.

00:37:09.220 Bye-bye.

00:37:10.720 All right.

00:37:11.540 That was fun.

00:37:12.480 So check out his book, Don't Burn This Book, Dave Rubin.

00:37:20.240 All right.

00:37:20.600 Here's the best part of the news today.

00:37:23.140 So Biden finally made his statement about Tara Reade and he said this in an MSNBC interview.

00:37:32.100 He is saying unequivocally, it never, never happened.

00:37:37.020 It didn't.

00:37:37.800 It never happened.

00:37:39.140 Now that part's good.

00:37:40.160 If you're going to deny something, you, you don't want to say, well, why do you think

00:37:45.080 it happened?

00:37:45.780 That sounds like a liar.

00:37:47.300 But if you just say did not happen, didn't happen, you might be lying.

00:37:52.620 You might be telling the truth, but it's more credible if you just go directly at it.

00:37:56.560 No, that just did not happen.

00:37:58.720 But it wasn't all good for Joe Biden because he kept talking and you know that that's never

00:38:05.260 good and he kept talking until he confessed, but he didn't know he confessed.

00:38:12.720 He didn't know he confessed.

00:38:15.020 Let me read it to you.

00:38:16.100 He said this, quote, let's see.

00:38:25.060 Oh, he said, quote, I'm not going to question her motive, he said.

00:38:29.240 I don't know why she's saying this.

00:38:32.240 So far he's okay.

00:38:34.020 He hasn't made his mistake yet.

00:38:35.760 Here it comes.

00:38:36.500 I don't know why after 27 years, all of a sudden this gets raised.

00:38:44.780 You hear it?

00:38:46.340 I don't know why after 27 years, all of a sudden this gets raised.

00:38:52.940 What's this?

00:38:54.480 Is this the thing that didn't happen?

00:38:57.020 If something didn't happen, is that the way you talk about it?

00:39:01.520 The thing that didn't happen?

00:39:02.780 Do you say, why did the thing that didn't happen get raised now 27 years ago?

00:39:07.980 No, you do not.

00:39:09.500 You do not use those words if it didn't happen.

00:39:14.760 This sentence is basically a confession.

00:39:19.740 I don't know why she's saying this.

00:39:21.400 I don't know why after 27 years, all of a sudden this gets raised.

00:39:26.680 That's a slip.

00:39:29.120 And this means it happened.

00:39:33.100 Now you could say, you could say he's just not good at wording things.

00:39:37.760 You could tell me that maybe it doesn't mean anything.

00:39:40.680 It's just a, you know, he's not careful with his words.

00:39:43.380 Maybe that's all.

00:39:44.580 And that's possible.

00:39:46.620 I would not say anything's 100%.

00:39:50.000 But I'm pretty good at this stuff.

00:39:53.980 In fact, I've, you know, written in my books about how to detect lies.

00:39:59.080 And although I've never written about this particular, you know, tell, this is glaring, isn't it?

00:40:07.220 Somebody says, isn't that mind reading?

00:40:09.300 Well, it would be mind reading if it weren't, if I weren't looking at evidence.

00:40:16.060 So it's the evidence I'm looking at.

00:40:18.280 I'm not relying on imagining what was in the mind.

00:40:21.580 Now, it is correct that simply looking at the evidence doesn't mean I know what's in somebody's mind.

00:40:27.560 So that would be mind reading.

00:40:31.000 But if somebody confesses to a crime, you can just read the confession and maybe they don't mean it.

00:40:39.760 You know, maybe their mind is thinking something different.

00:40:42.360 But if somebody confesses, you know, you don't say, I'm being a mind reader by accepting the confession.

00:40:49.300 But your point is taken.

00:40:50.460 Then it turns out that the Biden campaign dispatched operatives.

00:40:57.960 That's right.

00:40:58.700 They dispatched some operatives.

00:41:01.940 I love the way that when you're reading a news site that doesn't like the other side,

00:41:08.080 instead of saying, you know, some people from the Biden campaign,

00:41:11.740 instead of saying that, I think this was on the Fox News site, or was on some site, I don't know.

