Episode 2152 Scott Adams: Too Many News Stories To List, All Of Them Interesting. Grab Coffee & Join

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Coffee with Scott Adams. Is the best thing that's ever happened to you in the history of the world. Goodbye. And if you'd like to participate in the greatest thing that's ever happened, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen, jug or flaska vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like cold coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine day of the day. The thing that makes everything better. It's called simultaneous sip. It happens. Now. Go. Ah, that's pretty good. You know, there are some days when the news does not deliver, and then I've got not much to do. But today, the news is amazing. It's, like, all fun and interesting stuff. Are you ready for this? All right. Number one question people asked after seeing the video of RFK Jr on doing exercise with his shirt off. We're still talking about it. Which, by the way, was the most brilliant, probably the most brilliant political play of the year. Just taking his shirt off because he's running against somebody who's barely alive. That's a pretty strong play. It was a strong play, and it totally worked. But some people ask the following question. How is it possible to look like that when you're nearing 70, unless you're doing something like steroids? Right. Were you wondering that? Were you wondering if he was doing something illegal? Well, I'll give you a little insight on that. I was contacted by one of my normal Twitter persons that I talk to a lot, and my Twitter friend said that he was the same age, and he looks the same without a shirt. So apparently there are at least two of them. It's somebody I trust, somebody I've got a lot of interaction with. So I believe him. And this individual who said he also looks like this at the same age gave me his method. And testosterone, of course, is right at the top of the list. Testosterone replacement. And then there were half a dozen other, let's say, supplements, completely legal types, you know, doctor prescribed, that sort of thing. But apparently the. The. The technology exists to make normal people look like that. Is that amazing that that's not a fluke? It's not a fluke. He just did the things that people know how to do if they're in that, you know, exercise lifestyle. He was probably just a little more aggressive about it in the sense he's almost certainly supplementing in some way, but all of it would be legal. So if you're wondering if he's doing any weird steroids or anything. Doesn't seem to be necessary at all. But I've got a question for you. Doesn't testosterone change your behavior? Doesn't it? How could it not? Wouldn't it make you more aggressive? Let me ask you this. Do you think that RFK Jr. Would be running for president at his current age if he had not taken testosterone? Do you think he might have said, you know, gardening would be fun, I think I'll do some gardening. I don't know, those Kennedys are pretty adventurous. So maybe he would have. But the question you should ask yourself is, is too much testosterone a problem? Now he doesn't have any indication, there's nothing about his personality that would suggest that he, he's pretty level headed. But I think you'd have to ask that question if you had a president that you had elected before testosterone treatment. And then hypothetically, that president said, hey, I think I'm going to get some of this testosterone. Wouldn't it change how they acted? Wouldn't it make you more likely to go to war? It's a real question. Yeah. We always act like the chemicals in our body are having no impact on us. Of course they are. All right, CNN got exclusive access to the Trump audio tape. How do you think they did that? It's the audio tape where he's shuffling the so called classified documents. How do you think they got that? Well, this morning the New York Times says they also have access to it. Huh? CNN and the New York Times, they have access to this top secret document. Let's see, does Fox News have access? No, no. Breitbart. Breitbart. No, Breitbart didn't have access. Interesting. Isn't that interesting? It's almost as if the deep state is on one side. It almost feels like that. Well, anyway, here's a little trick you can do to determine how brainwashed we all are. Go to the media and try to find the transcript, the text written transcript from the Trump audio because it's pretty short. So it'd be very easy for anybody to print the full transcript. It'd be about this big on a page, you know, just maybe six inches of size on a page. Very easy. Right? Go search for that, see if you can find it. I did. Couldn't find it. The best I could find is, you know, a little bit, you know, this and that and I pieced it together. I had to listen to it myself this morning. I listened to it myself and then wrote it down. So I'm going to read it to you now. Why do you think it's so hard to find the transcript? Why do you think? Same reason it was so hard to find the. For a while, it was hard to find the transcript of Trump's comments in Charlottesville. Here's how this is played. If the news can tell you there's an audio tape that they've heard but you're too busy to listen to, they win, because then they just describe it any way they want and you don't have the time to listen. So you accept their characterization of it because they wouldn't listen to an audio tape and then just lie to you about it when you could just listen to it yourself? Right. They wouldn't do that, would they? Do you think the news would just lie to you about what's on this little audio tape when you could so easily just listen to it and find out they were lying? No, of course they would. We live in a world where they'll do anything that's not even slightly outside the bounds of normal behavior. Of course they would. Are they doing that? Well, I would say they're not lying. I haven't heard anybody say he said something he didn't say, or vice versa. But have you heard that they left anything out of the story that's actually in it? Yeah, there's something in the story that's way bigger, way bigger than some documents. So here's what I took from it. So this is just what Trump was saying. So this is not the other side of the conversations with people in the room. But he started out by saying, these are bad sick people. And we found out in context later that the bad sick people are generals and people who want him to go to war. That seems like the context. So he goes, these are bad sick people. I'll show you an example. And then he says, he said, I wanted to attack Iran. It turns out that was General Milley is the he. So Milley said, I wanted to attack Iran. He shuffles his paper and he goes, this is him, all right? This is off the record. Defense, Defense Department and him. So he's saying that the Defense Department and General Milley are, you know, acting similarly. And he says, this wasn't done by me. This being the piece of paper in his hands. This. This was not done by me. It was done by him. Meaning, Millie, pages long. So Trump is saying, it's a document that's pages long. It's not a summary, it's pages long. At one point, I wondered if it was A summary, but it's pages long. And then Trump says, this totally wins my case. Do you remember what the news reported as the case that he's winning? Do you remember that was a big story, the case that he won. What's the argument? It's not even in the news. The news is leaving out the entire context of the audio. Do you know why they're doing that? Well, it's pretty obvious once you listen to it. All right, here it goes. He goes, this totally wins my case. So in other words, there's some conversation about Trump being bad in some way and we're going to find out