TRIGGERnometry - Trump Must Win to Avoid Prison - Scott Adams

00:00:00.960 To me, at a very surface-level analysis, it doesn't look legit.

00:00:05.360 It looks targeted. It looks political.

00:00:08.640 But doesn't that make you worry that come election time,

00:00:12.080 which is literally next year, things are going to get very ugly?

00:00:16.720 Joe may be trying to hold on to keep Hunter out of jail,

00:00:20.800 you know, to maintain his pardonability,

00:00:23.920 but without pardoning him too soon,

00:00:26.520 because then it affects the election.

00:00:28.360 It screams two sides trying to stay out of jail.

00:00:32.360 I mean, honestly, the only way I think Trump stays out of jail

00:00:35.040 is by winning the election.

00:00:36.680 In a way, I think he may have brought it on himself,

00:00:39.560 his very first statement about Hillary Clinton should be in jail.

00:00:44.080 I feel like when he started talking real jail,

00:00:48.000 then politics changed.

00:00:49.920 And they said, if you're going to talk real jail for us,

00:00:52.840 we're actually going to put you in jail.

00:00:55.440 And it looks like that's what's happening.

00:00:58.360 Hello, and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:09.480 I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:10.680 I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:01:11.720 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations

00:01:15.200 with fascinating people.

00:01:17.040 Our terrific returning guest today is the creator of Dilbert

00:01:20.240 and a prominent political and cultural commentator today.

00:01:23.480 Scott Adams, welcome back to the show.

00:01:25.040 Thanks for having me.

00:01:26.640 It's a pleasure.

00:01:27.360 Oh, it's great to have you back.

00:01:29.360 A lot has happened since we last spoke.

00:01:31.920 The last time we had you on the show,

00:01:33.520 you were predicting the outcome of the 2020 election with us.

00:01:37.360 You did say at the time that Donald Trump would win if nothing changed,

00:01:41.840 and then a pandemic and an economic crisis happened.

00:01:44.320 So your proviso was well-crafted.

00:01:48.160 We wanted to have you back on the show for a bunch of reasons.

00:01:51.760 One of them is obviously there is a big election coming up,

00:01:54.640 and we wanted to get a sense of what's happening over there.

00:01:57.120 What's your take on the indictment of Donald Trump

00:02:00.640 and the different candidates contesting the field?

00:02:03.200 So let's open up with that.

00:02:04.880 What do you make of everything that's going on so far?

00:02:06.880 Well, it looks to most people to be completely political.

00:02:12.320 I think if you have four indictments,

00:02:15.440 and all four of them look a little sketchy to at least half of the country,

00:02:19.280 that it's hard to imagine that this is anything but political.

00:02:23.680 And if you look at all the surrounding things that have led up to it,

00:02:27.920 from everything from Russia collusion to the laptop hoax to the fine people hoax,

00:02:34.800 you see a pattern of really targeting one person in a huge coordinated way.

00:02:42.160 And I've said that one of the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans,

00:02:46.720 this is just observational, is that both sides have a lot of BS.

00:02:50.800 You know, there's a lot of stuff that's not true that people believe.

00:02:54.000 But generally on the Republican side, it seems to bubble up from individuals.

00:02:58.880 So there'll be somebody who has a claim and other people latch onto it.

00:03:02.880 And then maybe someday somebody in leadership will say that claim, and then it becomes a thing.

00:03:08.400 But on the Democrat side, it appears that they do organized multi-organizational ops.

00:03:15.840 You know, the laptop was Russian disinformation.

00:03:21.520 That involved a number of entities.

00:03:23.680 That wasn't a few individuals.

00:03:25.520 There were people in leadership who coordinated across the government, the intel agencies, and the media.

00:03:33.200 And to me, that looks like a RICO case.

00:03:35.680 You know, the American law that would treat a criminal enterprise as operating in some kind of coordinated, ongoing criminal fashion.

00:03:46.080 So that looks really different.

00:03:48.960 And that's what it appears to be from a voter's perspective who's watching the whole field.

00:03:55.040 And Scott, one of the questions I'm always curious to disentangle is, when you say it looks political, are you saying that Donald Trump is innocent of all the things of which he's being accused, or not guilty at least?

00:04:09.280 Or are you saying that his behavior is akin to Hillary Clinton's server, let's say, or Joe Biden's documents, or various other things that are not prosecuted, yet on Donald Trump's case, they will go after every single little thing every time he put a foot wrong?

00:04:27.520 So is it that he's not guilty, or is it that the prosecution is actually persecution, I guess is what I'm asking.

00:04:32.940 Well, you know, I think you get lost in the details if you start comparing, you know, the Hillary situation to, you know, Trump or any other.

00:04:41.600 I think it's a valid observation that they're not being treated the same.

00:04:46.940 But I think you could take it up a level and say, it doesn't matter.

00:04:50.520 It doesn't matter if he did those things.

00:04:52.220 It doesn't matter how bad they were.

00:04:54.120 Because the reason they're going after doesn't seem to be related to what he did.

00:04:58.340 And you can make that judgment based on how other people are treated in other situations.

00:05:04.300 But if you look at the, you know, as I said, the entirety of it, it appears that there are ongoing organized ops to get rid of one person for reasons that are not entirely clear, but it must be probably self-preservation or profit or something.

00:05:21.320 But it doesn't look like we're involved in anything that classically would look like a democratic process.

00:05:27.040 It looks like people in power running operations, almost like it was an intelligence-based entity running the whole thing.

00:05:36.100 I don't know that that's the case.

00:05:37.300 It just looks like it is.

00:05:38.920 And I just don't think the details matter.

00:05:42.240 But the one that really puts it in focus the best is the January 6th stuff.

00:05:47.900 If you had never heard any hoaxes being perpetrated against Trump, you might say, oh, that sounds reasonable that he was trying to overthrow the country or something.

00:05:59.160 But as soon as you start asking any questions about that, such as, all right, connect the dots.

00:06:06.780 Let's say Trump was trying to overthrow the country and he got some people to say that they were the fake electors, but they were the real ones.

00:06:14.660 You know, let's say they were claiming they were real ones.

00:06:17.160 How would that go?

00:06:18.780 Would everybody else in the country just say, well, you got us.

00:06:21.960 We didn't see you doing this fake elector thing.

00:06:24.180 Let's just go on.

00:06:24.940 You're the president now.

00:06:25.760 Of course not.

00:06:27.240 They would go to the Supreme Court, like everything, and then we'd probably get some kind of result we can live with.

00:06:32.660 Or let's say that the protests continued.

00:06:36.400 What was going to happen?

00:06:37.800 Were the people who didn't have weapons, who were trespassing in one building, was that enough to conquer the country?

00:06:45.640 You know, give me some details about how trespassing turns into control of the nuclear triad.

00:06:52.920 And the fact that half of the public believes that that was an insurrection or could have been one, or that under any circumstance, that could have turned into something that would have changed the leadership of the country by itself.

00:07:08.560 There's no reasonable way that could have happened, but yet half the country has been convinced that it did.

00:07:15.380 Half the country believes the fine people hoax.

00:07:18.620 Half the country believes that the president suggested drinking a disinfectant.

00:07:23.360 None of those things happened.

00:07:25.120 The laptop, we know, was not Russian disinformation, et cetera.

00:07:29.460 So the January 6th slash insurrection, quote, unquote, was just an op.

00:07:37.880 Not the event, but the way it was treated and the way they impeached him was just an op to make something that was a legitimate protest, meaning people had legitimate complaints.

00:07:47.740 I don't know about the reality of it.

00:07:49.360 But they had legitimate complaints, and they acted out, and some got out of control, and some were violent.

00:07:55.620 But when you see how thoroughly half of the country has been brainwashed into thinking that was something you would call a coup or an insurrection,

00:08:06.720 when it seems far more obvious that the way Trump has been treated before the first election and all the way through,

00:08:14.060 seems like more of an insurrection or ongoing coup attempt against somebody who was elected legally once.

00:08:21.220 And his claim is that maybe he got elected twice, but I'll leave that to his claim.

00:08:28.360 I don't have evidence of anything like that.

00:08:32.140 Scott, to me, I find this whole Trump situation incredibly worrying because Trump, I think most people would realize, is a symptom of the ills of America.

