In this episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, host Meghan Kelly is joined by comedian Scott Adams to discuss the ongoing investigation into whether or not Joe Biden should be impeached for his part in the scandal surrounding his wife s affair with a Russian woman.
00:00:00.560Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:00:12.020Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.
00:00:17.200If you are in the Northeast like I am, you are probably experiencing the monsoon that we are experiencing here.
00:00:25.020The videos coming out of New York, which is, you know, an hour away from, well, 45 minutes from where I am.
00:00:31.600I mean, epic. The flooding is terrible. The subways are flooding. It's like, I mean, it's been biblical this past week.
00:00:40.400Five straight days of rain, one day of sun, and now we're back to, oh, it gets depressing, right?
00:00:46.400But I have good news for you because in just a little bit, we're going to be joined by a first-time guest on the program.
00:00:51.480Scott Adams is here. You know Scott. I mean, he's been extremely successful.
00:00:57.320He's the genius behind the Dilbert comic. He's one of the most successful comics of all time, comic strip narrators and creators.
00:01:07.900And he's got such an interesting way of thinking. He's got a new book out.
00:01:12.760And one of the things that he shows you in the book is how to reframe the way you may be thinking about things, whether it's your life, your luck, your attractiveness, the weather.
00:01:27.120And, you know, this guy, he's like a trained hypnotist.
00:01:29.740This is the man who saw Trump after that August 15 debate where he and I sparred a bit.
00:01:37.740Scott Adams wrote a piece, I think, a week later saying he's going to be the next president.
00:01:42.140And actually, it wasn't, you know, anything based on the polls.
00:01:46.260He could see the way Trump was communicating because he had a background in hypnosis and persuasion.
00:01:51.740And he could tell that Trump understood it, too.
00:01:55.340So he's got these really cool insights.
00:01:57.500He got himself and, you know, he got himself canceled basically earlier this year, which we covered on the show.
00:02:02.700But there's a lot to get into with Scott Adams.
00:02:04.720I'm excited to talk to him for the first time.
00:02:06.640But we're going to start with the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
00:02:11.420We thought it was important to bring it to you because it's been totally ignored by the mainstream media and will likely continue to be, especially if it starts to get bad for Joe Biden.
00:21:12.120Thank you to Mr. Donald Trump for calling this hearing today as it demonstrates the House GOP and Donald Trump's continued attacks on our institutions and on our democracy.
00:21:25.220Really kind of doesn't remember I've said this before.
00:22:47.000That was the information from the confidential human source about Burisma supposedly paying the $5 million to Hunter and Joe.
00:22:55.860So we still have that whole area to come out.
00:22:59.840So I wouldn't be surprised that at some point we reached the tipping point.
00:23:05.520But we're going to also need the press to be honest again.
00:23:09.160It's not just the Democrats who have gone to the running track meets instead of doing their job.
00:23:16.580The media is not holding the government accountable.
00:23:20.480This type of scandal should be on the front page of every newspaper.
00:23:25.920And until the media starts acting like a free press again, we're going to have this continued corruption going on.
00:23:34.040And instead, and by the way, we will know as soon as the messaging changes by the Dems doing these hearings and the media, we'll know they're getting rid of Joe Biden.
00:23:45.740If they start to do their job and sound more like honest brokers, we'll know there's a Democrat plan to sub him out and sub somebody else in.
00:23:53.400I wanted to round back to the question that I paused myself on, which was the only, quote, proof we have so far that Joe Biden was taking a piece of Hunter's money is the Hunter email, I think, to the uncle, right, on his own laptop, which we now know, of course, is his, complaining that he had to give 50 percent to his dad.
00:24:13.580Right. I think it was 50 percent of his money to his dad and then separately correspondence to the Bobulinski deals saying 10 percent reserve for the big guy.
00:24:21.740But as far as I know, just off the top of my head, those are the two so far main pieces of evidence we have that Hunter's money, the money he took in was going to Joe.
00:24:31.060Now, whether money went directly to a Joe Biden shell company and so on, Comer's investigating all that.
00:24:36.620But do I have it right? So I think the text message was actually to his daughter.
00:24:42.020Hunter was complaining, I'm not going to make you give me half the money like pops did.
00:24:46.700But I also think there was one other part where Hunter was paying for some repairs on his father's house.
00:24:52.660I think that's the only other connection that we have.
00:24:55.600And really, they're in one of the Grassley letters that he sent, there was reference to Bitcoin.
00:25:04.340And I think that that's where we're going to find the money going.
00:51:52.420It's like one big brain, your body, your environment, your room, everything.