what that is. Accepted as secret, confidential. Oh, look at this. You attack. He wanted to attack Iran. So apparently it was a document from Milley showing an indication that he wanted to attack Iran. That's at least that's Trump's characterization. We don't know if that's what it was, but that's how Trump characterized it. He says, this was done by the military and given to me. So. And then he says, as president, I can declassify, but I can declassify, but now I can't. That's an interesting story because he's got his tense. He's confused the tenses here. I wonder if that's a defense because he says, as president, I can declassify, but now I can't. And how did CNN characterize that? As president, I can declassify, but now I can't. So he's called the document secret and confidential. And then he said, as president, I can declassify. And he says, but now I can't. Does that say he didn't declassify it? Because that's how it's being presented on cnn. They're telling you the. That he's admitting he didn't declassify it. Let me read it again and see if you can hear the confession. So these are just the two parts about the document. They're taken out of order. But the other stuff isn't relevant to that. Let's say he said accepted his secret, confidential. So he's called the document secret and confidential. So I would agree that that's probably a fact. Would you? The document probably is secret and confidential. I doubt he'd say it if it were not. Probably it's labeled right on top there. So he's already said it's secret and confidential, but then later he says, as president, I can declassify, but now I can't. Does that say he didn't declassify it? Listen again and See if you can hear him say he did not declassify it, because that's what CNN says. They say he's saying it in his own words right here, but I'm not hearing it. He's saying it is secret and confidential, but then he's saying, as president, I can declassify, but now I can't. One interpretation which is valid is that he didn't declassify it and he knows it. So that's what CNN is saying. But did he say that? It's not what he said. He's saying two separate things which could both be true. One is that it's secret and confidential, which doesn't mean it's not declassified, does it? Aren't those different. Couldn't it be declassified but still be secret and confidential? In other words, could he have declassified it for his own use? But it's still secret and confidential from the rest of the world and he would plan to keep it that way, but it would be declassified if he had declassified it. So simply saying that he could do it then, but he can't do it now doesn't say he didn't do it. It's just a statement of fact. I don't know. But here's the biggest part of the story. Here's the biggest part of the story that is not even included. What is a bigger story? That a president potentially took some classified documents that he could have declassified with a. Not even a wave of his hand. He could have just walked out the door and had people watch him. That would be declassifying, in my opinion, given that the declassification thing is not required. You know, constitutionally there are. There are procedures, and that would not be the procedure. But the president gets to decide what the procedure is. That's my understanding. So if he said, watch me walk out the door with this box of secrets, he would be declassifying it by definition. Now, that's my take on it, because there's a lack of standards that, you know, that are constitutionally described that would make it any different. So that's the argument anyway. But here's the bigger. The bigger story is not that he may have taken some classified documents. The bigger story is that the military industrial complex was trying to frame the president. How's that not the story? Here he is claiming. Now it's a claim. I'll just say it's the claim. So Trump is alleging that his generals and the military were trying to goad him into war with Iran and they were framing him for the one who wanted to go to war, that's a much bigger story. Am I wrong? And then here's the kicker. Taking that document may have been the way he protected himself. He may have taken that document specifically to win his argument. That's what he's saying. He says, this totally wins my case. The case being the argument that he was never wanting to go to war with Iran, but his military was urging him to do so. Now, the counter to that, which is a good counter, is that the military draws up attack plans for lots of places, any place you might want to attack. They probably have one for Russia. They probably got one for Taiwan, if there's a Taiwan war. And so, of course, they'd have one for Iran. So is it news that the military had a document that described a battle plan? No, that part's not news, but we have not seen that document. The document might go far beyond describing what an attack might look like. It might be recommending it. That's what I mean. Trump is kind of suggesting that it was given to him as a recommendation or, let's say, a strong suggestion, or maybe they were trying to influence him to do it. That would be a little different than just saying we have a bunch of attack plans that are always in the file. So here's the file of the Iran attack plan. That'd be really different, wouldn't it, if it was just the file, you know, the basic attack plan. We just like to update you. We always have one of these cooking. It's always on the back burner. Don't take it too seriously. Or did they say, we really need to be looking at this? I mean, we should get serious about this. That's very different. So Trump may have used it to protect himself, which to me, if I were on a jury, that would matter. To me, it would still mean that he had technically broken a law. But the context in which he was caught breaking the law, he is also caught, allegedly caught, giving you his reason for breaking it. And his reason for breaking it would be to protect himself from a military industrial complex that's victimizing us all. All right. Have I ever told you that I never get a message unless it's an emergency? Right the fuck now. Right the fuck now. Not in 10 minutes. No, not in an hour. Because I already said I'll get back to you in an hour. No, it's got to be right now. Right fucking now. So I've got to send a text right now, right in the middle of my live stream. I've never gotten I don't think I ever get texts or just saying, how you doing? I feel like it's. Everything is, you got to do something fucking right now at seven in the morning. How is that even possible? How do so many people live a life that they're creating an emergency for other people? Live is streaming. Wait, I hate it when people make their problem my problem all the fucking time. So something. And you know, you know what you have to do, right? You just have to cut them out of your life. You just got to get them out of your life. You can't have people like that who are throwing themselves into one emergency after another and you're the only one who can save them. Jesus fuck. All right, enough about that. You all saw the video of the Patriot Front, the alleged group of racists who got unmasked by the Proud Boys. At least some of them did. And now we're doing the thing where we're trying to find out if those unmasked people are Feds or if they were at other events. Allegedly, and I don't believe this to be true, but allegedly, one of the unmasked Patriot Front people look like one of the feds at January 6th who was doing some sketchy stuff to make it look like, you know, he was taking down a window so people could crawl through. Something like that. I would say at this stage in the reporting, I don't believe any of that. I don't believe that they have accurately identified the unmasked Patriot Front