00:41:17.140 But he dispatched operatives.

00:41:20.700 That sounds like it was written by somebody who doesn't like him.

00:41:23.680 All right.

00:41:24.280 To Delaware's library, because all of his, I guess, Senate documents and papers are all in some kind of an archive

00:41:30.300 that he donated to some university in Delaware.

00:41:33.940 And there's some thought that that might include the records of his accuser.

00:41:38.880 So there might be some documentation of her accusation at the time.

00:41:42.500 And there's some conspiracy thinking that the Biden operatives snuck in,

00:41:50.460 and Watergate-like, they removed the damning stuff.

00:41:56.460 I just wonder if there are any handwritten notes, sort of like the Flynn situation.

00:42:02.040 Is anybody going to find a handwritten note in there?

00:42:04.620 It's like, remember to sexually harass staff or something like that.

00:42:08.940 All right.

00:42:10.400 So the speculation is now up again that Hillary is just waiting for Biden to crash and burn so she can jump in.

00:42:20.360 I am firmly on the Hillary is not going to do that camp.

00:42:24.780 Doesn't mean she won't flirt with it.

00:42:27.480 Doesn't mean she won't say it directly.

00:42:30.280 I mean, she might even come out of her mouth.

00:42:31.980 But my prediction is that she can't do it, and the reason is this.

00:42:38.320 The risk of losing twice to Trump would be just too hard.

00:42:45.920 And she can't guarantee that she would win.

00:42:48.640 If she knew she would win, let's say Trump's popularity was in the 30s,

00:42:53.900 well then, yeah, probably she would.

00:42:56.100 But his popularity is sort of in that same range where he beat her last time.

00:43:02.520 And I don't think that Hillary Clinton has become more popular since she's been gone.

00:43:09.100 She's not becoming more popular, is she?

00:43:11.680 I mean, at least in terms of being a politician.

00:43:15.580 So here's my psychological prediction.

00:43:18.980 That people are more influenced by potential loss than potential gain.

00:43:24.680 The potential gain would be being president and winning after all.

00:43:29.280 That's a pretty big gain.

00:43:30.740 So you could say to yourself, and you'd be wrong,

00:43:33.360 well, that's such a big game, gain.

00:43:35.840 Of course, she would head in that direction.

00:43:38.760 But because she lost once, and she knows how that feels,

00:43:43.260 imagine how she felt.

00:43:45.500 Can you even imagine what it felt like to be Hillary Clinton

00:43:49.800 for the first year or so after Trump won?

00:43:52.940 I mean, that first year had to be really, really bad.

00:43:56.500 And the first night, oh my God, that had to be bad.

00:43:59.620 And so my theory is this.

00:44:01.760 Nobody would take a chance on doing that twice.

00:44:06.100 Because if she lost to him twice,

00:44:09.480 that's the rest of her life she has to think about that.

00:44:13.380 Losing once, you can say, hey, I won the popular vote.

00:44:16.980 You know, you've got an out.

00:44:21.020 You could say, well, you know, it was a special case.

00:44:24.580 But if she loses twice, she can't live with it.

00:44:27.460 So I say that Hillary will not do it, although she might flirt with it. 0.82

00:44:31.180 I told you the other day that there might be no news left for CNN to report pretty soon.

00:44:38.920 Because if too much of the news is positive for Trump, they can't talk about it.

00:44:44.700 So they're ignoring the Biden accuser for the most part, or at least downplaying it.

00:44:51.420 And I joked that the simulation needs to serve up some positive trial results for hydroxychloroquine.

00:44:58.920 Because it would be like, it would be the next thing that the simulation should present.

00:45:06.280 Because if you really want the mainstream media to have nothing to talk about,

00:45:11.000 just make sure that hydroxychloroquine actually works.

00:45:14.580 And that there's a trial that says so.

00:45:17.040 You give me that, and CNN has nothing to talk about today.

00:45:21.740 It'll just be dead air.

00:45:23.200 Because the last thing they want to do is admit that Trump was right from the jump.

