Episode 191 Scott Adams: Talking About Cohen, Manafort

Do, do, do, do hey, everybody, come on in here. It seems so long ago, perhaps several hours ago, in which I was complaining there's no news. Hey, what happened to those days when there were. There was no news. So suddenly we have a lot of news. Let's talk about it. I'll give you my flash opinions. Now, I like to talk about the news in the context of an average idiot who doesn't really understand the law or a lot of the details of these issues. So I'm going to come at it the same way you would probably. So let's talk about Manafort first. So I had predicted that based on what we knew from the jury's question about. A reasonable cause, that they had, or I'm sorry, reasonable doubt, that they had reasonable doubt. And sure enough, 10 of the 18 counts they were hung on. So the signals that they had sent were essentially correct. Now, it turns out that only being guilty of 8n of 18 counts in this case didn't help you a bit. Apparently it wouldn't have mattered if it had been one count, as long as he was guilty of that one count, he was going to go to jail for life unless he figures out some way out. But it's good to know because I made the prediction in front of you and in public, and I said that they're clearly signaling that they're at least partially hung, meaning on some of the counts. And sure enough, that was the case. All right. Now, it might be that Manafort will now get out of the news a little bit, and I suppose that would be good. But let's talk about Cohen. So Cohen pleads guilty to some banking fraud and then also said that he acted to do something on, or that he did a campaign contribution violation by acting on the direction and in coordination with the President. Now, the leap that people are making is that therefore, if he's pleading guilty to this, and he would certainly know that that clearly indicates that the President is also guilty of it, and therefore the President is in legal jeopardy and. Or jeopardy of being impeached if, you know, even if a sitting President can't be indicted, he could be indicted after, but he could be impeached before, if what Cohen says is true. And why wouldn't it be true? He's doing a plea bargain. But here's my question. I may not be summarizing it as well as I could, but I think you got the point. Here's my question. Why is it a campaign violation for the President to pay somebody to be quiet so that he'll look good when running for president. And the reason I'm wondering how that's a campaign violation, even if they talked about it in terms of the campaign? Because would it be a campaign violation to get plastic surgery so that you look better when running for office? Because I'm sure that's happened. Would it be a campaign violation to paint your house before you run for office? Because that would be to make you look better. It's your own money paying to spruce up something in your personal life. Would it be illegal to do anything that made you look good by either concealing or painting or rehabbing or fixing something up about your personal life? How in the world could that be illegal. If it's more than 10k? But here's the thing. What if the sum of all the things that a candidate did to make themselves look appealing was over 10k or over whatever is the reportable limit? It doesn't have to be the one specific expense. If the sum of it is all to make them look good to the public in their personal life, how could that ever be illegal? So I've got a feeling that there's got to be at least some argument that says people can spend money making themselves look good, which is different from hiring people to campaign and running ads on tv. Those are, you know, more unambiguously. Those are campaign expenses. But where's the limit of what you can spend just making yourself look good? If I get a personal trainer, do I have to add that to the list with the other things? What if I get cosmetic dentistry? What if Hillary wears Depends? Does she have to put that on the list and count that toward her, her campaign contributions? Where's the argument? Where do you draw the line? Now, there's a separate argument that whether what Cohen did of trying to conceal the nature of it, whether or not that was illegal, separately from the campaign part of it. But am I wrong that that doesn't feel like it should be something that's illegal? The fact that they've just automatically said you did this because you're running for president? I don't think that's a good enough reason. Because people pay for lots of stuff to make themselves look good if they're running for office, I'll bet that's not on their campaign stuff. So somebody is saying your apples to oranges stuff isn't working. Keep spinning. Now, you may have missed the introduction to this. So my commentary on this is, with the understanding with the audience and anybody else who watches this, that I'm speaking as an uninformed Non lawyer who is confused. So I'm not saying that I'm giving you my legal opinion that it shouldn't be legal. I'm just not being able to imagine how it could be illegal. Now, that's not the best part. Here's the best part. Let's say that that precedent is established, that if anybody who's in politics and running for election or planning to run for election or even planning to stay elected, if they give any money to their person, they're having their affair with their mistress, is that a campaign contribution? Just automatically, if some congressperson is paying somebody generously for not much of a job, for example, because there are other benefits, is that a campaign expense? Because if she talked because she wasn't happy about not getting money, or he does that make it by its nature a campaign contribution because it's keeping the politician looking electable? So you're confusing the candidate and the donor. Well, if the candidate is the donor in all of these examples, that's the real question. There's nothing illegal about paying someone to keep quiet. Well, I believe the charge is not that