guy as somebody else. Now, Elon Musk weighed in on that tweet about that point, and it sounded like he wasn't quite convinced that they had figured out who that guy was. But he said Musk tweeted, it looks like one is a college student. And then he says, parenthetically, who wants to join the government? I don't know how he would speculate that somebody that he just saw their face wants to join the government. I don't know where he got that. And he says another is maybe an antifa member, but nonetheless a probable false flag situation. Situation. So I agree with the last part. There's something about the Patriot Front that doesn't look genuine at all. It's just nobody on the right thinks they look real and there's nothing about them that seems real. Everything about them looks like an op of some kind or they're funded by somebody sketchy or something, but they definitely don't look like they are what they present to be. So that's all we know about that. Speaking of Musk There's a lot of conversation about depression being potentially over diagnosed in the U.S. but Musk agrees that depression is over diagnosed in the US if you haven't seen the data, the percentage of people in America who take antidepressants is like through the roof. And other countries that you would imagine would be comparable, very little. I mean, just a gigantic difference. And one of the differences is maybe we allow direct advertising from big pharma, so it could be that we're just more hypnotized to buy the stuff. And in other countries they don't allow the brainwashing, so it doesn't happen. So I don't know, maybe more Americans are being helped by the meds. That's possible, but it doesn't look like it. So here's the weird part is that Musk is saying that ketamine might be a better solution and he has friends who seem to be benefiting from it. Now we're in some dangerous territory here, aren't we? So I do love the fact, it's one of my favorite things that Elon Musk gives you, not he gives you his opinion. I respect that way more than, let's say Zuckerberg, because Zuckerberg I think is trying to run a company without at least stating his opinion too much. He's obviously very Democrat, but he's not like talking about it. It's not something he's putting out there. But I love the fact that Musk does because he's one of our smarter citizens and his opinion at least gives you sort of a stake in the ground around which you can argue or debate. But it's like a really good stake in the ground. And so he, so he takes this topic, which I think is vital, I think is a vital one for the well being of the country. Ketamine and the over, over prescription of depression meds. Huge, huge topic. And he can just send a tweet with a few sentences and he just sticks that, sticks a fork in the ground and says, let's talk about this. Very good. This is like ideal citizen behavior. This is Internet dad stuff done right? If you say I'm agreeing with him about ketamine, I'm not doing that, I'm not doing that. I'm saying it's a vitally important question. And he's making sure that you're giving it the right amount of attention. You love him. I think the dumbest fucking thing that people say when somebody makes a comment about another public figure is you love him, you love him. You're in his cult, you just stop doing it. Really? You should just stop doing that. Or is that maybe just an NPC thing? It's not a real person thing. You love him, you want to marry him. All right. Speaking of mental health, I saw Rob Henderson tweet about Jonathan Haidt. I think it was a substack in which he was talking about the percentage of people with mental health problems in America. Did you know that 56% of liberal white women aged 18 to 29 have been diagnosed with a mental health condition? And if you look at the graph of the young females who have been diagnosed with mental conditions, it's up here. If you look at the number of conservative women of all ages who have been diagnosed with mental problems, it's way down here. Now, I think it's sought treatment for not diagnosed. I think it's sought treatment for now. Can we stop pretending this is political? We really don't have a political difference in this country. And I think that we're also poorly served by the people who are saying that it's rich versus poor. It is. It's very much rich versus poor. But that's mostly not what's bothering us. Mostly it's mostly mental illness is mostly mental illness that the people in the Democrat Party can't call out because they're too woke. They can't say, you know, I see where you're going. It sounds woke, and we like woke. But honestly, I think that's coming from my mental illness. I'm not sure you thought that through. And why is it that somebody like Vivek or Trump can't call that out directly? Just to hold up that chart and say, see these people? Not seeking mental health problem solutions. These are conservatives. Somewhere in the middle, you got the independents. They're not very high either. But then look at this. This is the party we're running against. Over half of the young women who are the dominant voice in the Democrat Party, in my opinion, over half of them have a mental illness. And the reason that they're comfortable as Democrats is. Is what? The reason they're comfortable as Democrats is. They all have mental problems. No, that's not fair. That's not fair. That was just a joke. No, the Democrats are more the. We're going to accept everybody as they are. The Republicans are more like, we're going to accept everybody who doesn't bother us and obeys the law. A very different standard. Accept everybody versus accept everybody who leaves us alone and obeys the law. Completely different. So I think the Democrats accidentally Became a breeding ground for mental illness. Because if you had a mental illness, you could go there and you'd fit right in and people wouldn't even notice. They literally wouldn't notice. Literally. No joke to talk like. Talk like Biden now. No joke, people. No joke. You could have a pretty serious mental illness, become a Democrat, and nobody would notice because you'd fit right in. And that's. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. I'm trying to actually accurately describe the situation. I do believe he was fit in. I don't think people would notice. So the fact that we don't call that out for what it is, massive mental health problem. Now, what is causing it? And do people become Democrats because they have it, or does being a Democrat give it to you? Which way does the causation work? I'm thinking maybe both ways. If you're a Republican, you've got a game plan, don't you? You still have to execute. Let's say you're a young woman and you're a Republican. Don't you know exactly what you need to do to be happy? You do, right? You can make a list of all the things you need to be happy. It'd be like, find a good guy, get married, have a family, have some kids, you know, go to church, whatever it is. But you're. You'd have a list, all the things to make you happy. All right, I'll do the things on this list, and sure enough, I'm happy. But if you're a Democrat, everything goes. You know, traditional family is just one way to go. Religion is unnecessary. So you wake up every morning and you don't have a mission, you don't have a path. What would make you happy? If you were a Democrat and a woman. If you're a woman and a Democrat, what would make you happy? I don't know. I mean, I actually don't know. Because the things that make Republican women happy are getting married and having a family and, you know, the relationships, etc. They're. God, doing the right thing, having a good life, you know, doing the best you can with your character. And that makes people happy. Exercise. How about exercise? Exercise even is somewhat becoming a Republican