00:45:28.920 Because it's starting to look like he was right from the jump.

00:45:33.740 Meaning, from the very first moment he was saying, you know, hydroxychloroquine,

00:45:38.980 it's already been, it's an existing drug.

00:45:41.640 Isn't that dangerous, especially for short-term use?

00:45:45.140 Even the doctors say so.

00:45:46.740 They're taking it themselves.

00:45:48.720 You know, why don't we just try it?

00:45:50.120 Seems to be some early indication.

00:45:52.280 If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

00:45:53.820 But not much gets hurt.

00:45:54.900 And he was just pilloried for that. 0.99

00:45:58.240 Like that was dumb. 0.99

00:45:59.880 But of course, he was the smart one in the room. 0.97

00:46:03.400 Because this was never a healthcare decision.

00:46:06.220 It was always a risk management decision.

00:46:10.400 And part of the risk is the, you know, what the experts are telling you.

00:46:15.580 But part of the risk is the economy too.

00:46:18.160 And as a leader, he is not obliged to take one expert's advice and live with it.

00:46:23.540 He is obliged to look at all the advice and make a comprehensive decision.

00:46:28.280 I believe that the president's risk management analysis of hydroxychloroquine from the first day was spot on.

00:46:36.400 Meaning that we didn't know if it would work, but there were some indications that, you know, there was a good chance.

00:46:44.860 And we knew the odds of hurting you were so low that if it worked, it could save the whole economy of the world and it would be the biggest benefit ever.

00:46:55.120 So the president was 100% right.

00:46:57.800 His critics were 100% wrong.

00:47:00.580 Very rarely can you say that.

00:47:02.780 But this is actually math.

00:47:04.180 So you can say that somebody is unambiguously right when it's just math.

00:47:10.480 And the math of it was that it was the right risk management decision, no matter whether hydroxychloroquine worked or not.

00:47:18.840 Now, this assumes you have enough of it, which was the other problem.

00:47:21.620 They didn't have enough of it.

00:47:24.380 So the president's, anyway, this was reported in Zero Hedge.

00:47:30.860 So that doesn't have much credibility in the Internet world.

00:47:34.520 They've been, I think Zero Hedge has been banned from Twitter, et cetera.

00:47:38.440 So I can't tell you that Zero Hedge reports only things that are true, but they do report that the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the AAPS, which has represented physicians and blah, blah, blah, since 1943,

00:47:55.160 is just wrote a letter and saying basically we should use this hydroxychloroquine because there are enough studies.

00:48:04.100 If you look at all of them, it's pretty clear that it makes a difference.

00:48:06.940 So that might be the news we're waiting for.

00:48:14.640 Remember I told you that this next two weeks, or sort of one week into the next two weeks I was talking about, would be, like, incredible.

00:48:25.280 That a whole bunch of stuff will emerge that we find out, we invent, we discover.

00:48:31.140 So it might be amazing.

00:48:33.620 All right.

00:48:35.340 I will ask this question again until somebody offers an answer, and it goes like this.

00:48:42.480 Somebody says in the comments, Scott, you are 60-40 against hydroxychloroquine.

00:48:48.580 Yes, I'm still there.

00:48:50.300 So I'm still at 60% chance it's not a world changer.

00:48:55.000 40% chance it is, which is slightly different from saying does it work a little bit.

00:49:01.140 You know, whether it works a little bit or not, I'm not sure that, you know, wouldn't change anything.

00:49:06.620 So, and let me say this.

00:49:10.940 Let's say you've got a leader, and there's a, he's got a decision to make, or she.

00:49:16.760 And the leader talks to all the experts, and after all talking to the experts, finds out that there's a 70% chance if you make this decision, things will go well, and a 30% chance it won't.

00:49:31.540 So the leader takes the odds, the high odds, and makes the decision that it's a 70% chance to work out right, but then in the end it doesn't.

00:49:41.920 It works out wrong.

00:49:43.560 Would you say the leader made the wrong decision?

00:49:46.580 So that's your thought experiment.