00:51:56.120Well, one of the things, one of the reframes that you offer in the book is the usual frame of mind would be my feelings are the result of my situation.
00:52:04.760In other words, like, you know, I just had somebody, somebody died or like I got fired or I got canceled, whatever it is.
00:52:31.800I'll give you an example that, that made that real for me when I was working my corporate jobs and I was doing the Dilbert cartoon on the side and the comic, you know, hadn't reached the point where I could just quit and do that.
00:52:43.680Uh, before I was doing the comic, I was just coming to work in this awful environment, cubicles and coworkers and backstabbing and all this, you know, bureaucratic stuff.
00:52:55.860I mean, so crazy that I created a cartoon strip around it, but the moment I no longer needed to work, but I was going there anyway, I started to go there more for collecting material, frankly, for the comic strip for a few years.
00:53:09.580I thought I'd run out of material if I quit, but it changed my experience, which was identical.
00:53:14.880You know, the, the problems were just the same, but I found this different filter, which is now that's just material for the comic strip.
00:53:21.240So simply by reframing it as material to make me laugh, it took this enormously frustrating life and turned it into entertainment.
00:53:30.400And it was just that now in that, in that situation that happened to me, but I've also found that I could just sort of, uh, change my frame of how I'm processing things and it works.
00:53:42.980And one of the reasons that you can do something that doesn't feel true to you, which is, you know, tell yourself that the problems aren't important because maybe they are, uh, is that your brain processes fiction, almost the same way it processes reality.
00:53:58.160That's why if you go to a movie, you can go, the movie is all made up, but it still might make you cry, might make you laugh.
00:54:05.380So we can, you can install a little fiction in your brain to temporarily help you get past anything difficult because the fiction does a lot of the work of reality.
00:54:15.880Like all of this is so interesting on a personal level.
00:54:18.580And of course we, I don't know, but I like, I'm definitely thinking about Donald Trump over here on the other side because you're, you're the guy who saw it.
00:54:26.760You saw his abilities before anybody else saw them.
00:55:45.500I mean, I can't read his mind, but it looks like it.
00:55:47.580So he'll tell you something that's directionally true because emotionally that's what's going to move you.
00:55:53.180It's like, oh, it's criminals coming across the border.
00:55:55.980Well, as a percentage is pretty small percentage, but you could feel it and you could feel that there might be more criminals coming later.
00:56:04.940And sure enough, there's a lot more immigration.
00:56:06.900So, you know, if you, if you fact check him, he's mad.
00:56:13.260But if you just say he's, he's working on the 90%, the irrational part of us, but he's got a positive, you know, directions pushing you in better border security, for example, better economy, for example.
00:56:26.340Then it's not so objectionable if you realize he's, he's just working on an emotional kind of irrational basis, but toward a good point.
00:57:48.120I'm going to forget the name, but the power of positive thinking, who wrote that, was famous author, was his, I'll think of it in a minute, was his pastor in his church.
00:58:02.440So, the most famous positive thinking person, who some people call the hypnotist, the author of the book, was one of his biggest influences.
00:58:12.600And he did mention how much of an influence that was.
00:58:15.520So, I think it was modeled, possibly by his father.
01:01:52.740First of all, I'm just realizing how much you changed my life with that question.
01:01:57.420Because the entire, the entire direction of my life changed in that moment.
01:02:02.160When, when he said the Rosie O'Donnell line, I actually stood up and walked toward the TV.
01:02:08.240And I said, I don't know what's happening here, but this is big.
01:02:13.140And then, then that, that was the thing that pulled it all together to, for me, that he wasn't just a big joker personality, that he had some special skill.
01:02:22.380Because I don't think anybody could have gotten out of that trap like that.
01:02:26.800That was, yeah, but you had, you had the goods on him.
01:02:29.380There's nothing you could say that wouldn't make him talk about the thing he doesn't want to talk about.
01:02:34.700Because just talking about it, like you said, it would bring energy to the thing he doesn't want to have energy to.
01:02:39.840And that was also when I realized he was what I call an energy monster.
01:02:44.020If you, if you throw him energy, he's not going to die from the energy.
01:02:48.200He's going to reuse it and send it back to you even stronger.
01:02:51.220So the news learned this the hard way in 2016.
01:02:55.040They kept trying to give him more and more negative attention until you forgot anybody else was in the race.
01:03:00.300And he's, he's the ultimate energy monster.
01:03:04.580So, and you, so saying Rosie O'Donnell was like, he made people laugh and he, and he made, you wrote about how now they're thinking about, oh, Rosie O'Donnell.
01:05:18.320And then that was the Ukrainian thing on which he got impeached the first time.
01:05:22.220And then when he got in trouble for the call to the Atlanta officials, the Georgia officials, trying to find me the 11,000 votes, which, again, you have to go back and listen to the whole context.
01:05:30.740He's basically saying, I think I've been defrauded out of hundreds of thousands.
01:05:33.640All you actually need to count to is 11,000.
01:05:46.920So he calls it a perfect phone call so often that as soon as the topic goes up, if people have been listening to him, in your head pops this phrase, perfect phone call.
01:06:28.400I wasn't even trying to make you quit alcohol.
01:06:30.900But apparently just the fact that the word poison and alcohol kept pairing in their minds because they kept thinking about me saying it, that the pairing alone made it easy to put the glass down.
01:06:43.000Now, not for alcoholics, that's different.
01:07:37.220You actually caught you touch on attractiveness and reframing it in the book.
01:07:42.740And I love this because there are a lot of people who feel like, my God, I'm you know, I don't I'm not so great with the ladies or with the men.
01:07:50.520And I'm not doing so great on the online dating sites.
01:08:16.020So 90 percent of the world isn't going to like even the best quality of anything.
01:08:20.060You know, you could take the finest wine and just randomly ask people in the street to taste it.
01:08:25.980It wouldn't be much to them unless you're a wine expert.
01:08:29.480So instead of trying to please everybody and say, oh, 90 percent of the world doesn't love me, just look for the people to do.
01:08:35.680So there's always some weirdo that's just like you.
01:08:38.900You know, there's there's somebody who's got compatible weirdness and feels more comfortable with your flaws than they would with somebody who didn't have them.
01:08:46.460So don't worry about the number of people that don't like you.
01:10:12.780It's of a bunch of tools in a circle, like almost like around in a clock.
01:10:18.880And you ask the reader to look at these tools and to assign the tool that maps to the then presidential candidates.
01:10:30.180Rubio Cruz, Trump, Carson, Clinton, Fiorina, Christie and Paul.
01:10:35.700And you ask the reader before you start, remember to observe your own mental processes as they happen to see if the thinking happens before or after you decide which tool is which candidate.
01:10:47.600And, you know, I think we most of us probably had the same reaction.
01:11:00.180Well, Trump, like I said, he's an energy monster and he projects power and mostly power and energy.
01:11:10.540And so when you're looking at a bunch of tools, you know, the one that projects the most power and destruction and also creation is the one that just automatically your brain is going to map to that.
01:11:21.240And but if you were to use your rational mind, you'd say, well, let me think, let's see, this tool has many qualities.
01:12:04.500And so you say that that Trump is operating on the reflex part of your brain and intentionally the other candidates are appealing to your reason.
01:12:14.520He isn't winning the game so much as playing an entirely different one.
01:12:19.460That's from December 15, eight years ago.
01:12:56.240They don't think they don't like how he's persuading, but they certainly agree.
01:12:59.900He can move the needle and he's got the strongest base I've ever seen.
01:13:05.540So if I read the power of positive thinking, if I take a class on hypnosis and if I potentially take the Dale Carnegie class, am I going to be as persuasive as Trump and as effective at persuasion and language as you are?
01:13:19.340Well, you know, you're using yourself as an example and you're you're a perfect talent stack example.
01:13:26.260That's another reframe instead of being really, really good at one thing.
01:13:29.340It pays to be top 20 percent, top 10 percent as several things that work well together.
01:13:36.260So you learn persuasion in your legal field.
01:13:39.900You learn persuasion, you know, doing doing what you do, talking to people and interviewing.
01:13:44.980So you're you're about 80 percent there already.
01:13:47.220And I imagine you're pretty good in a social situation.
01:13:50.500So you'd get maybe a 20 percent boost because you're already operating at a high, high layer.
01:13:57.020But somebody who is just, you know, 20 years old and doesn't know how to do anything and hasn't assembled any skills.
01:14:03.680Best place to start Dale Carnegie course.
01:14:06.160By the way, Warren Buffett would tell you this.
01:24:56.620But, you know, not cancellation worthy.
01:24:58.680The first thing the first thing you need to know is that the whole itself was not terribly important to the larger point.
01:25:10.280It was just a jumping off point for the conversation.
01:25:12.860The larger context is that we're living through the world of critical race theory being taught, ESG being required of our corporations, and corporations having DEI groups.