thing, which is weird. I mean, not completely, but in terms of the way we talk about it, it sometimes is. Not saying there. I'm not saying there are no Democrats who exercise. So don't get excited in capital letter me. All right, let's talk about the Musk and Zuckerberg cage match. I just love everything about this story, just everything about it is funny. So now Elon Musk's mom, May, has weighed in and she's cancelled. She's canceled the fight. She's canceled it. Now, Elon Musk is not aware that it's canceled, and neither is Zuckerberg, but May's canceled it. And by the way, I love the way she handled it. She just says, no, it's canceled. It's not happening. She knows she has no authority to cancel anything, but she's pulling her mom authority and she's saying it that way. No mom authority. This is canceled. Now, I would be so happy if Elon canceled it because his mom said so. Now, I don't think that's going to happen. I think that's very unlikely, but I think that would just be cool. Like, it would be a. It would just be a fun way to end it. But anyway, Maye Musk suggested that instead of a physical battle, they have a battle of words. So they'd have some kind of a contest. There'd be a battle of words, maybe an insult battle. And I thought, well, if it's going to be an insult battle, he's going to need a coach. So I volunteered. Who better to help Elon Musk write some good insults? I mean, it's really sort of my. Sort of my sweet spot. But I saw that some MMA fighter also offered to coach Elon Musk, and Elon Musk accepted. He accepted coaching from MMA star. I didn't recognize his name, but. So he's still acting like he's serious, which is perfect. So I don't know how serious he actually is, or Zuckerberg either. I don't know how serious they both are. They're both playing it like it's serious, which is exactly the right thing to do for both of them. Exactly the right thing because it just makes him look good, just makes it look tough, gives him some attention. Reminds us that Zuckerberg is a jiu jitsu guy. Reminds us that Musk might be more of a badass than you think. You know, he's not just all about the thinking and the math. He might actually be able to throw a punch. So I think it just. Everybody wins. I would like to see them not get hurt. I like that. I don't want to see him get hurt, but it's a wonderful story. All right, let me test your memory. This is going to be a memory test. We'll see how you do. Do you remember that Ron DeSantis is running for President? Anybody? Anybody remember that? His name is Ron DeSantis. DeSantis. Have you heard that name? I believe he's running for president. And the process he's used to run for president is he's. He's going to act exactly like the most boring cubicle employee in that movie Office Space. Yeah. So he's telling you that he would be, as a president of the United States, he would make a very good governor of a state because he's still saying that he's going to be really effective and efficient and get things done. I'm effective. I'm so efficient. In Florida, we got a lot of things done. I mean, it looks like he's not even trying, but apparently that's what trying looks like. Now, let me say again, I think he's been a really good governor and I think the skills of a governor are somewhat different. I don't mind when my government gets. When my governor gets all wonky. I would like a little bit more of that in my state. You tell me. I would love to see Gavin Newsom just get all wonky and talk about nuclear energy and, you know, how we're going to have to build a dam here and do some really, like, on the ground work. I'd love to hear DeSantis talk about work. DeSantis just talks about how bad the others are. DeSantis does the work. So let me be clear. If DeSantis became president, I would be comfortable because he is somebody who does the work. He's a qualified, serious, no nonsense, effective executive, could be a great president. I just don't know how he could win because he's just too boring. He's not crazy enough. He doesn't know how to get your juices flowing. Every time I listen to him, I'm like, all right, I don't remember anything you said. So he needs to build a wall or do something that's got a little more visual or fear persuasion or something. Got to get our attention. All right. James o' Keefe is making some news with his new organization, omg. He says he's got evidence that we haven't seen yet. There will be evidence that over 60% of the money involved in what he calls a massive illegal American political donation funding scheme is apparently coming from China. What? Secret illegal political money flowing into the Democrat party from China. 60% of it going into at least some area of funding. I don't know. Now, does that sound true? Do you think that's going to pan out? 60% of the money involved in this massive illegal. So I guess I guess there's two categories of things. One is that there's some illegal category of funding. So it's not all the funding for the Democrats. It's just there's a category of illegal funding. And within that category of illegal funding, 60% of it, allegedly, according to James O', Keefe, is coming from China. Do you think that's going to pan out? I think I bet against it. It's not impossible. Not impossible. In fact, I know it's very. There's a very good chance it's true. I'd say the chance of it being true are solid, but I would still bet against it. I don't know. There's something about it that's not quite tripping my credibility trigger here. But maybe, I mean, he says he has the goods. He says we're going to see it. So maybe, yes, that's what makes James o' Keefe interesting. Lots of provocative claims. And every now and then he's got the goods. So keep an eye on that. All right. Reuters did a little analysis. Didn't come out maybe the way they hoped they were looking for which presidents, in all the history of the United States, which presidents are descended from slaveholders? Which presidents, And I think they might have been disturbed to learn that every single president of the United States, including Obama, was descended from slave owners. In the case of Obama on his mother's side, there was one exception. One exception. There's only one American president who is not been descended from slave owners. See who that is. Donald Trump. Donald Trump. He is the only president who is not descended from slave owners. Now, don't you think he should mention that? Don't you think he should mention that? I think so. I think he should mention it. Not that it means anything. All right. Doesn't mean anything to me personally. It means nothing whatsoever. That somebody was descended from somebody. Doesn't mean anything. I don't care that the KKK were Democrats 50 years ago. I don't care. That was a long time ago. But it's a good fun political point. All right. Jonathan Turley is a great writer, of course, and lawyer talking about the Hunter defense. So it looks like Democrats are trying to float the idea that if Hunter did anything bad, such as lying, that his father was sitting next to him when he was extorting some Chinese guy on the phone, that everything he did that was bad might have been done under the context of him being an addict. And so you should go easy on him. It's basically just all part of him being an addict, which he's now recovered from, I think. I don't know. But as Turley points out, the Hunter was an addict. Defense has one problem, which is they've also been presenting him as a capable businessperson who earned every penny he got by being on the board of Burisma. He can't be both. He can't be the addict who is so ann of it that he has no control over his actions. But he also earned every penny he got with these overseas companies by doing his good works of some kind. It was a little. That's a little bit of a stretch, a little hard sell. Anyway. Turtle is great. All right, so now we've got a situation where We've got this WhatsApp message discovered in which Hunter seemed to be soliciting a bribe from China and saying that his father was in on it. That's the indication. Doesn't mean it's true. It's just allegations. At the same time, we've. What a coincidence. At the same time, we've got this audio about Trump's handling of the classified documents, which some say makes him look like he's confessing, which I think is a little murky, but that's the story. Now, here's what this boils down to, and I'm not making this up. The primary reason that Biden and Trump are likely to run against each other is the. It's the only way either of them can stay out of jail. They both need to pardon themselves. It's a pardon election. We're seeing which one of them gets to pardon themselves and stay out of jail. Am I wrong? I don't think either of them would be running for office if they didn't need to stay out of jail. And, you know, Trump may be thinking differently, I think. I mean, Trump may be running for revenge as well, but you don't think it matters to him that he has all these legal difficulties. And it sure would be convenient if he also happened to be the only person that can pardon somebody. Wouldn't that be convenient? I think that history is forcing us to find out if a president can pardon him or herself. Don't you think Trump's going to test that? And Biden might test it, too. If Biden stays in office, he'll test it. But I think that Trump, if he went into office, the first thing he'd do is pardon himself from everything, and everybody would be fine with it. Just get rid of all that stuff. He just won the election. Well, so just think about this situation. If you're an American Just think about this. In the, let's call the second tier of candidates, you've got Vivek Ramaswamy, Republican. You've got RFK Jr. Democrat. I would be completely happy with either of those two people as my president. I think they're in it for the right reasons. They're both brilliant, they're both patriots. They have some policy disagreements, but not the crazy kind. You know what I'm saying? If you saw Vivek and RFK Jr debate, you wouldn't find much difference because both of them are factual based. And I think both of them would change their minds right in front of you if the data, if some new data arrived, I think both of them would publicly change their minds with better data. How much better can you do? Right. As a, if you wanted to have a president, could you do better than somebody who's completely a patriot? No doubt about it. Hugely talented. Hugely talented. Does not have, you know, any kind of a past. That's going to be a problem. Right. I think RFK Jr. Has a really interesting past, but it's kind of personal stuff. There's not really anything that bothers us. He's got the vaccine stuff. He has to explain. But I told you how he could do that pretty easily. So our second tier of candidates, and I would include DeSantis in there. A solid, solid patriot, a solid operator. Right. Any one of these candidates, and you could add three or four more, any one of them I would be really happy to have as my president, Democrat or Republican in this case. But the two who are running are the only two who are a problem. Tim Scott. Tim Scott. Highly qualified candidates. But think about it. The two who are likely to be in the general election are the two who are probably running, at least in part, to pardon themselves for major crimes felonies. Now, in my opinion, Trump's alleged felonies are a little more trivial. If everything said about both people is true, Trump's would be trivial in my opinion, whereas Biden's is pretty serious, in my opinion. It's all alleged. So we're just guessing at this point. But how did we get here? How did we get. So we have some of the best, solid, real candidates, genuine candidates. Best. The best group we've ever had. And they won't get to run because the two top people are trying to stay out of jail. In part. In part. I mean, I don't think that could be worse. Got it. And maybe something will change, you know, if, if Biden dropped out and whoever was leading in the polls Promised to pardon them both. Would Trump drop out? Probably not. He's a fighter. I think he'd want to win. Yeah. All right. Probably not. I saw some reporting from Jesse Waters on Fox News saying that Hunter allegedly paid for Joe Biden's burner phone. While Joe was in office as vice president, he had a burner phone. So I guess Biden had three phones. He had a personal phone, a business phone, and a burner. You should put him in jail just for having a burner phone. I don't think that's illegal. But if your president has a burner phone. Next. Let me say that again. If your candidate has a burner phone for anything. Next. Maybe Vivek and RFK Jr have burner phones, but I don't think so. You know what I think they do instead? I think instead they don't say things on phones that are criminal behavior. Just a guess. Just a guess. I'll bet Vivek doesn't need a burner phone because he never does anything illegal. And if he did, he wouldn't do it on the phone. Isn't that a better way to go? Maybe somebody who doesn't need the burner phone. I mean, that should be like a minimum requirement for your candidate. So have you ever felt you needed a burner phone? If the answer is yes, you don't need to ask any further questions if you've ever had a burner phone. Next. All right, there's some more allegations, this time from Kanakoa the Great, who's got a great website and his threads. I don't know who he is, but his threads are more insightful than other people, which makes me very curious what his real identity is. I don't know how he continuously gets more scoopy material than other people, but he says, I'll just read what he says in his tweet. In a groundbreaking revelation, it has come to light that Dr. Peter Hotez, he's the one who RFK Junior wants to debate. An esteemed vaccine researcher has been entangled in a web of funding, collaboration and research with Chinese military scientists potentially involved in the development of COVID 19. The intricate tale weaves together key Chinese military virologists and culminates in the smoking gun evidence surrounding Covid 19's notorious furin cleavage site. Now let's do an analysis on here to pick the propaganda. All right. Propaganda doesn't come from just one side. If you saw the Democrats say a story that something had come to light and that somebody was, quote, entangled in a web of Funding, collaboration and research with, you know, bad characters. China. And there was another word here that I'm looking for. Potentially, potentially involved in the development of COVID 19. Sounds a little sketchy, doesn't it, that it's about there's a definite connection to somebody who's potentially connected to something. That's like not a connection. It would be a connection if you knew they were connected, that's a connection. But to say that somebody is potentially related to something says you don't know. That's like we cannot determine there's a connection. I feel like this was written in an anti Dr. Hotez way. That seems deeply unfair. And I'm not saying that there's nothing to it. I don't know, I'm just saying that, boy, you wouldn't want to see your own name in this, would you? Imagine if this is you and you get on social media and you see that somebody's accusing you of doing this dirty work with Chinese military scientists. But the strongest word to connect you is the word potentially. Potentially they were working on COVID 19. That's really. That's seriously messed up, in my opinion. Might be true. I mean, there might be something to it, but I don't know. I think you need a little more than that to go public. Rasmussen did a poll on RFK Jr talking about his chances. And nearly half of voters have a favorable opinion of RFK Jr. And among Democrat voters, more than a third think he could win the nomination. One third think he could win the nomination. That's bigger than it used to be. I'll bet. I'll bet it's grown so far. He's doing the best campaign that I've seen ever. Maybe ever. Yeah, I'm going to double down. I think RFK Jr. Is running the best campaign that I've ever seen. Now he's doing what Vivek is doing. So those two guys have a lot in common, in a good way. So. That's weird. All right. Just a weird meme. So anyway, I've got a feeling that RFK Jr's willingness to talk to anybody, his viral videos, he went down to the border. So far, the expense for RFK Jr. The expense is him holding his phone out. That's his expense. And travel, basically just personal travel and him talking to his phone. So he goes down to the border, holds up his phone, does a selfie video, and it's very good. Made national news. Identified him with concern for the border, which you don't expect from a Democrat in this day. And Age. So he went counter to the Democrat profile of trying to avoid that issue. He went right at it. So that makes news. That's a man bites dog because Democrat is not supposed to go to the border and say it's a problem. Perfect. And all it cost him was travel. And he held up his phone. That was it. Then he does this video. He releases a video of him working out with his shirt off. Super effective. It's like the thing we all talked about as much as that stupid submarine, right? Totally effective. And then he goes on every podcast, including ones that are going to give him a hard time, left or right. And the other candidates are looking like cowards. Except for Vivek. Right. Vivek, I think, is modeling. I feel like RFK Jr might be borrowing from Vivek, who's sort of the OG of using the podcast as a primary push. So great job on campaigning. So I would expect him to keep rising. I'll say again that somebody said I was in the bag for RFK Jr. And that's not true. I'm still endorsing Ramaswamy. Now. I'm a single issue voter on fentanyl, so that's a big part of it. But Ramaswamy is great. And I would say that my ideal situation for the next presidential election, and maybe you could agree with me, the ideal situation is you're happy no matter who wins. Have you ever been in that situation before? I was in that situation once when Gore ran against Bush. I actually would have been felt about the same no matter which one won, which is why I didn't care too much that it went to Bush. I preferred Gore. I know you don't like him on climate change, but I always thought he was a serious guy. Climate change. You can have your questions, and I'll give you that. But that was the closest I came to thinking that the candidates were kind of a coin to us. Now, as it turns out, Bush started a major unnecessary war. Maybe Gore would not have. Maybe Gore would not have. I don't know. So, but anyway, I'd love, you know, a contest between RFK Jr and Ramaswamy. I feel pretty comfortable with the country, whichever way that went. Now I'm going to give you my most provocative thought. Are you ready? If you're a Democrat and you don't like Republicans, who do you want to be your president? Seems like a simple question, right? You're a Democrat, you don't like your Republicans are doing all the wrong policy stuff. So who do you want to be your president? A Democrat, right? Obviously. Obviously a Democrat. No, you're wrong. That would be the dumbest way to play it. If you don't like Republicans and they're your biggest problem, everything the Republicans doing is a problem. Your best case scenario is a Republican that changes the Republicans. That's your best case scenario. It's called Trump. Do you remember? Actually, a lot of you are. Most of you are probably right leaning, so you don't remember this at all. But let me tell you, Republicans used to be a lot scarier. Do you know that? Are you aware of that? Republicans used to look like the crazy ones because they seem more warlike. Crazy, right. Trump changed that. Trump turned the Republicans into the anti war party. He did that. I think he did that alone. Right. And that was one of the big reasons I liked him because he was going to take some of the crazy out of the Republicans. Now, I'm going to offend some of you now, but it has to be done in the interest of, you know, being useful and honest. It has to be done. Twenty years ago, the Republicans looked a little too religious. And by that I mean we didn't care. Not we, but other people didn't care what they believed. They just didn't want that belief to become their policies. They didn't want policies that were religiously inspired. Abortion is kind of a special case because it's sort of a life and death situation. There's nothing like it. Don't make any analogies to abortion or the Holocaust. There's nothing like them. So any analogy to the Holocaust or abortion just fails immediately because they're too unique. Now I'll make the same argument. So the argument about Trump is he took the crazy out of the Republicans and made me very comfortable enjoying Republicans. I would say it changed me because I had always been policy wise, I'd always been pretty liberal, let people do what they want to do. But the Republicans were scary to me because they were saying, God is telling me to do this and I don't like that. I don't like that. I want you to tell me why you want to do it and give me reasons and risks and benefits and show me the budget and tell me what's going to break if you do it. I like that. That's what Trump does. Trump tells you why he's doing it. Here's why I'm doing this. Okay, good. Don't tell me that God told you to do it. Then I get scared because I don't know if your God's my God. I don't Know which God you're listening to, which demon sounding like a God is talking to you. But that's scary stuff. Trump got rid of all of that while still being respectful to religion. Very respectful to religion, which I like. I like being respectful to religion. So I think Trump normalized the Republican Party. That's what I think. If you had been a Democrat, the best possible president you could have had would have been Trump, and you got what you wanted. I think now RFK Jr. Maybe could do the same thing to Democrats, because the Democrats have been captured by the actually literally, medically, clinically mentally ill part of the party. There's no doubt about that. They've been captured by the mentally ill part of the party. RFK Jr. Is not crazy. If he were to win, he would be the Democrat. I want to be the president, because he would fix Democrats. You get that? He would fix Democrats. I want them fixed just like I wanted Republicans fixed. So for me, I could live with that situation, even not lining up with all of his policies necessarily. I don't know if I do, actually. Maybe I do. If he explained all his policies in some detail, maybe I'd like him. But it's not about policy. It's just about we have two candidates that can take the crazy animal sides, and that would be good. All right, There's a viral video of a bunch of Russian women in some big gathering, dancing and celebrating in Moscow. And I think the celebration was related to maybe Prigozhin being pushed away or something. But instead of commenting on the politics of it, the Internet has decided to comment on the weight of the women. That became the story, and the reason it became a huge comment is there were no overweight women in this enormous crowd. There weren't any. Or I'll say there are no obese women. There were no obese women in this huge, gigantic crowd of women. What's up with that? Do you think they're eating different food over there? What do you think's going on? Well, they're definitely taking fewer pharma products. That's a fact. Right. America just has tons of products. I would argue that also in America, weight has gone through a psychological change here, so that the be okay with your body people are making a lot of progress. The people who are saying, you know, being overweight is, you know, just a personal choice. Leave me alone. They've. Yeah, the fat acceptance. I think fat acceptance has become normal in America. And the obvious predictable impact of that would be more people saying, oh, you mean I can just not work out and people won't mock me. I can just buy two seats on the plane. And that's acceptable now. And it is. I mean, it's more acceptable than at any time in history. So you're always going to get more of whatever you incentivize and less of whatever you put some friction on. Now, if you're in. If you're a young woman in Moscow, do you think that if you became obese, your outcomes in life would still look good and you think that's working out and nobody would mention it to you? I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the culture is there, but it's not clear to me if this is because their food source is cleaner, which may in fact be the case, their prescription drug taking is much less. Maybe. Or it might be in the culture where they're incentivized to look. Let's say incentivized to look like they're good for marriage. Meaning they look like they can produce children. So they're healthy. Yeah, could be. So I don't know what it is. There's probably a number of factors. But I remember looking at the. There's an old video that had been colorized from, I don't know, 1920s or some early time in New York. And you would see thousands of people walk by in the streets. Adults, and no obesity, none in all of New York City. You could just watch that video for, like, minutes at a time. People are walking by. There are no overweight people. I think that has probably mostly to do with food more than anything. So the Russian diet is obscene. Carbs. You know, the men don't seem that thin, do they? I don't think the men are that thin. Prigozhin looks like he's a little plump. All right. Anyway, that became a big thing. I've told you that I think AI is not as scary as other people. Right. Have you heard me say that? The AI? I think we're exaggerating the risk from it. Marc Andreessen has done a very long thread, and he's written about it, and his opinion is the same, that people are freaking out about AI but it's just code, and it's not going to attack you and it doesn't want to kill you. Now, his argument is that code doesn't have opinions, so it's not going to want anything. Right. So AI is not going to independently want to kill you because it didn't evolve to be competitive with humans. We want to kill each other because we evolved that way with those impulses. But AI isn't going to have any, you know, any 2 million years of evolution impulses in it. It's just going to be working with the facts. Now, of course, it's picking up some opinions from patterns and stuff like that, but they're not translating into, I want to kill you in a real way. Now. I don't think he addressed the accidental hypothesis. It's not that AI will want to kill you like it wants to compete with you and rub you out. I don't think that's a risk, honestly. Here's what I'd be worried about. I'd worry about an individual weaponizing it. That's a risk, right? You know, one individual having the power to change minds anywhere in the world through manipulating images and stuff, that's pretty scary. But I think we'll figure out how to work our way through it like we do with most things. So his opinion matches my own. At the top level, some of the details we might talk about. But at the top level, I agree with him that AI is going to be almost all positive. That's what I think. I think almost all positive. We will have to work hard to make sure the potential problems don't become real problems. But I feel we'll be fine. This would be, and I think Marc Andreessen was pointing this out. This would be like the hundredth time society saw something that was going to kill us all and then it didn't. This is probably just another one of those. Probably. Of course, that's also. Exactly. Famous last words. Somebody always. There should be an NPC coming in any moment now. It's like famous last words, but we're still here. So nobody's been wrong yet. Nobody who said we won't all die has ever been wrong ever in the history of the world. They've never been wrong. Sure, some civilizations crumbled, but not the whole world. All right, let's talk about Russia and Wagner. Probably some things have happened since I started the live stream. And so here's the update. There was some kind of plane that took off that some alleged might have progression on it heading to Belarus. Do you want to take bets on that? Do you think that the plane that left was carrying Prigozhin to Belarus? Put your bets down. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no. Maybe. I mean, anything's possible, right? If he's under arrest, you know, if, let's say Prigozhin is under the control of. Of Putin, let's say his forces are literally standing in the room with him. Then yes, then, yes, that might be exactly what happened. But if Prigozhin is only surrounded by his own troops and he got to decide what he did and what he didn't because he was hiding, I doubt he got on a plane and went to Belarus. That sounds. Jatia. Sounds very unlikely. And here's why. That would require him to be separated from his military. That's the only thing protecting him. So do you think he would get on a plane away from the only people who can protect him and go to another country that's controlled by his nemesis, Putin? And Putin has all the assets he needs there. He can make anything happen in Belarus and. And that he would go there on a plane without his military to protect him, and that maybe they'll follow up later and the military will catch up with him. Is that what you think? I don't think so. Unless he's the dumbest leader of a military of all time, no, he's definitely not going to separate himself from his military under these conditions. Now, at the same time. So I'm going to bet that he's not on the plane. Anybody want to take the other bet? You want to take a bet the other way? Now, I could be wrong and I wouldn't be shocked, but it seems unlikely. Unless there's something else about the story that we're not told. I don't see him getting on a plane without his military. Now, I saw a report that Russia is trying to take the heavy weapons away from Wagner. Do you think that's happening? Do you think Wagner is giving up its heavy weapons as we speak? Maybe some of them, because there are some of them that were not part of the alleged coup attempt. So maybe some of them. When Putin says that the Wagner people can go to Belarus with their leader, or they can join the military, or they could just go home to their family. Do you think they feel comfortable about that? Because I saw some smart people saying, if you put the Wagner people, the potential coup people, in with the regular army, the regular army will kill them because they were enemies a day ago. Or Putin will have them killed within the context of the military by just putting them in all the dangerous jobs. So joining the Russian military looks like a death sentence. What about just going home to their families? Do you think Russia is just going to let them go home to their families and get a regular job? And I doubt it. I think something bad will happen to them one way or the other. And if they went to Belarus, how Many of them could go, and they wouldn't be bringing their heavy weapons. So if Wagner goes without heavy weapons, what is Wagner? Wagner isn't really anything without heavy weapons. So I know it looks like all bad choices for them. I think they're going to be killed no matter what happens. All right, so my hypothesis still about what happened goes like this. I think I said this on the man cave, but I'll say it to you as well. I think that the. The intelligence agencies for NATO, so it could be, you know, the British intelligence, French, American, etc. I think that they intentionally were trying to stoke the division between Prigozhin and Putin because that's their job. Would you agree that that would be their job, to make sure that the Russians are fighting each other instead of Ukraine? Of course. So they probably exacerbated that, but it probably didn't need to be exacerbated that much. I mean, it could have happened on its own, but maybe they gave it a little push. Here's my speculation that has no evidence for it. If I were an intelligence agent and I'd gotten Prigozhin all worked up, but he didn't know what to do about being worked up, I would give him some suggestions. And here's how I would play it. I'd say, hey, Prigozhin, we have assets in the Kremlin. We totally know what's going on in that place. And by the way, there's a whole bunch of generals who are going to support you if you move, if you move on Putin. Every one of them, they're just waiting for the signal. The moment you move, they're going to switch sides. You won't even have to fire a shot. You'll basically just walk. You roll into Moscow, all the generals flip, boom, you're in charge. And don't contact them yourself. Whatever you do, whatever you do, don't try to talk to those generals yourself, because that will be detected. I mean, you can't even put one phone call to one of these people. We tell you are on your side because that's going to be detected. So trust us, we have listening and assets everywhere. As soon as you make your move, you're going to be massively supported by the Russian people. And by the way, we will work with you when you become the new leader and make sure you're successful, because you're not Putin. We'll absolve you of your past actions, and you'll be our guy now. You just have a successful Russia. So then Prigozhin says, all right, I've got a plan. They're all going to switch to my side. He starts going, and he finds out that they lied to him, that the intelligence agents did not have any assets in the Kremlin, or at least ones that were doing what they said, and that there was nobody going to change sides to them, except maybe Rostov, Van Don, one small place. So, yes, I'm making this all up. There's no evidence to suggest it. The reason I think it's possible, or even likely I would go as far as likely is that that's what I would do. That's what I would do if I were in the CIA, that's what I would do. Now, are you telling me that there's nobody in the CIA who's at least as smart as me, sitting here at my desk, having never been in the CIA? It's the obvious thing to do, isn't it? Am I wrong that it's the obvious thing to do, to tell them that it's going to work out if they do a civil war? Yeah, it'll work out great. We'll help you. I mean, to me, it seems obvious. So it may not be what happened, but if it didn't happen, then you should have some issue with your intelligence services, because they should have been doing that. Now, am I wrong about that? Check my work. They should have been doing that. I can't say they were, but would you agree they should have Everybody on the same page? We should have, at least. Right. And more and more. Okay, if you agree with should have, it's a very short distance to did. Very short distance. All right. We've now entered what I call the Highlander phase of the Russia situation. If you know the old movie and TV show Highlander, there were these people called Highlanders, who were immortal with the exception of if another Highlander cut off their head with a sword, all their secret powers from the one Highlander would be transferred to the winner of the fight, and then that one would be stronger. But in the end, the Highlanders would have to kill each other until there was only one left. So their little tagline was, there can only be one. In the end, there can only be one Highlander. Well, in my opinion, what's happening right now is that both Putin and Prigozhin are hiding as much as they can from everybody they can because they don't know who's got spies where, presumably Prigozhin has spies. Don't you assume there's at least somebody in the inner circle who's talking to him, I'm sure, because he was part of the inner circle. He was part of the inner circle, so of course he has sources. So don't you think that Putin is worried that if Prigozhin ever knew what building he was in and when, as long as Wagner still has heavy weapons, that building would be vaporized and it would be a decapitation strike. Right. If Prigozhin takes down Putin, there's a reasonable argument that Prigozhin is the next leader of Russia. It's just one missile. Do they have missiles? They must have some kind of assets that could kill him wherever he is. Now, the same would be true for Prigozhin. Don't you think that Putin has his winged monkeys looking for Prigozhin? Maybe he knows where he is. But don't you think they're gonna try to find him and at least follow him long enough to get the kill shot, whatever that looks like? Then they'll blame it on somebody else. But, I mean, they just have to put a bullet in them and say that, oh, it was a traitor, one of his own people shot him. I mean, it'd be easy to lie about it after it's done. So it wouldn't be hard to kill him. You just have to find him. So in my opinion, what's happening in Russia is that Prigozhin is hiding as hard as he can while looking as hard as he can for Putin. Putin is hiding as hard as he can while looking as hard as he can for Prigozhin. And it's just Highlander. Now it's just down to two people. They're looking for each other. They're going to kill the other one if they find them. It's just about whether you can hide better than the other for as long as possible. So remember, Putin is not being seen in public. And when he. When he is seen, it looks like it might be recorded so that his location is never known. So it's Highlander. We're literally down to two people trying to kill each other if they can find them, and they both have the assets to kill. All right, I saw one report, not a credible one, that the Ukrainians are breaking through everywhere, that the Ukrainians have finally successfully probed the line so much, and they've degraded them so much. And, of course, Wagner's gone. Maybe their morale is lower. We don't know, but it seems reasonable that it would be. And maybe Ukraine is getting ready for the big push real soon. Now, do I need to remind the NPCs that 100% of what you hear from Ukraine is not reliable, no matter the source. Does anybody need me to do that speech again or can we skip at this time? All right, let's skip it this time. All right. So that's about what's happened. Kind of an interesting day. Was a story I missed today. Well, thank you for asking, Dawson. I'm having a nice Tuesday. I hope you do, too. Highlander viewing party. Yeah, that sounds fun. Yeah, I think this was one of my best live streams. No doubt about it. Bruce Willis playing Prigozhin. Did you sleep well? Not bad. Yeah. Got up at 4. Ish. All right. Your assumptions were what? All right. I think I've done everything I need to do today and covered all the big stories. And I haven't seen Roseanne's special, so she has a Fox Nation comedy is special. Right. I just got a copy of Joshua Lysik's new book. Just got it. I'm going to take a look at that and then I'll give you some opinions on that. What? All right, that's it for now. Thank you, YouTube. Thanks for joining. Bye for now.