00:49:47.780 If the leader makes the decision that favors the odds, but it doesn't work out, because not everything works out, did the leader make a mistake?

00:49:58.460 Well, in our world, we say, yes, the leader made a mistake.

00:50:03.800 But that's just bad thinking.

00:50:06.640 The leader did not make a mistake.

00:50:08.220 If you were to follow the odds every time that they are presented to you, over time, you're going to get better results, assuming that the odds were properly calculated.

00:50:18.320 Over time, you're going to have more right than wrong decisions, and that's sort of the best you can do.

00:50:24.460 Nobody can guarantee that you got this decision right, but it is nearly a guarantee that if you follow the odds consistently over your lifetime,

00:50:34.200 you're almost certainly to get better results than if you don't.

00:50:38.220 You could get bad luck and it doesn't work out, but following the odds is always the right decision.

00:50:44.020 So if President Trump had followed the odds, which were, let's try this stuff.

00:50:50.660 If it doesn't work, a few people might die, but it's still worth it.

00:50:54.880 He couldn't say that out loud, but that's basically the expected value is the way you calculate that.

00:51:01.580 So there's an actual calculation for that.

00:51:03.780 All right.

00:51:04.480 So when the president makes a decision about opening or not, he's going to be doing it based on statistics and the odds as best he can calculate them.

00:51:17.300 And I've been saying this from the beginning.

00:51:19.460 Since we're in a fog of war, all of our data is questionable.

00:51:23.280 Everything we're finding out about this virus is questionable.

00:51:28.080 It's changed.

00:51:29.080 It's wrong.

00:51:29.700 It's out of context.

00:51:31.160 We don't have much good information, at least good enough, to be confident about the decision, but decision we must make.

00:51:38.040 So I've been saying that no matter what the president decides, and I will extend this to the governors so it's not political, no matter whether you're a blue state or red state governor, I'm going to say this as clearly as I can, and I'm going to be shouting this in a few months.

00:51:53.840 It's like, at the moment, I care about it quite a bit, but I'm going to really care about it later, and it's going to make me mad.

00:52:01.280 And it goes like this.

00:52:03.340 All of these leaders, I believe, want what's best because, of course, what's best for their state or the country is what's best for them politically.

00:52:12.980 So there's no difference in what the leaders want.

00:52:16.840 They want what's good for the state and the country, and that's the only way it's good for them, period.

00:52:22.380 So they're making, the first thing you need to know is they're all making honest decisions without complications, meaning that I believe their intentions are pretty much universally exactly where you want them.

00:52:40.060 Now, somebody's saying, hey, Michigan's getting a little political, whatever, you could find differences in the margins.

00:52:46.660 Like you could say, oh, the beach thing, I don't like that, whatever, but those are not the big things.

00:52:52.380 You know, the big thing is the main businesses, the economy.

00:52:56.680 So different leaders are going to be making different decisions.

00:53:01.320 I believe that all of them will be well-intentioned, informed as best they can be informed, and they'll just have to take a shot at it.

00:53:10.820 So I would say you should forgive all of them in advance.

00:53:16.280 Some of them are going to get it right by luck.

00:53:19.660 Some of them are going to get it really wrong, but it's going to be kind of bad luck because there is a right answer, and there is something that's going to work better than something else, but we don't know that.

00:53:31.140 And everybody who says they do know that is the least credible person in the conversation.

00:53:37.720 So if you're watching the pundits or you're on social media and somebody is saying, we must do this, no matter what is, no matter whether we must stay closed or we must open up now or anything in between,

00:53:53.120 if you're positive about it, you're not very credible because you shouldn't be positive about something so unknowable.

00:54:01.860 The experts don't know.

00:54:03.240 You don't know.

00:54:04.000 The governors disagree.

00:54:05.620 And we're all looking at the same stuff, right?

00:54:08.120 We're all pretty smart.

00:54:09.320 We all care.

00:54:10.360 We all want what's best for the people in this country.

00:54:13.200 It's just hard, and I think we should give them a pass in advance because some number of them are going to make the wrong decision.