00:08:43.820 He's not the problem itself.

00:08:45.080 But what they're effectively doing, as far as I can see, is they're antagonizing his voter base,

00:08:53.980 and they're doing absolutely nothing in order to bring about any type of harmony.

00:08:59.340 This is incredibly dangerous, isn't it?

00:09:02.100 Yeah.

00:09:02.720 You know, of course, the big conversation in America is about the division.

00:09:08.540 You know, the Democrats and the Republicans are the race division, the gender division, etc.

00:09:13.260 But here's a reframe from my book, Reframe Your Brain.

00:09:19.600 Smooth.

00:09:21.400 You probably didn't even notice that.

00:09:28.040 Here's another way to think of all this division. 0.68

00:09:31.680 If I walk outside and run into a black American, are we going to have a problem? 1.00

00:09:38.320 Never.

00:09:38.740 In my whole life, I've never had a racial problem with an actual person standing in front of me.

00:09:45.900 But then I go online, and everything's, you know, racial, racial, racial.

00:09:49.880 And, you know, I think I'm sending off my good tweet or ex-post.

00:09:53.760 And I think, ah, got a little dopamine hit.

00:09:56.480 If I'm in person, I can't get a dopamine hit by acting like the racial division is the main thing I want to talk about.

00:10:03.560 In fact, I would avoid it at all costs, politics as well.

00:10:07.840 So in person, you're managing your cortisol levels.

00:10:11.460 You don't want to get into conflict because your cortisol will go up.

00:10:14.600 You'll feel anxious.

00:10:15.980 It's all negative.

00:10:18.040 As soon as you get online, the cortisol risk goes away because there's nobody there in person.

00:10:23.220 And if you send off a good gotcha, you know, kind of a post, you're like, ah, dopamine.

00:10:29.120 So we have a dopamine machine through the social media that's driving division so we can get dopamine hits.

00:10:37.480 And dopamine is almost as predictable as money.

00:10:41.840 You know, they say follow the money.

00:10:43.660 Well, money is one of the ways you get dopamine.

00:10:46.640 So if you just look at the dopamine, of course we're acting like we're divided, but it's not real.

00:10:52.500 I mean, that too is somehow a part of the design of the system.

00:10:56.940 I don't know how much is intentional, but it's not a real thing in the real world.

00:11:01.700 As soon as you walk out the door, it doesn't exist.

00:11:04.840 Scott, I would ask you this.

00:11:07.780 You're watching what is happening with Trump.

00:11:10.420 Now, I'm in agreement with you.

00:11:11.960 To me, at a very surface level analysis, it doesn't look legit.

00:11:16.260 It looks targeted.

00:11:17.600 It looks political.

00:11:18.660 But doesn't that make you worry that come election time, which is literally next year, things are going to get very ugly?

00:11:28.240 Yeah.

00:11:29.040 So here's the warning that I try to give everybody. 0.95

00:11:31.900 It does look like there might be some attempt by the Democrats or whoever's running things to get the Republicans to overreact, because if they can get another January 6th kind of reaction, some kind of a mass protest, then once again, they get to say, well, look at all those white supremacists, insurrectionists, Trump's the devil. 0.93

00:11:54.300 You know, he's the one who caused it all.

00:11:56.480 So they can just recreate the same op, and people are already primed to fill in that frame with whatever new confirmation bias they give.

00:12:05.100 So I don't want to say, if this happens, there will be, you know, violent acts, because then I would be part of, you know, maybe encouraging people to think in those ways.

00:12:15.380 And I don't.

00:12:16.340 I don't encourage any violence.

00:12:18.260 Instead, I'd rather say that we're creating a situation which has no predictability.

00:12:23.160 In other words, if Trump were to lose again, let's say a worst-case scenario, he runs against Joe Biden, which looks to be like that's going to happen, at least some people imagine.

00:12:35.560 And Biden continues to degrade until it's just obvious there's nothing there at this point.

00:12:41.140 But imagine if Trump lost under that situation.

00:12:45.360 Do you think that his supporters would say that was a fair election?

00:12:48.940 They just preferred the guy with no cognitive ability over Trump?

00:12:53.900 Would you say that?

00:12:54.900 Or do you think they're going to say, well, there's proof?

00:12:57.560 First time, we weren't positive.

00:12:59.360 We were suspicious.

00:13:00.620 But this second time, he was running against an empty suit.

00:13:04.720 If he loses then, that's unpredictable.

00:13:08.340 Now, if I were to advise people how to act, if they were sure an election had been, let's say, not completely fair, definitely wouldn't be with guns, definitely wouldn't be with violence.

00:13:21.400 But the same thing I would recommend if Trump spends a day in jail, everybody should show up.

00:13:29.880 Everybody.

00:13:30.440 You should just walk off your job and just show up.

00:13:34.800 Get a couple million people standing around the jail, and you don't need any violence, right?

00:13:39.580 At some point, peaceful energy can be as big as violence and more productive.

00:13:46.680 So I think something massive in terms of physical action short of violence would be the right play.

00:13:53.520 But I don't know exactly what that looks like.

00:13:55.700 So there are not a lot of options if we reach that point.

00:13:58.340 Yeah, look, I agree.

00:14:00.900 I don't think there's a lot of options.

00:14:02.720 Do you think that this has damaged Trump's chance?

00:14:05.860 I think he's going to win.

00:14:07.500 I think he's going to win the nomination.

00:14:10.600 But do you think that's actually damaged his chances of winning the election as a whole, the fact that he's got all these indictments against him?

00:14:19.520 I think there are only two things that could stop him.

00:14:22.960 Well, maybe three.

00:14:24.060 One would be a rigged election.

00:14:26.600 That could stop him.

00:14:27.480 Two would be if he keeps talking, because, you know, things he says, they take out of context.

00:14:33.820 So if he says a new thing they can take out of context, you know, they've got a whole new weapon.

00:14:39.480 So if he plays it cool and doesn't say much more than the things he always says, he should just coast into the presidency.

00:14:48.640 Now, the other thing which has no scientific basis, maybe, is the idea.

00:14:54.980 Elon Musk says this, and I'd like to say it as well.

00:14:57.640 The reality tends to be biased toward the most entertaining outcome, not for the people in the story.

00:15:03.780 It might be all bad for them.

00:15:04.980 But from the observer's point of view, the most entertaining outcome, and by far the most entertaining outcome, if you know a standard three-act movie play.

00:15:15.920 At the end of the third act, the hero of the movie is in such a bad situation, you can't even imagine how they would get out, and somehow they do.

00:15:26.480 Here's what the perfect movie would look like.

00:15:28.640 I don't predict that.

00:15:30.200 I'm just telling you, if that way of predicting works, this is what it would look like.

00:15:34.800 Trump is either on the risk of going to jail or even maybe spends a day in jail, and somehow, at about the same time as the election is nearing, proof of election irregularity in 2020 is provided.

00:15:51.020 Like, it actually comes out of nowhere.

00:15:52.940 I don't see any.

00:15:53.960 Let me be clear.

00:15:54.840 I'm not aware of any election irregularity that I think is credible.

00:16:00.120 But that would be the perfect movie if the thing that most people have discounted at this point, I don't think there's going to be any smoking gun.

00:16:10.020 We're not going to find anything, if there is anything.

00:16:12.960 It would be the perfect movie to sweep him into office based on finding out that was true, and then to clean house and take care of as much business as he needs to.

00:16:23.180 Now, at this point, I think it's an existential risk to Democrat leadership.

00:16:28.280 I think they're looking at jail.

00:16:30.700 They're not looking at just losing an election.

00:16:33.140 And I think they know that because once you say, you know, Trump, we're going to put you in actual jail and we're trying as hard as we can to do it, the gloves are off.

00:16:43.400 There's nothing to keep Trump from saying, all right, if I can find any ridiculous reason that you broke a law, we're not going to play the old rules where if it isn't a good reason, you don't pursue it.

00:16:53.880 Because that's not the way they played.

00:16:56.380 So, in a way, I think he may have brought it on himself, his very first statement about Hillary Clinton should be in jail.

00:17:04.560 I feel like when he started talking real jail, then politics changed.

00:17:11.080 And they said, if you're going to talk real jail for us, we're actually going to put you in jail.