that's illegal. The charge is that it wasn't reported as a campaign contribution. I might be wrong about that. So here's the second part. So there's some talk that maybe the president wouldn't be indicted because he's a sitting president, but the Congress could impeach because it's a high crime and treason. Is that what it is? That is impeachable and so it isn't treason. But is it a high crime to give money to your mistress so that she doesn't cause trouble, does that feel like a high crime? Now, I realize that the context is a campaign contribution that was not reported. But if the campaign contribution that wasn't reported was something that was completely legal but not directly related to the campaign, even if it's technically a crime, is it a high crime? I mean, I've got. I don't know what qualifies as a high crime other than what I'm doing right now. This might be a high crime. All right, that was funny just to me, apparently. But I can't imagine that you could be impeached for it. And if that started, imagine the mutually assured destruction that would start because every Democratic congressperson who had ever given a dime to someone who wasn't a spouse is going to have a lot of explaining to do. Here's my prediction. It looks like a big news day that is very bad for the president. That's the way it's being presented certainly on cnn. I'm sure msnbc, Fox is a little bit all over the place here. I haven't watched enough of it to know what they're thinking. But I don't think any of this makes any difference in anything. It will certainly be news, but I don't know if anybody cares. And I certainly don't think it's going to get him impeached. And I don't think that there's much of a legal problem, even if they waited until he was no longer president. I think it's just a fine, isn't it? I don't know if you could even go to jail for that. So that was my phone buzzing, by the way, in case that sounded weird. Somebody just said they're on acid. So give me your opinion. And with the understanding that I'm not a lawyer, you're not a lawyer. We really don't understand the ins and outs of any of this stuff. But just give me your opinion. Do you think that it has to be considered a campaign contribution if the candidate does something to make themselves look good with their own money? Now, in this case, the president is allegedly. His money went to Cohen, who went to Stormy in a sort of clandestine way, but it's still the candidate's money. So how many of you think it's illegal for somebody to make themselves look good with their own money when they're running for Congress or running for any office? How many think it's illegal? There's somebody saying that I would defend him if he murdered a family member of mine. Let me stop and deal with this. So somebody just made a terrible accusation. They said that I would defend President Trump even if he had murdered a family member of my own. I think that's going too far. I'd really need to know which family member you're talking about. You know, maybe one of the unfavorable family members. I could go either way if it was somebody popular in my family. No way. No way I'm going to be okay with that. But somebody marginal, you never know. Just kidding. And if you paid attention at all, you would know that I don't defend the president on a number of topics, such as statues in health care and race relations and immigration, and I'm sure there are a few other things. But if you're looking for my consistency on this matter, I would refer to you to Bill Clinton, who I said much the same as I'm saying now, which is this is the least important thing we should worry about. I didn't care if Bill Clinton did things that Hillary didn't like. That was between them. And I don't care if President Trump does things that his family doesn't like. That's between them. But I do care if the economy is good and the world is doing well. All right, Your comments lag behind real time, so I'm just seeing your comments now to my bad joke. Yeah. What if somebody buys. Somebody said in the comments, what if the candidate buys a real expensive suit? Let's say a suit that costs over $1,000. What if. How about this? What do you think Hillary Clinton paid for her campaign wardrobe? I'm talking about all the clothing she wore over the course of the campaign. It was probably over 50,000. Over 100,000, would you say? And did the campaign pay for her clothes? Actually, I don't know the answer to that. Did the campaign pay for her clothes? Because if she paid for her own clothes, isn't that a campaign contribution? And did she note it? Maybe she did. You know, again, remember, the context is I'm the ignorant citizen who just doesn't know the answer to these questions. But these are the ones I'd like to know the answers to. But so far, based on what I've seen and what I've heard, the Manafort thing has no impact on the president. So the president's, like, free and clear. Manafort turned up nothing that mattered to the president. And then secondly. And then Cohen's thing looks like. I can see why they're saying it's technically a crime, but even if I knew it were illegal, the payment to Stormy, etc. And the thing with the National Enquirer to get the rights to the story, Even if I knew all that was true, and even if I knew it was technically illegal, is there a victim here? Who exactly is the victim of this crime? Would I care? And I think I'm fairly consistent in being soft on victimless crime, generally speaking, Yeah. What if he gets his teeth whitened? Is that a campaign expense? I actually do want to know the answer to these questions. I'm not just saying them, you know, to be provocative. I don't know the answer to this. Are you curious whether a campaign, you know, somebody campaigning can spend their own money to make themselves look good for the purpose of winning an election and that, you know, that. Is every bit of that a campaign expense? Where's the line? All right, I'm going to sign off for now. Must be more news coming. I'll talk to you later.