00:54:24.180 Don't know who, but somebody is going to be wrong, and I'm going to say, be they Democrat or be they Republican, I'm going to say it just as loud at the end.

00:54:35.760 You didn't have to make that decision.

00:54:38.780 You didn't have to make that decision.

00:54:41.160 The governor did, be they Democrat, be they Republican, be they the president.

00:54:48.000 They had to make the decision, and I'm going to give them as much freedom ahead of time as I can because I think that's best for me and best for the country.

00:55:00.220 I want them to know that as long as they're well-intentioned, I'm going to have their backs after the fact, even if it goes wrong.

00:55:07.420 Even if it goes wrong, I'm going to have all of their backs, Democrat or Republican, because there is no right decision, and we need to get past that.

00:55:18.620 We need to grow up a little and say, this is going to be tough.

00:55:22.520 Some of them are going to do it wrong. 0.99

00:55:24.720 It's not because they're dumb. 0.99

00:55:25.960 It's not because they didn't care. 0.98

00:55:27.100 It's not because their intentions were wrong.

00:55:29.160 It's just hard.

00:55:30.680 That's it.

00:55:33.180 All right.

00:55:33.980 I keep asking this question, and I haven't heard an answer.

00:55:37.880 Why can't we reopen the smart way?

00:55:42.200 And you know what the smart way is, right?

00:55:44.860 Now, again, I don't know that it would work because nobody is that good at predicting the future, but there is a smart way.

00:55:54.260 The smart way is to send young people to work and keep the old people back or protect them or give them the option if they want to take the choice. 1.00

00:56:04.140 But why are we treating it like it's geography? 1.00

00:56:09.160 Isn't that just stupid? 0.98

00:56:11.280 Forget about whether it works out well or doesn't work out. 1.00

00:56:16.740 I honestly can't tell the difference.

00:56:18.660 Like, I don't know if doing it by geography is actually the smart way.

00:56:22.820 I don't know.

00:56:24.220 But common sense tells me that sending young people back to school, et cetera, back to work, you know, why can't Starbucks be open with 20-somethings working the Starbucks?

00:56:37.060 Is it because the customers will get infected?

00:56:39.200 I mean, there's a way to keep them away from each other.

00:56:41.600 That shouldn't be that hard.

00:56:43.520 So my only hypothesis for why we're not doing it the smart way, which is sending the young back to work right away, is that the government can't suggest that because it would be age discrimination.

00:56:59.340 I don't think anybody can say that out loud, but I can't think of another reason, not even a potential one that somebody has suggested.

00:57:09.680 Oh, it's because, Scott, you forgot because of this.

00:57:14.840 What's this?

00:57:15.800 What am I forgetting?

00:57:17.420 Tell me why a young person can't go to work today.

00:57:20.240 I think the reason that they can't go to work is that the government is the wrong entity to make the decision.

00:57:30.020 Somebody says, Clay Travis has been saying this for weeks.

00:57:33.060 You know who else has been saying this? 0.86

00:57:34.580 Every freaking citizen of the United States, every single one. 0.60

00:57:44.900 You find me one person in the United States who does not agree with this statement. 0.94

00:57:51.780 Let's send the young people back to work right away. 1.00

00:57:54.900 Find me one person who disagrees with that.

00:57:57.680 I don't think you can.

00:58:01.340 And now it's not happening, so I imagine that if you ask the politician in public, they would equivocate and answer the wrong question and avoid the question.

00:58:10.800 So I don't know if you can ask anybody because they're not going to answer it directly.

00:58:14.540 I don't think anybody has an answer.

00:58:16.680 But the government is the wrong entity because it requires the kind of decisions that governments are not allowed to make.

00:58:25.680 Your government is not allowed to say, I'm going to kill this bunch of people to save this bunch of people.

00:58:34.080 And yet that's what this decision requires that.

00:58:38.660 There's no way around it.

00:58:40.520 The government has to decide who's going to die.

00:58:43.820 Not by name, but in terms of category.

00:58:47.120 Can your government decide what category is going to die?