00:17:15.500 And it looks like that's what's happening.

00:17:16.980 So, if he wins in this third act, you know, miraculous, you know, don't expect it, but who knows, you know, find something about the election that sticks, then a lot of people I think he'd try to jail.

00:17:30.000 And I'd be in favor of that action.

00:17:32.400 Well, if you think about your scenarios in part three, I mean, him winning as a result of election interference in 2020 being revealed, if there is any, I think is unlikely given what we've seen in terms of, you know, the Hunter Biden laptop.

00:17:47.020 That got suppressed a few days before the election.

00:17:50.360 So, even if there is anything, which, as you say, there's no evidence that we have that there is, I don't know that that would get there.

00:17:57.480 But what I'm curious to ask you, Scott, is a bigger picture question, which is what you've described is actually a very sad downward spiral for your country.

00:18:07.060 And the question, I suppose, is this.

00:18:09.300 I am old enough to remember when Al Gore lost the election to George Bush.

00:18:14.540 It was very close.

00:18:16.640 The Democrats fought, but eventually conceded that he'd lost and George Bush became president.

00:18:22.480 When Hillary lost to Donald Trump in 2016, she took a long time.

00:18:28.860 And in fact, I don't know if she ever fully accepted that she lost.

00:18:31.720 She called him an illegitimate president.

00:18:33.900 I believe he knows he's an illegitimate president.

00:18:37.160 He knows.

00:18:37.960 He knows that there were a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out the way it did.

00:18:45.500 And I take responsibility for those parts of it that I should.

00:18:48.860 And so I know that he knows that this wasn't on the level.

00:18:53.340 I don't know that we'll ever know everything that happened.

00:18:55.820 But clearly we know a lot and are learning more every day.

00:18:58.840 And history will probably sort it all out.

00:19:01.020 So, of course, he's obsessed with me.

00:19:02.740 And I believe that it's a guilty conscience in so much as he has a conscience.

00:19:07.740 That was OK.

00:19:09.300 She wasn't, you know, kicked off Twitter and, you know, whatever.

00:19:13.840 And then Donald Trump questions the results of the 2020 election.

00:19:18.440 I'm going to make a prediction.

00:19:19.920 I'm not normally in the predictions business, but I'm going to say whoever loses the election in 2024 is going to claim it was illegitimate one way or another.

00:19:28.440 And that's not a hard prediction to make.

00:19:30.640 Let's be clear, right?

00:19:31.460 If it's close, especially.

00:19:32.500 So where does that leave America and how do how does a society that has become?

00:19:41.120 I mean, you say the division is online and I agree with you, but online filters through to real life and people who are online then go out into the streets.

00:19:49.060 How does a country like the United States handle this sort of political rancor and disagreement and dispute about the very basic outcomes of your elections?

00:19:59.580 Well, let me give you the the old guy perspective.

00:20:04.540 I finally reached the age where I can say, oh, I mean, let me tell you how things used to be when I was a kid.

00:20:10.100 Right.

00:20:10.700 So I got to live through the 70s when all those long haired hippies were sure that war was going to destroy the world.

00:20:18.740 And and then the old people were sure that the hippies would never be good citizens who could keep the country going. 0.83

00:20:26.180 And then you fast forward and those same hippies are running everything and doing a pretty good job, you know, individually.

00:20:33.140 The system's got a lot of problems.

00:20:35.320 But, you know, we've had how many crises since since I was born?

00:20:40.360 You know, we were running out of oil, but not really.

00:20:42.680 We were running out of food, but not really.

00:20:44.840 We were going to be all nuking each other.

00:20:47.400 There was going to be a hole in the ozone and just on and on and on.

00:20:51.560 So that the optimism that I would give you is that humans are insanely good at adapting if they can see a problem coming.

00:21:01.680 Now, the problem we're talking about, I think everybody sees.

00:21:04.660 So even if they think the elections are good, they can certainly see that half of the country is skeptical and they know that's a problem by itself.

00:21:11.740 So we can all see the problems.

00:21:14.380 And under this condition where you can all see the problems, I even have a name for it.

00:21:18.440 It's called the Adams Law of Slow Moving Disasters.

00:21:22.200 If you can see it coming, like the year 2000 bug, oh, the year 2000, we saw it coming.

00:21:27.760 So even though we didn't have much time, it was enough.

00:21:30.560 The things that really kneecap you are something like COVID.

00:21:35.060 Because even though some people saw it coming, we weren't really ready in the sense of really seeing it coming.

00:21:40.320 So I would say this is one of those, we can see it coming.

00:21:44.740 Everybody's sure there's a problem with the election, at least credibility, if not the vote itself.

00:21:51.300 And we all know that we're heading toward more problems, not fewer.

00:21:55.620 So I would expect we'll probably do something like hitting bottom.

00:21:59.800 So one possibility is that the, whatever the aftermath of the next election is, is so bad that we say, all right, we're finally going to fix the system.

00:22:10.820 So we're going to do whatever we need to do, which we mostly know what to do.

00:22:14.780 Um, or, or the other possibility, which is just as likely, is that we will go on as if nothing happened.

00:22:24.380 Because, because, uh, have you ever tried to talk to people who don't do what we're doing for a living?

00:22:31.080 If you talk to a normie lately, like, here's my general conversation.

00:22:35.660 This is, this is yesterday, actually yesterday with a, with a, uh, living human being, an adult.

00:22:42.500 So, uh, you know, I got a story to tell you about, uh, Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:22:46.920 Who?

00:22:48.120 Vivek Ramaswamy, he's running for president.

00:22:51.980 The, what?

00:22:53.940 You've never heard of Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:22:56.900 You don't even know he's running for president?

00:22:59.020 No.

00:23:00.300 Well, let me test this one.

00:23:02.620 Pergosian.

00:23:04.580 Pergosian.

00:23:05.620 Head of the Wagner group recently, allegedly blew up in an airplane.

00:23:10.560 Doesn't ring a bell.

00:23:12.260 That's, that's every conversation I've had.

00:23:14.520 I was cited by a little politics bubble.

00:23:16.780 So if you take that into the election, 1% of the country notices that they're unhappy.

00:23:24.200 A bunch of people on, uh, social media complain, but they always were complaining anyway.

00:23:30.760 The, the government just grinds on and puts into office whoever they put into office.

00:23:36.080 And, you know, we're worrying about the economy again after that.

00:23:39.660 So, it's possible that nothing will happen, no matter what happens.

00:23:44.340 There just aren't enough people who are involved.

00:23:46.100 Well, counter-argument to that would be, Scott, that if you ask those same normies about January

00:23:50.620 the 6th, they're all going to know what it was and have an opinion on it.

00:23:53.640 And that, you could argue, is the product of that very same system, right?

00:23:57.940 Yes, but it, let's say, uh, Joe Biden wins and that very same system says everything was fine.

00:24:06.040 The normies are going to say, well, it looks like everything's fine.

00:24:08.480 You won fair and square.

00:24:09.980 Trump was unpopular.

00:24:11.300 That's the whole story.

00:24:12.220 And then we would just go on.

00:24:15.800 You know, the, the, of course the Republicans would complain bitterly, but they're doing that now.

00:24:21.200 There's not much different.

00:24:22.700 You know what, what's happening because of the complaints, you know, we get, we have something

00:24:26.400 to talk about.

00:24:27.120 That's it.

00:24:27.920 There's nothing physically happening.

00:24:31.360 But surely there's a tipping point, Scott, where things go so mainstream with what's

00:24:37.500 happening that it, like I said, eventually everybody will know about it.

00:24:43.780 And the other counter-argument is, whilst I take your point, everybody, everybody's becoming

00:24:49.440 more political now.

00:24:50.740 Everybody is.

00:24:51.420 And certainly young people.

00:24:53.740 Well, are they?

00:24:55.260 You know, I'll tell you the, the feeling I get and the energy I get is this energy for,

00:25:02.000 you know, a national divorce and, you know, we'll, we'll pick up our weapons if something

00:25:07.360 goes wrong.

00:25:08.040 And, you know, we're going to have to have a revolution physically in a tea party and all

00:25:12.340 that.

00:25:12.580 But I don't feel any of that energy in the real world.

00:25:15.940 When I walk outside, there's none of it.

00:25:18.160 So my, my assumption that there'll be massive political grassroots, like, you know, massive

00:25:25.980 problems, almost zero.

00:25:27.960 There will be political groups who will protest, but, you know, organized groups have funding

00:25:33.240 from somebody and, you know, they got together online, but it's not going to represent most

00:25:37.420 people.

00:25:38.220 I mean, it'd be, you know, the, the 1% acting out.

00:25:42.000 So I just don't think there's going to be massive civil unrest.

00:25:44.720 We'll just be more complaining online mostly.

00:25:47.140 Well, you're right.

00:25:49.000 I mean, that sort of national divorce thing, having traveled across America, never heard

00:25:53.080 one person.

00:25:53.820 I was talking to political people.

00:25:55.560 It's a very online conversation, I think, and not necessarily a particularly useful one.

00:26:00.760 However, the, the question I did want to ask you is you said, we mostly know how to fix

00:26:05.180 the election system so that it's transparent and fair and, and seen to be both.

00:26:11.200 How do we, how do you do that?

00:26:13.420 Well, it might be fair.

00:26:14.880 That's the part I don't know because it's unknowable because there are elements of the

00:26:18.940 election system that are not transparent by their nature.

00:26:22.260 For example, wouldn't you like to see the code of all the machines and where that goes

00:26:28.600 to, and then the code of how it's being counted.

00:26:31.240 And wouldn't you like to see it before and after an election?

00:26:34.620 You know, wouldn't you like to see if anything changed since the last time you looked at it?

00:26:38.800 I mean, that would be a basic thing.

00:26:40.080 Or alternately, you can do what a lot of countries do.

00:26:42.660 And don't use any electronic stuff because by its nature, it's too hard to make it transparent.

00:26:50.100 Because you can always say, but the thing you showed me, is that exactly what's in the

00:26:54.540 machines?

00:26:55.340 How do I know?

00:26:56.380 How do I know you didn't send me like a fake thing or show me the one machine that's not

00:27:00.240 rigged or only a few machines have to be rigged.

00:27:03.080 So it doesn't matter how many you test, you're very unlikely you'd find a bad one.

00:27:06.580 So as soon as you have anything electronic in the system, even if the company could assure

00:27:14.920 you that it's fair, and even if you were sure it was, you would never be able to prove it.

00:27:20.300 It wouldn't have the transparency that you need for this kind of level of importance.

00:27:25.160 So the first thing is, do you even want electronic machines?

00:27:27.740 The second thing is the ballot boxes and the identifications and the, you know, making

00:27:33.580 sure that people vote just once.

00:27:36.260 Take a simple idea.

00:27:38.220 Somebody suggested this.

00:27:39.480 I don't know if this is the idea.

00:27:41.200 But if your ballot drop boxes had to be near an ATM, let's just say we made a law.

00:27:49.460 I'm just, you know, spitballing here and brainstorming.

00:27:51.860 But all of the ATMs have cameras.

00:27:55.140 So we would know if the same person showed up 50 times.

00:27:58.380 That's one of the claims.

00:28:00.120 That has never been demonstrated to my satisfaction.

00:28:03.120 But, you know, all we'd have to do is make sure there's video on all of the drop boxes.

00:28:08.200 Now there might be some security issues, blah, blah, blah.

00:28:10.820 But I'm sure we could work through them.

00:28:12.500 Those are all legal hurdles that could be unhurdled.

00:28:16.480 You could take the hurdles away.

00:28:17.840 So I'm no expert on the system.

00:28:21.180 But if I said to you, there has to be transparency, there have to be two people, you know, from

00:28:26.540 opposing sides watching every part of the counting, for example, then that would get me a lot

00:28:33.200 closer to at least feeling we were serious about transparency.

00:28:37.040 The way things are now, it sends a very clear message that the people in charge, maybe on both

00:28:42.760 sides, don't want full transparency.

00:28:45.120 That's the message I get as a citizen.

00:28:49.340 I don't see a lot of effort that looks serious on the Republican side.

00:28:54.100 I don't see it on the Democrat side.

00:28:56.080 They talk about, you know, normal improvements of things, but nothing like what would give us

00:29:00.400 full transparency.

00:29:01.680 For example, I don't have any way to find that my vote got recorded and successfully,

00:29:07.120 you know, in the final database.

00:29:08.760 Is there really no way to do that, even for a sample group of people?

00:29:13.660 For example, couldn't you have a law that says some randomly selected group of people

00:29:19.680 will be the only ones who have, by opt-in, they can check their vote, but nobody knows

00:29:26.340 who they are.

00:29:27.320 So then you could do a random sample and say, okay, did these 10,000 people, did they check

00:29:31.640 and their vote actually was recorded as they voted or not?

00:29:35.080 You wouldn't have to check everybody.

00:29:36.400 You could check 10,000 randomly.

00:29:38.600 So there's probably a whole bunch of things you could do that would get you to full transparency,

00:29:44.540 but I don't really see an effort anywhere.

00:29:46.720 Well, that's really interesting.

00:29:48.460 And that's exactly what I was going to ask you while you were talking.

00:29:51.020 And you bring up the point of not seeing the effort.

00:29:55.000 Why is that?

00:29:56.680 It can only be because there's not enough benefit to all the people at the top.

00:30:01.920 My suspicion is, all right, let me give you the worst case suspicion.

00:30:06.400 Every single one of our large entities we've seen is corrupt, you know, from the FBI to

00:30:15.700 the DOJ.

00:30:16.440 And I'm not talking about every person, but at least leadership elements.

00:30:19.940 We've seen that our Congress can be corrupt.

00:30:22.880 We've seen that the CDC, basically everybody's corrupt once you find out what's really going

00:30:28.320 on.

00:30:28.580 The exception, we're told, is all 50 separate elections for a national election.

00:30:36.000 All 50? 0.94

00:30:37.040 All 50 of them are all good, but everything else is corrupt, but not those 50 things?

00:30:43.980 So here's my speculation.

00:30:46.000 Pure speculation.

00:30:47.480 No facts to back it up.

00:30:49.560 In some states...

00:30:50.220 That's what we like, Scott.

00:30:51.480 That's the basis of every claim about reality online.

00:30:56.460 It's just my speculation.

00:30:58.180 You're just honest about it.

00:30:59.480 Yeah.

00:30:59.840 So my speculation is, if the Republicans are running some elections, they might be doing

00:31:05.220 some things that they don't want people to see exactly in their states.

00:31:09.560 And maybe the Democrats have some states that they don't want you to see exactly what's

00:31:13.420 going on.

00:31:13.920 So my suspicion is that if there's any impropriety, it would be at least a little bit spread across

00:31:21.480 the parties, and both of them would say, you know what?

00:31:24.500 Maybe we better not open this box.

00:31:26.580 That's my best guess, but it's just speculation.

00:31:29.800 It makes a lot of sense.

00:31:31.500 And Scott, what do you think it says about the system that, let's say Trump and Biden are

00:31:38.200 the two candidates.

00:31:39.080 What does that say about the American system, the political system, that these two men are

00:31:46.360 your brightest and best?

00:31:48.540 Well, to put it another way, imagine that the Democrats, they elected the least cognitive

00:31:56.060 capable politician we've ever seen, except maybe Fetterman, and they put him in the job

00:32:01.900 that has the greatest cognitive demand of maybe any job you could even imagine, the president

00:32:07.280 of the United States, and the highest importance, and that's who they put in the job.

00:32:11.760 The person who we can all see has the lowest cognitive ability for any president so far.

00:32:18.280 Now, if that election is close, let's say with Trump or anybody else, and it probably will

00:32:24.800 be, it'll be really close.

00:32:26.700 Does that not prove that our opinions have been assigned to us as opposed to we looked at the

00:32:32.800 information and made up our own mind?

00:32:34.640 I would say that if we have a close election and Biden is one of the candidates and it still

00:32:42.000 ends up razor, razor close, that we've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever you

00:32:48.180 thought was happening wasn't happening, i.e.

00:32:50.960 informed citizens making informed decisions that are translated by the election system into

00:32:56.260 the accurate result.

00:32:58.160 Whatever's happening, it isn't that.

00:33:00.000 And that's where we're heading for.

00:33:01.420 So I guess we'll find out.

00:33:03.000 Well, what's happening there, it seems to me, is tribalism, and people will always stick

00:33:08.020 to tribe over reality.

00:33:10.620 Well, not always, but many people will.

00:33:12.440 But I think the point that Francis was getting at with you is something I've, I saw a graph

00:33:16.500 on Twitter today which showed the average age of politicians over the last two centuries

00:33:23.780 in the United States.

00:33:24.820 And you can barely see the line because it's close to vertical, right?

00:33:29.280 It's really increased, particularly in the last 60 years.

00:33:34.820 And it's bipartisan, by the way.

00:33:37.520 Look at Mitch McConnell.

00:33:39.340 There's another video of him struggling to stand up straight and talk at the same time.

00:33:44.840 Yeah.

00:33:45.340 You know, and I worry that there's a reason.

00:33:47.880 And this is the banker part of me.

00:33:49.500 So I used to work for a bank for many years before I was doing this kind of stuff.

00:33:54.300 And when I worked for the bank, they had a rule that you couldn't take, was it four

00:33:58.680 days off in a row or three?

00:34:00.880 I forget.

00:34:01.440 But you couldn't take a number of days off in a row.

00:34:06.100 Or no, you had to take that much.

00:34:08.540 That's what it was.

00:34:09.520 You had to take a vacation.

00:34:10.980 So the bank wouldn't let you skip your vacations for too long.

00:34:15.240 And the reason was that one of the ways that people would rob the bank from the inside,

00:34:19.980 you know, an insider kind of thing, is they had to be there to cover up things on a continuous

00:34:24.820 basis.

00:34:26.000 So if you made them stay away from the office, their crimes would pop up because somebody's

00:34:30.560 covering for their job.

00:34:31.620 So I wonder if it's a coincidence that in a world where we don't trust anybody to not

00:34:38.560 be corrupt at the top anymore, that the old people can't retire because then you'd find 0.99

00:34:44.240 out what they were up to.

00:34:45.600 Imagine, for example, Joe Biden retires just as we're finding out, you know, what he might

00:34:51.140 have been up to with Hunter Biden.

00:34:52.800 If he stays president, he can pardon people and he can scare people away from investigating.

00:34:58.160 If Mitch McConnell stays in his position, anybody who might want to, say, look into his business

00:35:05.260 is not going to want to do it because it's a political death sentence.

00:35:09.060 He's powerful.

00:35:10.160 So when I see people who are way past their expiration date and they stay in, sometimes

00:35:16.180 it's because they don't want to lose the majority.

00:35:18.740 But I worry that it's the bank reason, that the moment they were out of that job, other

00:35:24.520 people can figure out what's been going on all the time they were in there.

00:35:27.740 So that's my worry.

00:35:31.420 And it also says, because something quite profound, which is everybody knows that Joe

00:35:38.040 Biden isn't in charge.

00:35:39.920 He simply can't be.

00:35:42.220 No, I mean, he could be, but that's worse.

00:35:45.740 Yeah.

00:35:46.340 You know, I mean, you can't have a man like that in charge of anything.

00:35:51.600 Yeah, it's hard to support your opinion when it does look like he is in charge because

00:35:58.760 things are going so poorly.

00:36:00.820 Like, do you think that a real person in charge would open the border?

00:36:05.020 If an American, let's say there was an American behind the scenes, which American behind the 0.64

00:36:10.360 scenes would have opened the border and let people from other, not even Central America.

00:36:14.940 You know, I think most of it at this point is coming from other places in the world that

00:36:19.120 the cartels are recruiting from.

00:36:20.740 RFK Jr. did a great, great piece on that.

00:36:24.240 And who would do that?

00:36:26.100 Only somebody who was either cognitively declined, you know, just shot, or somebody who was working

00:36:33.380 for China.

00:36:33.960 You know, it almost, if you look at the list of things that are going wrong or are suboptimal

00:36:39.960 in the United States, it's almost a laundry list of what China would want to happen to

00:36:44.400 the United States.

00:36:45.400 I'll take the simplest one, TikTok.

00:36:48.840 How in the world, how in the world is that still legal in the United States when China 1.00

00:36:54.200 doesn't even allow it in China?

00:36:56.380 You know, and, you know, the arguments on both sides, they argue the data security instead

00:37:02.500 of the influence problem, which is by far the bigger problem.

00:37:05.660 And it's almost as if they're not trying or there's nobody American in charge.

00:37:11.240 There's something going on.

00:37:12.420 Either our intelligence people need it so they can spy on people, which might be the answer.

00:37:17.240 It might be the intelligence people in the United States are finding TikTok so useful that,

00:37:23.460 you know, they're willing to put up with whatever danger it has.

00:37:26.920 The other possibility is that just China has too much control of the United States.

00:37:31.220 And, you know, I saw Fox News running ads for TikTok the other day.

00:37:37.320 What?

00:37:38.580 You know, so I thought at one point I thought it's something that Democrats want because

00:37:43.520 it helps them get elected.

00:37:45.680 And then it seemed like the people on the right were, you know, properly noticing the danger.

00:37:51.500 But then I see that Fox News is taking advertising from them.

00:37:54.500 So, I mean, there's something else going on.

00:37:58.440 OK, let me push back on that, Scott, because I get what you're saying.

00:38:02.800 I get your point.

00:38:04.520 But I think you're discounting ideology as well.

00:38:08.040 What happens if you are a far left progressives and you think borders are a symbol of white supremacy?

00:38:14.380 No human being is illegal.

00:38:17.780 There will be those people in the Democrat Party.

00:38:20.160 I will bear every penny that is in my bank account, which isn't much.

00:38:24.480 But that is true, surely.

00:38:27.880 Well, you know, even Biden was opposed to opening borders.

00:38:32.160 So, you know, if this were just Joe Biden, the Joe Biden we've always known, probably the border would be closer to closed.

00:38:42.240 I mean, he might be, you know, accepting a few more types of people or something like that.

00:38:47.700 But I think it would be a lot more closed if he were actually making decisions.

00:38:51.520 We have a pretty long history of what he's thought about border security.

00:38:56.340 And it'd be weird if it changed at this age.

00:38:58.760 So it does suggest that something else or somebody else is in charge, yes.

00:39:05.400 But in terms of the – let me answer your question.

00:39:09.220 I feel like I dodged your question, so let me answer it.

00:39:11.980 Tribalism is always going to describe 80% of it. 0.97

00:39:16.760 But things change because of the few fluid people in between.

00:39:21.320 So I'll accept tribalism as 80% to 90% of it easily.

00:39:25.660 But the other 10% is where all the action happens.

00:39:29.660 Yeah, that's a good point.

00:39:30.960 It's an interesting point about TikTok because a kind of semi-joke response would be to say, well, this is what happens when you get a bunch of 80-year-olds running things.

00:39:39.780 They have no idea what's going on on kids' phones.

00:39:42.540 But it's a trite point in that I think you're right that that is a strange thing.

00:39:47.240 But the thing is, it's not just happening in America.

00:39:50.340 I mean, here in the UK, it's the same.

00:39:52.020 We don't even have a conversation about banning TikTok.

00:39:55.140 And it just seems like Western political elites just have dropped the ball on so many different issues.

00:40:04.220 Yeah, and the things that we decide are important, it's hard to justify them in terms of their actual importance in the real world.

00:40:14.880 I mean, everything seems to be if somebody is funding somebody who is a good advocate, then we act like that's the most important thing in the world because it made a lot of noise.

00:40:24.380 So I think noise is what we're responding to.

00:40:28.980 Scott, do you think part of the problem is as well is that anyone can see the United States is going through severe economic difficulties and the money that comes in from China is much needed, if not arguably essential.

00:40:44.800 Hence, even for Fox News, which is hemorrhaging viewers, it's hemorrhaging relevancy, it's hemorrhaging money.

00:40:53.560 It needs those TikTok ads in order to help it stay afloat.

00:40:58.580 Yeah, a lot of it is pure economics.

00:41:00.880 I agree.

00:41:01.880 Follow the money.

00:41:04.000 It just always works even when you're sure it shouldn't, which is the weird thing about it.

00:41:09.140 If you're talking about why a priest did something, you like to think it's not for money.

00:41:14.240 But then if you check, it's like, well, coincidentally, that did seem to help the money thing too.

00:41:19.440 So money, money is most of the explanation for most things.

00:41:25.020 It even explains tribalism.

00:41:27.560 I mean, ultimately, people are looking for their financial benefit and that's why they separate in tribes.

00:41:34.160 And I was wondering if we can go and talk about those people that the normies haven't heard of, the Viveks and Nikki Haley's and all of those people and RFK juniors of the world.

00:41:48.280 What do you make of all the other potential candidates?

00:41:50.880 Do they think any of them have any chance on the Republican side of getting close to being nominated if things go really well for them?

00:41:59.960 And likewise, on the Democrats, is anyone going to mount any challenge to Joe Biden of any noteworthiness?

00:42:07.540 Well, let me give you some optimism first and then I'll tell you the bad news.

00:42:12.980 The optimism is I've never seen a better slate of candidates.

00:42:18.980 I'm just blown away by the quality of the, let's say, the undercard.

00:42:23.400 You know, people like Vivek, he's changing, he's changing politics just by running.

00:42:30.600 He's changing the arguments.

00:42:32.220 If you, if you've heard him talk about climate change, I just, I just saw him slay a couple of people who were triggered, triggered into cognitive dissonance because he's the first person who can explain it well, his point of view.

00:42:46.460 The climate change agenda is a hoax, is what I said.

00:42:50.140 And what I mean by that is that the temperature-related or climate-related disaster death rate, tornadoes, hurricanes, heatwave, fires, the number of deaths over the last hundred years is down by 98%.

00:43:04.700 For every hundred people that died of a climate-related disaster in 1920, that number is two people today.

00:43:10.860 That fact is not disputed.

00:43:11.940 The reason why is more abundant and plentiful access to fossil fuels.

00:43:17.100 More people die today still, eight times as many more people die, of cold temperatures rather than warm ones.

00:43:23.960 The right answer to all temperature-related deaths is more abundant access to fossil fuels.

00:43:29.300 The earth is covered by more green surface area coverage today than it was half a century or a century ago because carbon dioxide is plant food.

00:43:37.260 So these are hard facts, not disputed, but that you don't hear from the climate agenda.

00:43:43.420 Hold on, Leveque.

00:43:44.640 Wouldn't the reduction in deaths be more related to technology that's allowed us to warn people and to get people out of the way of danger?

00:43:53.500 And there's nothing to do with fossil fuels.

00:43:55.120 Technology powered by fossil fuels.

00:43:56.560 Technology powered by fossil fuels.

00:43:58.040 And that's my point.

00:43:58.600 So I favor adaptation.

00:44:00.200 I favor climate mastery.

00:44:02.280 Look at the likes of what Bjorn Lomberg to Alex Epstein to even Steve Kuhnen, a physicist who served in the Obama administration.

00:44:08.200 I've read all their books cover to cover.

00:44:09.580 I think the reality is that climate change policies are going to be more hostile to human flourishing than actual threats posed by climate change itself.

00:44:20.420 Other people have taken the same approach, but he explains it in a way that the people understand it for the first time.

00:44:27.940 And you're watching heads explode as they try to wrap their head around the fact.

00:44:31.340 And the main thing he's adding is adding that there's a cost and there's a benefit, which is so trivial.

00:44:38.640 And yet, what's the show with Harvey Leavitt in there?

00:44:46.020 So he was talking to him and his co-host.

00:44:49.600 And you watch people who are on one side and they're focusing on the warming.

00:44:53.900 But what about the humans are making the warming?

00:44:56.480 And he'll say, yes, that's true.

00:44:58.060 And that's good technique, except the part that they're arguing.

00:45:03.020 And then say, but you're forgetting that cold kills more people.

00:45:06.960 If you were to net it all, we're better off with fossil fuels would be his argument.

00:45:12.040 Now, when you look at the net argument, it's just a killer argument.

00:45:16.080 It just crushes the other side.

00:45:18.280 But the argument before Vivek was more like, it's getting warm.

00:45:23.340 No, it's not.

00:45:24.740 No, seriously, we've got all the science.

00:45:27.160 Eh, I don't believe it.

00:45:29.120 So that's not a good argument.

00:45:30.540 But Vivek goes in accepting all science and then completely reinterpreting and reframing the argument until it's a killer.

00:45:38.980 So even if tomorrow he got out of the race, he left us even today.

00:45:44.000 Today he did it and now it's recorded.

00:45:45.820 You're seeing the quality of the argument about climate change so improved that it probably will change the actual policies because it's just a killer explanation.

00:45:58.560 RFK Jr., his explanation about various drugs and vaccinations not being tested at the level that you thought they were is a huge, huge piece of information that the public wasn't aware of.

00:46:14.260 And even though he's getting pilloried for, you know, a hundred different things, that what he's bringing to the conversation about chronic illnesses and even our food supply is not as healthy as it should be.

00:46:26.460 Huge, huge benefit.

00:46:27.960 You look at Larry Elder talking about the kids who don't have two parents.

00:46:34.420 Huge benefit.

00:46:35.180 So this is the first time I've ever seen the undercard, if you will, bring such immediate real benefits without getting elected.

00:46:43.040 I've never seen anything like that.

00:46:44.280 So short of that.

00:46:45.520 And I think DeSantis is solid.

00:46:47.100 He's just boring.

00:46:47.680 So there are at least four candidates who, even without agreeing with every piece of their positions, I can say, I would be happy with that person as president and RFK Jr. on the Democrat side.

00:47:00.820 So it's not even about party.

00:47:02.680 But, you know, Biden, of course, is not even political.

00:47:06.080 He's just not there.

00:47:07.120 So you don't know who's running things.

00:47:09.240 So I don't know if I answered the question because I went off on my own tangent there.

00:47:12.860 Well, I think you gave us the good news that there's lots of potentially good candidates.

00:47:17.660 The bad news, I imagine, is none of them are going to be president.

00:47:21.100 Well, so on the right, it only depends if Trump is still eligible and alive.

00:47:29.200 You know, Tucker Carlson suggested by a video, I think yesterday, that the pattern of things suggests that somebody on the left will actually try to assassinate Trump.

00:47:40.880 Now, I don't know if that's true, but his argument for it is that we do do things that bad.

00:47:49.360 You know, it wouldn't be outside of the realm of something the United States has ever done.

00:47:54.180 And if you look at the level of the coordinated actions against him, you know, all the hoaxes, et cetera, and the fact that they're desperately trying to put him in jail over things that most experts say would not be jailable.

00:48:06.820 Well, I would say he can't rule anything out.

00:48:12.200 So, you know, Vivek or DeSantis might have a real shot, but only in the worst case scenario where something happens to Trump.

00:48:20.800 Now, as far as Biden, I think the smart money says he won't make it to even the election day.

00:48:27.960 In my opinion, he's already been told that he's done.

00:48:32.920 I think that's what his long vacations were about.

00:48:36.220 I think that was so that he and Jill could sort of absorb the, you're quitting, what are you going to do about it?

00:48:43.020 How do you feel about it?

00:48:44.860 Because I think it's hard to tell somebody that they're done at that level.

00:48:48.520 I mean, that would be the hardest conversation anybody ever had.

00:48:50.860 And so I think we're waiting for the Democrats to figure out their own problem, maybe slip in Governor Newsom or something.

00:49:02.180 But I don't think anybody thinks Biden is really going to be alive and functioning by election day 2024.

00:49:08.340 That's an interesting point.

00:49:11.960 You said something which I find incredibly interesting, but is also, to me, a very real symptom of the problem that we find ourselves in,

00:49:22.440 is that you said, and look, I agree, DeSantis, he's solid but boring.

00:49:28.380 What's wrong with being solid and boring?

00:49:31.040 Isn't somebody who you want to run stuff, shouldn't they be solid and boring?

00:49:36.420 Yeah.

00:49:37.140 You know what?

00:49:37.700 If you could get rid of the whole campaign problem where you have to win an election, you know, if you could just assign them,

00:49:44.140 I would be so happy that we had a reasoned adult running the country.

00:49:49.480 Even if I don't agree with everything he does, that's a whole separate question.

00:49:53.720 But at least, you know, wouldn't you like, by the way, I've said this about Vivek,

00:49:58.340 wouldn't you love to know if there's an international event, you know, the G-whatevers,

00:50:03.420 that your guy, the guy representing your country is the smartest one in the room for once, for once?

00:50:12.720 Like, wouldn't you like to know that, no matter what else happens, that you sent the smartest guy and everybody else is like, oh, God, this guy's the smartest guy in the room.

00:50:20.120 Now, DeSantis is super capable.

00:50:23.240 I think he's, you know, also very smart.

00:50:24.940 So we have some good options if we could find a way to put him in office.

00:50:31.100 And like I said, RFK Jr. would be such a wild card that even with Democrat policies that not everybody's going to love,

00:50:39.840 he's a serious person and I think he has the right mental state about helping the country.

00:50:45.700 I'd be comfortable with him.

00:50:46.780 But they're never going to let him get anywhere near that, are they?

00:50:52.500 Doesn't look like it.

00:50:53.920 No, it doesn't.

00:50:56.000 No, because, I mean, the Democrats, I mean, if you look at what they did with Bernie, you know,

00:51:01.300 they want their guy in power.

00:51:04.700 That's what made Trump so unique is that he clearly wasn't their guy.

00:51:08.960 That was what was so invigorating about him.

00:51:11.740 Yeah, we don't really know how things really run behind the curtain.

00:51:19.100 But, you know, if you're just judging from the few things you can see,

00:51:22.480 it does look like somebody else is in charge and that somebody else has very specific ideas about who should be in charge.

00:51:30.540 And if you look at the totality of the coordinated actions,

00:51:35.140 it has every sign of somebody trying to cover up their own crimes.

00:51:38.920 As in, whoever's really in charge doesn't want anybody investigating them either.

00:51:45.020 So I feel like it's...

00:51:46.240 What do you mean?

00:51:47.240 What signs?

00:51:48.700 What crimes?

00:51:50.940 What are you talking about?

00:51:52.500 Well, whoever would back Biden is doing it out of desperation, not because they think it's a good idea.

00:51:58.780 So who acts out of desperation?

00:52:01.440 If you say, well, it's the team thing.

00:52:03.580 They just, they want their team to win.

00:52:05.480 But this feels way beyond that.

00:52:07.660 Team win would be Gavin Newsom already, already running.

00:52:12.340 Now, what I think they want is they, well, in 2020, they wanted a guy who could unite,

00:52:20.160 because he was so kind of middle and bland, who could unite the Democrats and not offend any Democratic voters.

00:52:27.880 So that Trump lost.

00:52:29.920 That's what they wanted, right?

00:52:31.660 Well, that was the story.

00:52:33.000 But don't you think they could have found a hundred bland people to do that?

00:52:36.800 I mean, bland is pretty easy to find.

00:52:39.120 What they found was something...

00:52:40.160 Yeah, but he was vice president.

00:52:41.200 He had name recognition.

00:52:42.920 Yeah.

00:52:43.360 All right.

00:52:43.820 He'd been in the game a long time as well.

00:52:46.060 But consider the alternative explanation.

00:52:49.280 He was the most connected to Obama and sort of the Hillary Clinton part of the machine.

00:52:56.180 That's the part of the machine that seems to be in charge.

00:52:59.380 I don't know what individuals, but it seems like that universe of people seem to be in charge.

00:53:05.100 Do you think they want somebody who's not their guy to be in that office?

00:53:09.980 They need their guy to be in the office because that's how they stay in charge.

00:53:14.380 And it's also how they avoid any investigations into anything they may have done.

00:53:19.220 So it feels like not an election to find your best guy or woman.

00:53:24.620 It doesn't feel like an election that's just team.

00:53:27.640 It screams two sides trying to stay out of jail.

00:53:31.660 I mean, honestly, the only way I think Trump stays out of jail is by winning the election.

00:53:36.140 You know, he might literally have to pardon himself, which I'd be fine with.

00:53:40.620 And I think Biden might have to pardon himself and Hunter, or at least Hunter, before he leaves.

00:53:47.000 So to me, the entire thing looks like Joe may be trying to hold on to keep Hunter out of jail,

00:53:53.740 you know, to maintain his pardon ability, but without pardoning him too soon,

00:53:59.380 because then it affects the election, right?

00:54:02.180 So if Joe, I'm pure speculation, I can't read minds, but if you put me in his situation,

00:54:07.780 if you say, all right, you're Joe Biden, what do you do?

00:54:10.660 The first thing I do is make sure I get to the second election, get elected,

00:54:14.840 and then I can pardon anybody I want because I'm not running for election then.

00:54:19.120 So he might be limping to the, you know, the finish line just to make sure Hunter doesn't go to jail.

00:54:25.120 Now, that might be everything we're seeing.

00:54:29.040 Like, it might explain all observations of father trying to keep his son out of jail,

00:54:34.180 because that's going to trump everything, you know, no pun intended.

00:54:37.820 You know, that's going to be bigger than money.

00:54:39.340 It's going to be bigger than winning.

00:54:40.900 It's going to be bigger than team.

00:54:42.680 It's going to be bigger than everything.

00:54:43.740 So, and, and is there any way to keep Hunter out of trouble unless Biden's in office?

00:54:49.980 I don't see the second way, because I think he would be instantly unprotected if Biden left office.

00:54:55.880 I suppose if Biden left office and likewise with Trump, I don't, if you feel that the prosecution

00:55:01.760 and indictment of Donald Trump is political, I wonder if he had said in 2020, you know what,

00:55:09.640 the election was stolen, but I, I'm done.

00:55:13.120 I'm going to go back to running my business and enjoy my retirement.

00:55:16.860 I don't think they would be coming after him.

00:55:18.720 And the argument would be likewise with the Bidens.

00:55:21.980 Maybe, maybe if they leave, people would leave them alone.

00:55:27.160 Because what's there to be gained by persecuting or prosecuting them?

00:55:30.880 I don't think that Trump's complaining about the election itself has much of anything to do

00:55:38.160 with how anybody feels about him.

00:55:40.440 Because that's just Trump.

00:55:42.380 You know, what, what, what is he ever, you know, not given you his best impression of,

00:55:47.900 you know, his view of things.

00:55:50.360 The election is just more of the same.

00:55:52.400 He's just Trump being Trump.

00:55:54.480 So to imagine that that's, you know, his election problems were behind, that's not that.

00:56:00.320 It's about Trump.

00:56:01.560 They just can't have him in office.

00:56:03.420 I don't think it has anything to do with complaints about the election.

00:56:05.900 Well, fine.

00:56:07.260 If he said, I'm not running again, don't you think they'd leave him alone?

00:56:12.680 Probably.

00:56:13.960 So this is what I'm saying.

00:56:15.320 If, if Joe Biden said, I'm leaving, you know, Kamala takeover or Gavin Newsom or whoever

00:56:20.900 it might be, wouldn't they, wouldn't that be the best strategy to protect him and his

00:56:25.900 son from prosecution?

00:56:28.080 No, there's nothing better than pardon ability.

00:56:31.340 Because the pardon, the pardon's absolute.

00:56:33.960 Although the other is a bet.

00:56:36.220 Yes, it's true.

00:56:37.840 Scott, I mean, what you're describing is essentially the greatest soap opera ever written.

00:56:43.640 You know, I mean, why watch The Bold and the Beautiful or any of these other ones when you

00:56:47.820 can watch this?

00:56:49.580 But that speaks to Elon's point about reality being the most entertaining version of itself,

00:56:53.960 right?

00:56:54.380 No, exactly.

00:56:55.240 Number.

00:56:55.620 So go for it.

00:56:56.380 And then I've got a follow on question.

00:56:57.660 Go on.

00:56:57.840 So here's something that the casual observer of news never really understands, that news

00:57:04.120 about public figures is never true.

00:57:07.940 Yeah.

00:57:08.160 Now, let me test that with you.

00:57:10.320 You've probably been the subject of news stories because you're doing so well, right?

00:57:15.460 Did those news stories accurately capture the context of your situation, whatever it was?

00:57:21.280 Not guilty on all charges.

00:57:22.800 Thank you, Scott.

00:57:25.600 No.

00:57:26.440 And by the way, we should say as well that old media and new media both will spread complete

00:57:34.220 lies and misinformation about you with no hesitation.

00:57:37.940 Right.

00:57:38.100 So the casual viewer of news thinks, oh, if it's in the National Enquirer, maybe I don't

00:57:44.040 trust it so much.

00:57:45.040 But even that doesn't work anymore because they're as likely to be right as anybody else.

00:57:50.820 But if you're a subject of the news, as I am, you know, even if you're an international

00:57:56.620 headline for a few weeks, as sometimes I am, I'm the only one who knows that the stories

00:58:03.200 are false or not false in terms of what they reported.

00:58:06.540 That might be exactly true.

00:58:08.500 But the context would reverse how you felt about it if you knew the context, which, you

00:58:13.340 know, most people will never know context of anything.

00:58:15.800 So what's really going on with the government?

00:58:18.560 I don't know.

00:58:19.720 It might be tribal.

00:58:20.760 It might be money.

00:58:21.580 It might be somebody staying in a jail.

00:58:23.180 It might be ego.

00:58:24.560 There are 15 things it could be.

00:58:26.420 But the only thing I'm sure of is that whatever the public thinks is happening, it's not that

00:58:32.020 one.

00:58:32.220 The only thing I know from experience, because when you talk about politics and you reach

00:58:38.280 a certain level of, let's say, notoriety, people who are behind the curtain all the

00:58:43.520 time, they start telling you what's back there.

00:58:46.040 So you hear a version of the world that is so different from what the general public thinks is just base

00:58:52.780 reality, that you can never see a new news story as real again.

00:58:57.760 I just say, oh, who ran this up?

00:59:00.000 Which billionaire was behind it?

00:59:01.840 I mean, that's all I see now.

00:59:02.940 But the average consumer says, well, I'll bet 80% of this stuff is true.

00:59:07.980 No, it isn't.

00:59:10.020 And watching what is happening in America, as we all are, as the entire world is, I mean,

00:59:17.560 this is a disaster for America.

00:59:20.460 This sideshow, the Trump indictments, the Biden, you know, gabbling his way through speeches,

00:59:29.700 falling asleep in various dinners.

00:59:32.180 I mean, the Chinese and the Russians must be looking at this going, I mean, they've completely 1.00

00:59:38.600 screwed it up.

00:59:42.920 Well, let me say a few things about that.

00:59:45.820 It could be a social media and news effect that we think things are worse than they've

00:59:51.120 ever been.

00:59:52.400 Because I'm pretty sure that we, you know, our government probably was never staffed with

00:59:57.840 a bunch of honest people.

00:59:58.940 If you look at it and say, if you look at the stories of like the times, Abraham Lincoln's

01:00:05.080 time, you know, honest Abe, he wasn't so honest.

01:00:09.380 I don't want to be a spoiler, but not so honest.

01:00:12.920 And, you know, I'm pretty sure that our ability to talk about every little thing that happens

01:00:19.840 and just the general tribal nature of social media makes everything look like an emergency.

01:00:27.180 Here would be the counterpoint to that.

01:00:29.960 Apparently, the government works no matter who's in charge.

01:00:33.500 And, you know, you could argue, as the pro-Biden people have, that the Biden administration

01:00:40.380 has accomplished some substantial things.

01:00:43.520 You know, you could argue you didn't want them accomplished, but, you know, infrastructure

01:00:46.700 bill, blah, blah, blah.

01:00:48.540 And there are things that happenings.

01:00:50.720 And there might be some productive things happening with Iran.

01:00:54.380 Don't know yet.

01:00:55.200 Too early.

01:00:55.940 But maybe.

01:00:56.580 We've seen that manufacturing is being moved back from China.

01:01:01.100 Trump would have done the same thing.

01:01:02.520 And it looks like it's actually happening.

01:01:04.260 And I would give the administration credit for that.

01:01:06.980 So there's a whole bunch of things that seem to happen competently, no matter who's in charge.

01:01:13.040 Because, you know, it's the people below them that are doing the real work.

01:01:17.300 So we might be able to just skate through incompetently like we always have.

01:01:23.060 But on the other hand, you know, you never know when there's going to be a revolution.

01:01:26.700 I just don't feel the energy for that right now.

01:01:29.640 Yeah, that makes sense.

01:01:30.920 Well, on that somewhat optimistic and happy note, Scott, you mentioned being a headline

01:01:35.760 for a few weeks.

01:01:36.700 I did want to ask you about that.

01:01:38.040 So we'll ask you about that when we head over to Locals.

01:01:40.740 But before we do that, we always end on the same question, which is what's the one thing

01:01:44.940 we're not talking about that you think really should be?

01:01:47.180 You know, people tell me I talk about this too much, but it's the nature of reality itself.

01:01:55.960 And one of my predictions, the weirdest one back in 2016, I think, I said in public that

01:02:02.940 Trump would change more than politics.

01:02:06.020 He would change our understanding of reality itself.

01:02:09.620 And that has happened.

01:02:10.880 We're completely unmoored from what is real and what is fake because we now understand

01:02:17.440 that the news and social media were narrative drivers, not fact drivers.

01:02:22.160 So pretty much everybody understands at this point that things you see in the news should

01:02:27.460 not be trusted as true.

01:02:29.380 Things that all the experts tell us should not be regarded as true because the pandemic taught

01:02:36.040 us that experts could be bought, even all of them.

01:02:39.020 So you take that learning back to climate change and you're 97% of scientists on the

01:02:44.580 same page.

01:02:45.800 Doesn't that look different now?

01:02:47.740 After you go through the pandemic, 97% of scientists on the same side?

01:02:52.140 Huh.

01:02:52.760 That doesn't mean anything anymore.

01:02:54.740 That used to mean a lot.

01:02:56.000 It actually means literally nothing once you see how easy it is to co-opt all of the scientists

01:03:01.380 at the same time.

01:03:02.240 So I think the nature of reality, and I think we are a simulation, I believe that there are

01:03:10.100 probably lots of simulations out there and that we were created by some intelligent species

01:03:15.420 that might've looked like us and were avatars in that creation.

01:03:20.360 So that, to me, explains everything we observe.

01:03:25.280 It's a longer conversation, but you asked, well, should we talk more about?

01:03:29.780 That's it.

01:03:30.840 There we go.

01:03:31.740 Well, Scott, thank you very much.

01:03:35.180 Obviously, we recommend everybody check out not only your latest book, but you have several.

01:03:40.880 There you go.

01:03:41.740 Smooth.

01:03:42.140 Reframe your brain.

01:03:43.020 And head on over to Locals, where we ask, Scott, your questions, and also we'll talk

01:03:47.680 about, is it fair to say it was a self-cancellation, Scott, or was it self-inflicted, or just a

01:03:53.700 cancellation, or what would be the right way to talk about it?

01:03:58.260 I like to call myself disgraced.

01:04:04.700 Disgraced cartoonist.

01:04:05.720 I just like the way it sounds.

01:04:07.800 Disgraced cartoonist.

01:04:08.780 Well, we'll talk about how you became disgraced on Locals.

01:04:13.420 Yeah, let's just say I put myself in a situation where a cancellation was likely, and I was

01:04:19.440 aware of it.

01:04:21.060 Perfect.

01:04:21.660 Well, head on over to Locals, and we'll see you there.

01:04:24.940 You mentioned being labeled as a racist.

01:04:27.140 It'd be helpful, I think, for people who didn't follow closely what had happened, for you to

01:04:31.180 give us maybe a quick summary of what you said, why you said it, and then address.

01:04:35.960 Yeah, the quick summary would get me in more trouble than not saying it all.

01:04:43.020 Bye.

01:04:43.260 Bye.

01:04:45.040 Bye.

01:04:45.440 Bye.

01:04:51.980 Bye.

01:04:58.500 Bye.

01:04:58.920 Bye.

01:05:01.380 Bye.

01:05:03.600 Bye.

01:05:04.420 Bye.

01:05:04.860 Bye.

01:05:05.980 Bye.

01:05:06.980 Bye.

01:05:07.000 Bye.

01:05:07.780 Bye.

01:05:09.040 Bye.

01:05:09.360 Bye.

01:05:09.600 Bye.

01:05:10.200 Bye.

TRIGGERnometry - September 13, 2023

Trump Must Win to Avoid Prison - Scott Adams

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