01:25:25.180Now, if you're not familiar, if your audience is not familiar with all those terms, what they have in common, OK, what I guess they would be, what all those things have in common is the idea that there's a victimized group and a victimizer group.
01:25:40.420And since I had been placed in the group of people who are the victimizers, that sort of puts a target on your back.
01:25:47.960And it causes people to have a negative feeling about you because they've been taught that you have their stuff.
01:25:53.900In other words, they would be doing better if you were not doing whatever it is that you're doing that's promoting systemic racism, for example.
01:26:01.000Now, the larger context is that any time you're in a situation where you're around people who think that you have their stuff and they're trying to get it back, but you believe that's not the case, you should get away from that environment.
01:26:16.880Now, that's, of course, hyperbole because, you know, you live in America, you're not going to go move or do something like that.
01:26:23.860So there's no way to practically do that.
01:26:25.460I was trying to make the point that we've poisoned relations by making a framework in which one group is the victimizers, one group is the victims.
01:26:36.260If you ever find yourself in that situation, whether it's about race or anything else, you should try to get as far away from it as possible.
01:26:45.720Bloomberg recently did an article, and I guess it was a survey, in which they found that for a year after the George Floyd situation, that the Fortune 100 companies only hired, only 6% of the people they hired were white.
01:27:05.42094% were people of color because they were desperately trying to get their diversity numbers up.
01:27:11.260That's just really affirmed, I think, in a Bloomberg piece.
01:27:13.840We just saw similar numbers in a Bloomberg piece.
01:27:18.220Now, if you were a white applicant and you knew that that was the environment, you knew that the company was desperately trying to get their diversity up, your best bet, strategy-wise, would be to go to a non-Fortune 100 company.
01:27:32.560If you are black, your best strategy would be go directly there because they're very much recruiting and looking for you.
01:27:39.780So, everybody has a different strategy, but we finally reached a point in American life where everybody can find a way.
01:27:49.580So, here's the reframe that I was heading toward, and I never got a chance to do it in real time because I got canceled first.
01:27:56.680My regular audience knows that I often provoke them, but if they wait, I bring them back into a compatible point of view.
01:28:07.240I was reframing this, that instead of looking at the average black person's performance and the average white person's performance or the average anybody, that we're in imaginary land.
01:28:19.880There's no average black person and there's no average white person.
01:28:24.900So, the longer we pretend that we should compare them, we're in the wrong conversation.
01:28:29.440When we got to intersectionality, where we said, okay, it's not just about your color, it might also be your color, plus you might be LGBTQ, plus you might be disabled or whatever word we're using now.
01:28:43.540So, you could have several things going on.
01:28:46.460Now, that being things worse, but it was definitely the right intention and impulse because it drove you away from these weird average people that don't even exist towards something that was more like, well, there is this one person who has this one unique situation.
01:29:02.780But I think we need to go further than that, keep going in that direction to the individual.
01:29:08.540So, the frame that makes sense, that can save us, is that individuals are infinitely diverse.
01:29:15.760I'm not like even my own siblings, you know, much less the people who share some kind of color with me.
01:29:21.660I don't have much in common with just a random person.
01:29:27.780So, if you say, what can I do about these two average people who don't actually exist, I'm out.
01:29:33.620I no longer care about the difference in the averages.
01:29:36.720However, if you're my neighbor or friend or family member and you happen to be black or white or anything else and you've got a specific thing you need, let's say you need some advice, you need some mentoring, you need a connection, you need a job, you need a suit.
01:30:01.800And nothing I said had anything to do with genetics, had nothing to do with even culture.
01:30:08.160It had everything to do with the fact that America, white people mostly, are selling a story and actually institutionalize it through ESG and CRT and DEI.
01:30:20.440It's becoming part of our operating system that one group of us are the bad guys and another group of us is the victims.
01:32:11.400I'm having a conversation on a major platform with you to give you my reframe that we need to forget about these imaginary average people because we're now close enough that everybody has a different strategy that they can succeed.
01:32:27.520And we should work on the personal strategy.
01:32:29.420In fact, I have a student guide that I'm working on with Joshua Lysick.
01:32:36.880And we're going to put it out for schools so that they can actually teach the basics of success, which I believe is the biggest problem in the black community because they have what I call an imitation glass ceiling.
01:32:49.980The number one way anybody succeeds, and I've told you I've done this, you know, I've actually mentioned this several times just here, that I copy people.
01:33:01.000So, I look for successful people and I say, what did you do?
01:35:10.980I know you don't surface that much, but whether it's to promote the paperback of Reframe Your Brain or otherwise, I would love to continue the conversation.