00:58:51.160 No.

00:58:52.240 Because it can't be your government if it does that.

00:58:54.400 If the government said, you know, we're going to let the people who are weak and unhealthy die, can't.

00:59:01.880 Government cannot make that decision.

00:59:04.060 And yet, it has to be made.

00:59:06.500 It has to.

00:59:07.740 Because somebody's going to die, either the people who died from economic calamity or the people who died because they got the coronavirus and they're old or they have a comorbidity or something.

00:59:18.440 But somebody's going to die.

00:59:19.600 Our government is not the right institution to make decisions about who dies.

00:59:25.740 It doesn't go well.

00:59:26.760 We don't like them to do that.

00:59:28.660 The people can decide.

00:59:30.080 We want to drive that down to the lowest level, state, local, etc.

00:59:33.420 All right.

00:59:36.280 But it seems to me that we have the wrong government to solve this problem.

00:59:41.640 It's still the best we can come up with.

00:59:43.560 I mean, capitalism and democracy and all that stuff.

00:59:46.860 The republic.

00:59:48.060 It's still the best system anybody's invented.

00:59:51.080 But it does have this weakness that it can't, it doesn't function for this specific problem.

00:59:57.520 It just can't.

00:59:58.720 And you're seeing the result of that.

01:00:01.440 You're seeing that the president is really a, I would say the president is a slave to the medical experts because it's the only thing that the public would accept.

01:00:11.080 If the president made a decision that was counter to what the medical experts say, we would not accept our president anymore.

01:00:19.540 Right?

01:00:20.340 If the medical experts said do A and your leader, it doesn't matter who it is, your leader comes out and says, well, the medical experts say A, but I've looked at the whole situation.

01:00:31.380 If you consider everything, we're better off doing B.

01:00:35.540 That's the end of the presidency.

01:00:37.500 Done.

01:00:38.380 That's the end.

01:00:38.900 And the president cannot overrule the experts in public because that's the end of his administration.

01:00:47.560 So we don't have a government that can make decisions in these situations.

01:00:53.580 And we need one.

01:00:55.320 And I think that's why we're not opening the smart way because you can't do age discrimination.

01:01:00.060 And you can't do ability discrimination.

01:01:03.280 You can't tell the 50-year-old with diabetes that he or she can't go to work.

01:01:08.900 If you told the 25-year-old that they can, because our government doesn't allow you to do that.

01:01:15.760 Somebody says keep age out of it.

01:01:17.380 Well, I suppose if you just say make your own decisions, then you've kept age out of it.

01:01:25.180 But that doesn't seem to be on the agenda.

01:01:29.240 Do you see that Trump's job approval soared?

01:01:31.560 It just jumped up.

01:01:33.400 It's jumping up all over the place.

01:01:35.700 It's all over.

01:01:37.120 All right.

01:01:38.420 There's not much to say about that except that I don't think anybody knows what's happening with these Trump approval numbers because it's changing from week to week so wildly.

01:01:48.580 I don't even know what's driving it.

01:01:50.360 It's probably just people are just starting to make up their mind about stuff now before the election.

01:01:55.200 And then the Sweden question continues, which is Tucker Carlson will tell you it's working.

01:02:02.660 President Trump will tell you it's not.

01:02:05.080 Neither of them are true.

01:02:07.740 It's just a different way of looking at the same data.

01:02:10.780 And if we can't decide if Sweden is working or not working, well, we're going to have good luck making a decision for our country.

01:02:18.240 So that's it for me.

01:02:20.780 I will talk to you tonight at the usual time for your evening periscope to ease you into your good night's sleep.

01:02:30.300 For now, let's have a fun day.

01:02:33.480 Let's see if anybody else realizes that Biden just confessed.

01:02:37.200 Biggest news in the country.

01:02:38.720 Probably I'm the only one who will report it.

01:02:41.280 And I will talk to you later tonight.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - May 01, 2020

Episode 947 Scott Adams： Talking With Dave Rubin About His New Book Don't Burn This Book, Biden and Therapeutics

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript