The Scott Adams School - 09/08/26 Joel Pollak Drops In With Erica & Marcela

Okay, we should be live, and then we'll kick in in a second. It's Tuesday. It feels like Monday.

Locals is on.

Good.

Doesn't it feel like Monday?

It does feel like Monday.

Yeah.

It feels like Sunday. It feels like, what am I doing? Okay, here we go over here. Good morning, everybody. How are you fine people? I'm just scrolling the chat real quick. Oh my gosh, all these pictures over here on Locals. Look, it's the ladies. It's Ladies Day. Uh, Joel should be here if, if Rumble is being sweet. Joel will be here soon. He's going to give us some updates, and I have some questions for him about, um, he's trying to take care of something in the Palisades and needs our help. So let's find out what's happening there too. Mark, Marcela, how are you this morning?

Good. Just, uh, you know, it's— I have so many meetings today. Okay. And so many things. I was like, wow, I really thought I could do everything on Tuesday.

Yeah.

So, oh, and today would have been Virginia Adams's birthday.

Oh, Scott's mom.

I posted something, like, I reposted something he posted. Remember she always said, you You can always get used to, uh, something, or you can always get used to— get used to anything.

Yeah.

Yep. I love that. I, I say that too, like when I'm like, oh no, I have to do whatever. And I'm like, all right, I can do anything for 10 hours or 1 week. Like when you think of people like who are tortured, or like I think about like John McCain being like, you know, crouched over all those years. I'm like, God, I mean, The things people endure.

We're such babies sometimes. You can endure. I want to endure happiness.

Oh, you're so cute. And you shall, Marcella. You shall. Here's Joel. Let's bring in Joel.

Oh, there you go. You missed the sugar.

Ta-da! There he is. Joel Pollack. Welcome. We didn't sip yet. We're just in time.

Where in the world is Joel?

Today I'm in Washington, D.C., back in my temporary home.

Aww, I know we want to talk. I want to—

you dressed up for us.

Look at you.

Well, yes, I was actually, um, just on Fox Business a little while ago.

Oh, okay.

So I just got back. I took my tie off. You want to put my tie back on? That'll be dressing up.

Nah, not for us. We, we wore clothes for everybody too. Um, all right, let's Listen, you guys, we've rambled. Here we go. Let's get to the sip because I have not tried my coffee yet. I'll let you know how it is. Okay, here we go.

And all you need to enjoy it is a cup or mug or a glass or tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Somebody's saying that there's no audio. Uh, that must be— why would there be no audio? Let me see if I can fix that. All right, I've lost my entire flow because the sound problem over on Periscope just, just blew my entire routine. And we do need to have the simultaneous sip, so let's, let's do that and maybe I can get back on track. I think the Periscope people are probably waiting for me to reinitiate, but it won't work if I do, so I'm not going to. Join me now for the simultaneous set. Oh, that's a little better. Yeah, sometimes you need those anchoring things.

I swear, I always feel like My energy matches the sip every day, right, Marcella? I came in here all like, what's happening? How do I even start the live stream? I forget. So welcome everybody, my name is Erica. You have found yourself at the Scott Adams School, and if it's your first time here, welcome! We're so happy to see you. And, uh, we stream Monday through Friday at Scott's usual time, 7 AM on the Pacific where Marcella is, our lovely co-host Marcella, and, uh, 10 AM on the Coast where I am, and the people in the middle of the country, you have to do the math yourself. Um, so today Joel Pollack is joining us, and Joel is a fantastic, amazing journalist, author, friend of Scott, friend of our show, um, humanitarian. Joel, I, I was not kidding, I missed you. I feel like I haven't talked to you in so long. I miss your face. So I'm so happy you could come on today and give us some updates here. So how are you feeling? I'm good.

I'm feeling great. I had only about 3 hours of sleep, but I'm feeling pretty good. I got up early as I normally do and then had a Lyft to the Fox studio here in DC. Did a little 10-minute segment on the show formerly known as Mornings with Maria. It's now known as Mornings with Fox Business. Maria Bartiromo was let go on Thursday evening, so she was not on on Friday. Friday and not on today. So they're figuring out what to do in the aftermath of her departure. She was a big win for Fox when they hired her, and evidently, according to some reports, there was some dispute over voting machine reporting and they let her go. So I went there and they were very nice to me, very professional, and we had a great segment. Then I came back here. I was totally exhausted at that stage because my wife and I only got to bed at about 1 o'clock in the morning last night. And, you know, sleeping at 1, up at 4, and just exhausted. So I had like a 15-minute nap, got up, went for a 2-mile run.

Wow.

Came back, put my shower, put my clothes back on, and here I am.

Joel reminds me I'm such a loser. Oh my God, I am. Holy cow, you guys, did you hear that? Like, give me an L if you too are a loser like me. No, don't. Um, but good for you. Good for you, Joel. That's amazing. So you— I have a question. So when you go do a hit at Fox News, right, like, what time, what time was your hit?

Uh, this morning it was at 7:30 Eastern, so I had to leave my temporary home here at about 10 to 7. We got there with about 5 or 10 minutes to spare, and they just basically put me in the studio chair, and that's how we— that's how we went. I prefer doing that rather than doing it by Zoom. Zoom is really awkward. I mean, you know, you can even see me here, I'm kind of fiddling with my lights and that sort of thing. You can never really figure out— we've got windows here, so the light changes all the time. And, um, you know, it's just, it's just, uh, much better to go into the studio if you can. When I'm in LA, I go into LA, uh, the Fox studio in LA. So— Um, look, it's a great opportunity. I mean, I'm getting these opportunities more and more, and I'm really grateful for it. And they're having me on for longer, which is great, because I think what I try to do when I go on these segments is to say something interesting that people will remember. There are so many people who go on TV on panel discussions, and you become a talking head with talking points. And what happens is a lot of people you see on television are paid by some organization or another to go on TV to represent a particular perspective, often to represent a political party or a political side, a movement. And they have talking points, and these talking points might be formally issued by a party bureaucracy or an authority, or they're just things people have gleaned off the internet. Sometimes they'll follow influential people on X, sometimes they'll use AI to put together a list of talking points.

Those are the Well-prepared people.

Other people just appear on air and wing it, but you're watching a debate that's just stale. It's just not interesting. And so I try to come on and say something different, or at least something that was not necessarily what people expected.

Mm-hmm.

I think that's the minimum that you have to give back to the TV audience in exchange for their attention, is something to remember. So I try to do that. And this morning I was focused on the emergency funding that the Palisades fire victims still need in LA. It's about to run out. So I talked about that a little bit.

We wanted to ask you about that too, because we saw that you wanted help in sharing that. So can you set it up for us? So what's happening and how can all of us help you to help?

All right. So there are 2 things happening. One of them is that FEMA has a certain amount of funding for a certain degree of time. And I guess it's established by whatever budget resolution is passed or whatever emergency funding is passed when the disaster happens. So FEMA gets a certain amount of money and then they distribute it, and they have what are called disaster case managers. These are personnel who deal with individual households, individual fire victims or fire survivors, whatever you want to call them, and they are also there for flooding, hurricanes. And they basically help people get on their feet financially using whatever federal aid is available. Sometimes the federal aid is distributed through charities that apply to distribute the aid or to handle the aid or to provide specific programs. So Catholic Charities are involved. There's a great group called the Change Reaction in LA, which has been involved, and they helped a lot of people in Palisades, including myself, by the way. You know, there's a massive cash crunch after these, after these fires. And so they were told at the beginning of the month last week that the FEMA money is running out. And so they're going to cease operations as far as the Palisades and Eaton fires are concerned at the end of the month. And a lot of people are still depending on aid money just to get by. So There are thousands of people potentially who are going to lose aid money that they need. I spoke last week to a friend who I didn't even know lived in Altadena, which is where the Eaton Fire was, and she told me that basically she had managed to make ends meet through this aid. And of course you don't want to spend your life on federal aid, but we are still dealing with the damage from the fire, and I'm in a fairly well-to-do area. I mean, I had to call my contractor last week and make sure that my house was properly wrapped in advance of the rain that came to LA because the repairs aren't done yet. I mean, it's almost 2 years.

Wow.

And the repairs still aren't done. It takes forever because anything— first of all, anything you try to do on a house takes forever. But secondly, you're also dealing with negotiations with insurance companies. You're trying to figure out what you can get, what you can afford. And so it just takes forever. And so we're not through it yet either. And if we're not through it yet and we're doing pretty well, think about families that are not doing as well, that didn't have the kind of insurance we had, that haven't gotten their act together because it's just so overwhelming. We still have our house even though it was damaged. Many people lost their homes. So there's a need for this. And the reason the funding is being held up— this is the second part. The reason the funding is being held up, or that there's no new funding, is that there's an ongoing dispute between the state of California and the federal government, the Trump administration. And this goes back to the early days. The fire happened on January 7th, 2025, which is the lame duck period of the Biden administration. So Joe Biden was actually in LA that day, and that had some negative consequences that I won't go into here, but Biden basically signed funding That got extended when Congress passed continuing resolutions. You know, they always have these budget fights, but they just roll over the new budget, the old budget into the new one. So the funding was there basically from the Biden era. Gavin Newsom asked Trump for more funding, which we need, but he asked an absurd amount of money. He asked for $40 billion. And if you look at what he was asking for, a lot of it has nothing to do with the fire. So Trump laughed in his face. In addition to that, Newsom started suing Trump, not just about things that affected California, but about things that had nothing to do with California or very little to do with California. Newsom signed a law while he's telling the federal government he needs money. He signed a law allocating $50 million to sue the federal government, $25 million for general topics, $25 million specifically on immigration. And he did that after the fire, after Trump came Yeah. To LA to visit the fire areas, and Newsom just persisted with it anyway. Then he started trolling Trump on social media. He thought that was good politics to position himself for the Democratic presidential primary in 2028. Trump was not amused. This was not how Newsom treated Trump in the first Trump administration. I mean, Newsom was critical of Trump, but when there were wildfires in Northern California, Trump just gave the aid right away. Newsom was very polite, very thankful. He talked about what a great job Trump did during COVID He said everything we asked for, we got. Trump's been amazing. I know it's not popular to say it in my party, but Trump's been great. He said it during an election year when California needed ventilators and respirators and all the things it needed. And that was a cooperative Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom is now trying to win the Democratic presidential nomination, and he's decided that he can't do that while being nice to Trump. He has to be the chief troll. So he's trolled Trump And Trump has said, okay, you're not getting a penny from me. The other reason you're not getting a penny from the federal government if you're the state of California is that there's growing evidence of fraud, mismanagement, waste, cronyism, corruption. So a lot of the money that the federal government is spending on California is actually being wasted. And I say this as a California resident. I mean, look at the budget. When Newsom came into office, the California state budget was something like $210 billion a year. Very, very high.

Wow.

But $210 billion. Okay. It's now almost $360 billion, and that's a 70% increase if you take inflation into account. And yes, inflation's been pretty high for a few of those years. Thank you, Joe Biden. It's about a 40% increase. But if you told me we had a 40% increase in the budget 8 years ago, if you had said that this is coming, you would've thought of a million things to do with the money, fixing the roads and fixing the forests. Making sure that there's brush clearance, hiring more police, fixing our education system. What could you have done with essentially $150 billion? Well, we basically wasted it. It was stolen. It was wasted on expanding social programs for people who are not here legally. It was just thrown away.

Mm-hmm.

And so what I told the president when he was in Palisades after the fire was, Mr. President, don't send another penny to California until you've appointed a special master who can oversee the funds. Because they're wasting it. So I'm actually in favor of the federal government withholding funds from California as long as California continues to behave this way. But I do think there's a way forward in that Trump could appoint a special master or assign someone to oversee the funds and provide emergency funding. And the FEMA funding that's run out, that's emergency money. That's not really broader rebuilding money. That is money that's going to neighbors and friends.

Right.

who lost everything, have no other means of supporting themselves in some cases. And that shouldn't be caught in a political fight. That should not be something that depends on whether the governor is a Democrat or a Republican. I'll give you another story. There were wildfires recently in Spokane, Washington, several weeks ago.

Mm-hmm.

And as it happens, Washington State is a blue state, but Spokane is on the eastern side of the mountains. And basically, when you're on the eastern or dry side, the leeward side of the mountains, you're into conservative territory. The windward side, the rainforesty Seattle side, that's liberal territory, the coastal side. But the interior is Republican. And Spokane and the areas around it had serious wildfires. They've had a lot of serious damage. They have not had a great response from the federal government so far, from what I'm hearing. That there isn't a great amount of debris clearance. There's not a lot of money yet coming in there. And if the reason for that is that Washington State is governed by Democrats and that Seattle is governed by socialists or whatever, that's really not a good reason. And the people who are going to be hurt by that are actually the Trump voters on the eastern side of the mountains. So this really can't be about partisan labels. And I'm as partisan as anybody when it comes to the big national issues, international issues. But what I've really learned since the fire is that you have to take the Ds and the Rs and just throw them away when it comes to rebuilding your community, because it doesn't help anybody. The only way it helps is if people can use their political connections in instrumental ways to help the community. So I have Democrats coming to me saying, hey, can you talk to your friends in the Republican caucus in the Senate? Can you talk to the White House? Can you talk to the media? I was on Fox Business today talking about it. And people are asking me that. I ask Democratic friends when there are issues that arise, can you talk to Democratic officials about this? Can you get us a meeting with a Democratic congressman who might not meet with me, but maybe they'll meet with you and talk about this issue? So you learn to use political connections on either side to benefit your community, and you have to do that. You respect each other's political identities, each other's broader political beliefs, but you work together in that way. And I think that's how things need to happen locally. And to some extent, that needs to be reflected nationally as well. We really cannot withhold aid based on political identity. Now, we can withhold it for other reasons if we, if we know it's going to be wasted, but I think there's a path forward. I think the president could simply sign a law with a couple extra paragraphs. You know, 9/11's coming up, the, the 25th anniversary later this week. After 9/11, Congress established the 9/11 victimization fund or the, the victims' compensation fund. And there are 2 paragraphs in that law that created a, what's called a special master to oversee the funds to make sure that it was actually going to be spent on the families of the victims. And it was run by a guy named Kenneth Feinberg, who has since gone on to do similar things after other disasters. He had great respect from everybody, and you need somebody like that to handle the money that comes to disaster areas, federally declared disaster areas. in states that have massive financial problems like California does. So anyway, that's, that's the issue I'm on a soapbox about today, is making sure that President Trump sets politics aside, Gavin Newsom sets politics aside, and they get together and at least get the emergency funding to people who need it. Because honestly, it just doesn't matter at the local level. It does not matter. You just have to get that aid, otherwise people are in serious trouble. And no, it's not indefinite. But people are still struggling. People are struggling to rebuild. People are selling because they can't afford to keep their homes anymore. It's, it's still a disaster that's ongoing. And so it needs to be—

Yeah. Well, when you see the high-speed rail to nowhere and a butterfly bridge that connects to nothing, you're just like, okay, you know, there's some money that you wasted. And when Nick Shirley is exposing everything he's exposing, it's pretty frustrating. Marcella, you're there in LA. You know, what do you think about what Joel's saying?

So for the further extension for FEMA, doesn't California have to ask for it and submit a new request, or can Trump do it? I mean, I guess Trump can do it without the request, right? Because, um, California asked for one more year.

I, I don't know exactly, and those are all good questions, um, but I just don't sense right now a level of commitment from either side, and What's interesting is that I talked to people in the White House right after the fire, and they were very eager to help California.

Mm-hmm.

The people I talked to, they, they were saying things like, well, we're just going to give them whatever they ask for because traditionally that's what happens. And I was a little disappointed by that because I wanted to see some financial oversight, but I shrugged and said, okay, I guess that's what happens. But over time, that attitude changed, and it changed because of Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom decided to pick a fight with the administration.

I remember.

And you might say, oh, it's very petty of Trump to respond in that way, but it's not actually petty because Newsom is suing Trump to stop nationwide policies using cherry-picked courts in California and other Ninth Circuit jurisdictions. And he's trying to stop Trump from governing. That's not something Trump can ignore. So I think Newsom's behaved incredibly irresponsibly. Look, he's not a guy who's good at getting things done. All right, he just isn't. He's good at posturing. He's good at the social issues if you're a Democrat. You know, he's not been good on African American issues. I see him now posting pictures of himself in Selma. You know, they all go to Selma and they all do the march and they all do this and that. I mean, it's actually pathetic to sort of, you know, Via Dolorosa of Democratic, uh, nominations. You know, you've got to hit all the stations to get to the—

Actually, Joel, can I show you a clip that I saw of Newsom today? Because it's It's under my heading of I had to see it. Now you have to see it. I like to torture everybody as I too am tortured. Here's Gavin Newsom and what he cares about. It's Gavin Newsom.

Governor Newsom, you're very comfortable in this format, I should say. It's almost like you have your own podcast show.

I know, but not everyone loves my guests.

Would you keep the podcast if you were president?

Oh, that's interesting. As president, a presidential podcast.

That's kind of a little different. A little different than a fireside chat.

It's kind of a modern— It is.

Is that a good idea?

I'm sitting back.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking about what I would, what I wear.

Was it a sweater?

Is it a more relaxing approach? Depends on the season.

I don't know. I just, I, I feel my physiology changed.

Oh my God. So sorry, guys. Not sorry. We have to do it together. We're family.

Planning, you know, I guess.

I mean, he has a lot of trouble with body language. First of all, He looks very thin. I don't know if that's the camera angle or the lighting, but I had noticed— I hadn't noticed that before. He's lost weight.

He's lost weight.

Now, I don't know if that's deliberate, but that does not look good. It looks unhealthy, actually. He looks too skinny. Um, you know, you've got, uh, El-Sayed in Michigan, you know, pumping iron, trying to look bigger. I don't know what Newsom's play is there, but he's— maybe he's done some crazy, you know, Ozempic thing. I have no idea. Not to knock, you know, Ozempic. It's, it's a helpful drug for people. But, you know, Newsom, I don't know, he's lost weight. The other thing is, I was, I was going to say at least he didn't cross his legs, and then he crossed his legs. So this leg crossing thing, I mean, look, we all have different postures that feel comfortable to us. I'm not saying that anything is right or wrong, a right way to sit, wrong way to sit. But my goodness, man, I mean, if you're trying to look presidential, you don't do— and with apologies to, to the women in the audience— if you're a man, you You don't do the feminine leg-crossing thing. It's just not what you do. It doesn't convey strength.

What about all of this?

Yeah, well, he's always done that jazz hands craziness, but—

It doesn't even match what he's saying. It's like so wacky.

It's a way of trying to be expressive. It's almost a way of trying to keep his mind engaged. That kind of thing is almost a technique when you're bored to make sure that you're still paying attention.

He looks like he's on coke to me. We all watched him, right? We all said cocaine. And last week, I love playing these weird clips of him. He's like pulling on his jacket and his sleeves and he's like doing this thing. But like what he's talking about was like serious.

And you know what the sweater thing is, right? You know what that's a reference to?

Mr. Rogers?

Oh, Carter.

Well, no, no, it's a reference to Jimmy Carter, right? Because Jimmy Carter did these fireside chats with the sweater and he turned the thermostat down in the White House and it was famously lampooned, I think, by Chevy Chase or whoever on Saturday Night Live. So he's kind of like reaching in his pop culture memory, and, and he's trying to be all cute, like, you mentioned that I might be president. But, you know, it's— he doesn't come across as serious in any way.

Right.

And again, the leg-crossing thing— what he's doing by crossing his legs in that, uh, interview is saying, my comfort is what I'm focused on. I'm focused on my comfort. I'm not really focused on being a leader in a way, or I'm not focused on interacting with the audience. She has great posture. She has great body language in that interview. She looks powerful. He is fidgeting, squirming. Maybe they should have moved the chair back about 6 inches. He looks too close to her. Maybe they kept it close for some camera angle reason. I don't know, but it just looks bad. And then he's trying to, again, to spin this idea that he is different from other Democrats. This is a general election message, not a party-based kind of message. But you notice he mentions there, people don't like my guests. What he's talking about are Democrats who don't like his guests. They don't like Steve Bannon. They don't like Charlie Kirk. They don't like, you know, the conservatives. By the way, he will not interview a California conservative. The only exception is Savage. He interviewed Savage from Savage Nation because they have a long personal relationship, Savage being from San Francisco. But they will not interview a California conservative.

Who are they?

What's that?

Who's the California conservative?

Well, if you're not going to talk to me, talk to John Fleischman or talk to Susan Crabtree or talk to Katie Grimes. I mean, talk to writers who have a real handle on California political issues. Talk to Ashley Zavala. She's not a conservative. She works for KCRA in Sacramento, but she's one of the best political reporters in California. She knows chapter and verse on just about everything going on. He won't talk to one of those people. He won't have one of them on his podcast because they're going to ask him, why haven't you built any reservoirs? Why haven't you made the highways better? Where are the desalination plants? What about this high-speed rail we're throwing money at? What, you know, what are you doing? Um, and so he doesn't want to answer those questions.

There's your challenge, Governor Newsom. Talk to them. Talk to any one of them, and then we'll, we'll think that you're a little bit more serious. That's the challenge.

I did volunteer myself when he started this, but, uh, you know, they wrote back As if it was possible, but it's not. Obviously, they don't want to talk to somebody who would challenge them.

No, absolutely not. Do you have time to stay?

I'm going to stay today. I've got my little earpiece in. I'm going to listen to my editorial call on the earpiece while we talk. This is how I multitask on days like this.

I'm so glad you can stay because I want to give 2 amazing opposing examples of something Scott would have a field day with. Okay, so remember yesterday we were talking about Amy Acton? Owen brought up a story about Amy Acton and how somebody charged forward in the crowd that had holstered guns, um, and that it was scary. And then I said, oh, is that like the, the drunk-sounding lady like Kamala? So I just want you guys to hear 2 different ways of speaking, and one is not effective and one is very effective. But let's start with Amy Acton. So she's running in Ohio against Vivek Ramaswamy. She's Running unopposed as a Democrat. It's so astounding to me that after watching Kamala for all these years, that this is actually how people let her go out and speak. It's like drunk 2.0. Let's go.

Warming up.

That's great.

Hi, everybody.

Happy Labor Day.

Hey!

Oh, good to see everyone. It is so good to see you all here today. It's a little warm.

Thank you.

It's a little hot, but we are absolutely sitting in that inflection point.

I am honored to be here and honored to be with all of you in this moment. Look, I'm a doctor. I am not a politician.

I'm becoming one right in front of your eyes.

My last election was in high school, okay?

I did win, so we're 1 for 1 in elected office.

We're on a winning streak. Oh my God, so she just freaks me out. She's like Hillary and Kamala mushed together, slurring her words. It's a little bit of that, um, What was his name who, who did the fatal scream, uh, and then ruined his campaign? Oh my God, I can't—

That was Howard Dean.

Howard Dean. Yeah, little Howard Dean-ish.

The Dean scream.

Oh my gosh. So, you know, there's other clips of this woman also, same like slurry, odd voice, and she's running unopposed as the Democrat.

She looks very nervous, like she's not Like she said, she's not the typical candidate, though. You could tell that she's not used to it. I'm wondering, did they have no one and they had to go get the next doctor in the hospital? Like, you become the candidate.

She won something in high school, Marcella.

Oh, it's like they have no one on the bench.

So as far as persuasion, okay, so speaking as a woman, Every woman I— or not every, every, but every woman I'm seeing lately, hyperbolically, is killing me. Like, go away, go away. You are the most obnoxious, brutal group of people right now. Like, from the Lindsay Clancy stans to these politicians, and like, then they do these weird accents and affectations and their TikTok videos. Stop it. So I find her repulsive, unserious, and I would never want her to be my doctor just based on that. I don't need to see anything else about her, and I just feel like she's a disaster. And Joel, do you know anything about this person?

No, I have no idea.

What do you think about it?

The only thing I can tell you is that this idea of having politicians speak on Labor Day is so tired already. I mean, I understand that, I guess, for some people they go to Labor Day observances. I guess if you're part of a union— I'm not knocking unions per se, but most people just want to spend Labor Day at the barbecue or at the baseball stadium or out on a hiking trail and doing something fun with family. It's really about summer. It's just so inauthentic to show up at a political rally on Labor Day. And I guess politicians do that. And I think you see Pete Buttigieg there next to her. You know, he thinks he's going to be president too. He also has the same problem that Newsom has, which is that he has no real relationship with the Black community. I think there's room in this Democratic primary for some other candidate to emerge who actually connects with people in a real way. I'm not sure who that would be, but—

You mean for presidential Democrats?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, Buttigieg is— why is Buttigieg there, right? He's not running in the midterms. He's there to drum up support, especially in South Carolina. Look, it would be fun to try to figure out if Scott were here. You know, Scott would be talking, I think, a lot about Newsom and maybe about Kamala, but also trying to figure out who the—

Ro Khanna.

And, and yeah, I mean, it's going to be interesting. And we've got, of course, the Republican convention happening later this week. I'm not going to be there, but it's a really interesting idea. And you're going to hear a lot of people criticizing it and talking about the war and gas prices and Trump. But here's why it's necessary. It's just necessary because midterm elections never really have a national message. They have a national message in the sense that the national message is out there. It's usually crafted by the media, but the parties don't have a national message unless It's something like Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. Basically, Republicans need to state the case. Democrats are out there saying Trump's terrible, Trump's terrible, everything's awful. It's not true. I mean, we just had a massive jobs report on Friday, and things are actually going pretty well in the country. 4.1% unemployment, it's, you know, incredibly low. The economy's growing, things are good. You know, people have issues and challenges, and gas prices are higher than they were, and that's That's a problem. But Trump's got to come out and make the case, and the Republican Party basically has to say, look, we are the only thing standing between you and the Zoran Mamdanification of the Democratic Party. Um, you know, Mamdani did this thing on Labor Day. He created something he called the Worker Power Department in New York City. Now, that seems crazy to me. New York State already has a Department of Labor, and it's very pro-union. Why do you need another department? Well, a lot of what Mamdani does, almost taking a page out of Trump's book, is Mamdani tries to do things that are flashy and showy. And the problem is he doesn't have the substance to back it up. So, you know, you're hearing New Yorkers who, who are inside of a Mamdani sort of closed media loop talk about things like, well, he's fixing the sidewalks. Yeah, they fix the sidewalks all the time. Or, you know, he created these trash bins. Yeah, Eric Adams created the trash bins. Mamdani just made a video out of it, you know, like So, so this worker power thing, it's supposedly going to be helping workers, but it's really kind of communist because what it's saying is that workers need to constantly seek more power using a government institution to do so. And we're not talking about economic power, we're talking about political power. It's kind of like Fidel Castro saying that the revolution continued, you know, once he already had seized power. I mean, it's kind of like it's the 189th time we've tried this, and I, you know, it's going to be sort of a joke But that's what's happening to the Democratic Party. It's what's going to happen to the country. And so Republicans need a way to say that and to present that to people. I think that's what's going to happen.

Okay. So interesting. Yes. And hi, Owen. Welcome in. Let's get his mic up and running. So I want— I agree it's all interesting. But, Joel, this clip, I am so excited for you to be here to listen to because All I could think of was, I don't want to give it away. Oh no, you guys will all feel the same way. Is just Scott approving of how masterful Jared Kushner is in his response to that loser Richard Engel. So Richard Engel wants to ask him like an obnoxious little gotcha question. But listen to how this is. This is not about whether you guys like him, don't like him, whatever. Just listen to how he answers and. God, give me the strength, please, to just remember to be this calm and thoughtful and rational when I speak to people. But let's take a, let's take a look.

Richard Engel from NBC News. Uh, this is for, uh, Mr. Witkoff and Jared Kushner. You have been involved in numerous negotiations around the world. Why should people have any confidence in your capacity to succeed here? You were involved in The Gaza negotiations, but Gaza remains a wasteland. There's been real no progress there. Iran, you were involved in those negotiations. The war is still going on. You've been involved in several rounds of negotiations in this conflict. It's only getting more intense. So you're relaunching negotiations now. What's the likelihood they will succeed when other negotiations you've been involved in have not?

These are some of the hardest problem sets in the world, you know, and I think that you have to try and you have to bring to it. Obviously, Steve and I bring different approaches to these things, but we work very well together as partners. But we're not bringing our approaches. We're really representing President Trump, and we're doing it the way that he wants to see these things done. And working with President Trump, you know, in the first term, obviously, we achieved a lot of unthinkable things, whether it was achieving the Abraham Accords, which nobody thought was possible. We achieved The USMCA, the biggest trade deal in history, made a great deal with China. And the list just goes on and on. We just celebrated the World Cup in America. That was a deal that I led on President Trump's behalf to win for America. The same thing with the Olympics that'll be coming up. So, you know, you have to take on hard things. The tone of your question was a little bit like, why haven't you done every single impossible thing possible? We are very honored to be able to have the opportunity to work on these under President Trump's leadership. And we're very committed to giving it everything we can. And I think President Trump has a track record of doing impossible things. I think the last administration, they didn't go to Russia. I mean, I think they had one visit with the CIA director. But, you know, there's a war. I mean, every day there are soldiers on the front line from both sides, and they want to go home to their families. And there are people in these cities who have bombs dropping, and their lives are very disrupted, and they want to see that put to an end. And so, If the answer was simple, then somebody would have solved it. But I think President Trump's general framework is that if something is worthy and important and will have a big impact, he doesn't matter how much he'll get criticized by people in the press or different critics. He wants to go after it, and he's asked Steve and I to do that on his behalf. And we'll do our best to try to get an outcome. And so I know that if we don't try, we will not succeed and nothing will change. And it's just important to try, and that's what we're going to try to do. So I can't guarantee that there will be success, but what I can, you know, promise you and promise everyone here in Ukraine and even everyone in Russia is that on behalf of President Trump, Steve and I are going to be doing everything we can. We have been doing everything we can to try and find a way out of a mess that, that was created before President Trump's time, which has had a huge toll. And so we're going to do our best to try and make progress.

Genius. I mean, He let Richard Engel ramble on and show that he's a jackass because he is. You know what? Like everybody's so tired of questions like that. Like everyone just wants to do like a gotcha. I want to point out something wrong with you. Why don't you try lifting people up for a change, stupid media? I'm so sick of you. But Jared was like, you know what? I'm Jared Kushner. I'm calm. I'm rational. I'm smart. I know what I'm doing. I'm obviously a badass, amazing negotiator. And here's the answer, buddy. And I felt like there was a lot of of Scott Adams technique in there. And Jared was a, or is a big fan of Scott. And, um, I appreciated that measured answer. And, uh, Joel, I thought of you right away when I saw this, and I actually sent a DM to Jared, just whether he ever sees it or not. But I was just like, man, oh man, is Scott like beaming with the way you responded with that answer. Do you agree?

Well, I think Scott would call that the high ground maneuver, what he did. So the way I would've answered that question, not being a persuasion expert as Scott was, would be to list the successes that Kushner has had. I would've been defensive. I would've said, well, what are you talking about? I failed. I did the Abraham Accords. I did USMCA. I did the Olympics. I did the World Cup. I mean, you're just wrong. That would've been An okay response. But the reason this response is so good is he left that part until the end. And what he did instead was he reframed it using the high ground maneuver. What's the high ground maneuver? It, it's, if you don't try, then it's really impossible. And I'm trying. And that's what I'm doing. I mean, it would, you know, and so how can you disagree with that? Everything is worth trying to, to get to peace, to avoid war, to send these soldiers home. And then he sort of throws it back at him and says, what you're saying to me is you haven't done all these impossible things, but you're definitely not going to do them if you don't try. So we are trying. Oh, and by the way, we also succeeded in this case, in this case, in this case. So he kind of gets there eventually as a subset of things that happen when you try, but he resets it in a bigger way. Like, if you try, you can do it. If you don't try, you can never do it. So I think that's what Scott would call the high ground maneuver. And it was very effective. And by the way, Yeah. I interviewed Jared for the Scott Adams biography. I also interviewed Ivanka Trump, who, if anything, was an even bigger fan of Scott's than Jared. And so, I mean, they were both fans. That's 100% accurate. Ivanka Trump loved Scott. She was very effective in the White House. She's playing much more of a backseat kind of role now, not really directly involved. She's on Instagram a lot. She did this incredible video yesterday of herself riding a horse across a beach, which was— I showed it to my wife because my wife used to do that sort of thing, you know, in the era before children and bills and stuff like that. And my wife was like, oh my gosh, Ivanka's living my dream life, you know.

Oh yeah.

And not in a jealous way, but like, that's I'm so glad somebody's enjoying life that way now, you know, but look, they do live a charmed life and people resent that. Maybe, I don't know, but he's very effective. The funny thing is, again, back to the point about talking points, you know, when you go on these shows, Richard Engel and these Democrats are sharing the same ideas. I don't know if it's in conference calls or on social media, but Gavin Newsom said almost exactly the same thing, or his spokesman said it through the Gavin Newsom press office. X account where he basically said, why are you sending Kushner to solve this problem? You know, he doesn't do anything. He's never done anything. He's just related to the president. I mean, that's pretty much exactly what Richard Engel was saying. So it's like they just delete the facts. They just, they, they delete the successes and they just live in the now of Russia hasn't been solved yet. And they all share the same ideas and they're just going to repeat this over and over again for several days on all the, all the news shows. You know, it's like Scott said, there are some, some of them lead it. They're called the designated liars. You know, you've got Adam Schiff and the others. And, and then, you know, you've got, you've got to just try to say something different to shake up the conversation. And, and Kushner uses a very, a very effective technique. Maybe he got it from Scott. You know, you just reset it, use the moral high ground maneuver. You know, hey, we're trying. If you don't try, you can't succeed.

I would say he absolutely got it from Scott because that whole thing about impossible things Isn't that right out of Win Bigly? Didn't Scott say over and over again that Trump was the one president that could do impossible things?

Yes. I mean, as soon as I heard it, I just clicked right into Scott. I was like, oh my gosh, this was so chef's kiss amazing. I loved it.

And Kushner read Win Bigly, by the way. I mean, that's a book we know for sure he read.

I just think there's no question this came from Scott. That was Scott talking.

Trump may also have read Win Bigly. Um, when Scott met with Trump in the Oval Office— and there's going to be a little more information in the book about the Oval Office meeting than you've seen before— but when Trump met with Scott, Trump was very familiar with Win Bigly. And we don't think of Trump as a book reader necessarily. You know, he's well informed, but we don't necessarily think of him reading books. It's possible he read Win Bigly. But he certainly was familiar with the contents because he asked Scott specific questions about things in the book. So, you know, Wynn Bigley was very, very influential in the first Trump administration.

Oh, yeah. Marcella, I feel like I picture President Trump being like, someone just tell me all the good parts of the book about me. Just let me know what they are.

I'm sure he knows. I'm sure he was informed.

I don't want to give any spoilers in the book, but Trump said to Scott, I didn't realize I was doing that, but I read it and now I guess I do.

Yeah.

You kind of explained what I was doing. So some of what Trump was doing was, was instinct, but he read, he read Scott's description and it validated what he was doing.

Wait, Owen, Owen, Owen.

That resonates. Go ahead.

Let me just get Marcella in here first, because I just want to hear her reaction to what she thought about Jared and, you know, just the persuasion of it and the Scott Adams of it.

I think the main thing that I got out of the video, not just what he said but how he said it, how calm he was. And I mean, he's the perfect— I mean, Ivanka has the perfect husband right there. Um, it's something that he learned either, you know, by Scott and also just in general, like dealing with difficult issues. Um, this is not the first rodeo he's on. And he's solving impossible problems. But the way that he just talked—

And he got the little thing.

Very much like Scott too.

Yeah.

The way that he talked was very sweet, slow. Even the guy, you could see Richard Angle, like you could see him thinking, thinking like, oh, maybe this guy can do it. I'm an idiot. Yeah, like you could see that in him. And I liked, I like the, the, the What is it, the cadence of the talk? It's not just what he said, which Joel was right about the high ground maneuver, but it's also the way that it was said was very persuasive.

Fully agree. And don't you like how he got his little dig in at Richard Engel? Even, you know, he's like, well, I felt like that question was a little bit, you know, I was just like, good for you, but not so much where he became defensive.

No, it was just it got to that line.

Yes. All right, Owen, let us have it.

Beautiful.

I just want to, I want to go back to what you said about what happened in the Oval Office, because like that resonates with me. That happened to me once with someone that was a mentor of mine where like he, he didn't understand why he was so effective. He, he just would act out of instinct, right? Like he wouldn't know why he was doing what he was doing. He would just do it. And then it, there was a situation where like someone else tried to copy him and it went terribly and he didn't understand why. And I had to explain it to him. I'm like, I know exactly why. Here's what you do. Here's what's different about that person. And here's why it works for you and why it doesn't. But it had to be another person telling him. And I think the reason for that in my mind is when you're a master at something, you don't think about it while you're doing it.

Right.

You just do it.

It just comes out of you. And I think that's true with any kind of mastery. I mean, the easy example anybody can relate to is, is riding a bike. You know, when you're first learning to ride a bike, you're thinking about everything, the pedals, steering, all that stuff. But once you're a master at it, you don't think about it. You just get on a bike and ride. And so I think that's what's going on in that situation is that Trump probably is doing all the things Scott was describing, but he's not thinking about it in those terms when he's doing it.

Yeah, it comes naturally to him. And that's what Scott would say too. Like, it's, he, he always said, like, I think it's just something in him. It comes naturally to him. He's never seen anything like it. And I agree. I think I, I know a few people that are like that, and it's just who they are. And, um, it's amazing.

Can I just— can I agree and disagree?

Yeah, of course.

So I think you guys are mostly right, but I also would point out we've seen Trump think things through in this way in public, actually, most notably with nicknames. Remember, he told us for weeks that he was coming up— busy coming up with a nickname for Hillary Clinton, and he was going to reveal it, but he was thinking about it, and maybe we try this and maybe we try that. We could see him doing this kind of A/B testing sometimes also of different ideas. You know, he would say, what slogan do you like better, Keep America Great or whatever the other one was, you know, Make America Great Again Again, or whatever it was.

Right.

So we kind of— it's a bit of both, right? I mean, he's probably got so much of it in him already that it is instinct. But there's—

But even that, even that is part of the genius.

Yeah, but if there— we— I, I think I want to give credit to Scott for pointing out that some of this is probably thought through and not just, you know, you, you, you're born with this kind of talent. I mean, some of it is, some of it is deliberate.

Yeah, or like he tried it and it worked and he's like, oh, this worked, this was received well, let's keep doing things like this. Yeah.

I mean, I, first of all, I agree. Like, I don't think it's all subconscious, and I also don't think it's all natural from birth. Like, I think he practiced this over the course of his life, and he got good at these things, and he knew what he was doing when he was practicing it, I would guess. But once he got good enough at it, he didn't need to think about everything every step of the way anymore. And that's just how mastery of any skill is. And I think it, you know, especially if you're talking about in the moment, like in a press conference like that, like you can't just like Stop and think through, okay, am I gonna take the high ground maneuver or am I gonna do— like, you have to talk.

You're—

you just got a question asked, like it's time to answer. You just gotta go. And so if you're not already practiced at it and you kind of instinctively know what to say, then it's not gonna work.

Right.

But once you're a master at it and you've, you know, prepared for it, not just preparing for that particular question, but like that sort of situation, then it just flows outta you. And, and I think that's what I was seeing. But I, I really think that was Scott Adams talking on that stage. I mean, I, I think a lot of those ideas came from Scott.

Yeah, I do too. I, I, I'm, I'm glad, Owen, that it resonated with you like that because it was like so obvious to me. I don't know why, like something just hit me over the head. I was like, whoo. Um, all right, so another thing that I had to see that you have to see— I mean, it's not that bad, but I, I just—

I—

please help me, help me, everybody, help me. This is Lindsey Clancy's lawyer this morning talking to another genius journalist, George Stephanopoulos. Um, listen to what he says in like the last 15 seconds.

What's next for Lindsey? I'd like to, uh, say that perhaps Donald Trump, who felt compelled to speak out about this case, May very well, Mr. President, I would hope that you would consider this young lady, the type of person she is, what she's been through, and consider a pardon.

Thanks for coming in this morning.

My pleasure.

We'll be right back.

To consider a pardon for Lindsey Clancy.

He's an energy. Like, I know that, that, that, that I'm, I'm against him in this case, but He— Kevin Reddington has been a great trial attorney. I mean, he's excellent at persuasion. And one of the things is he knows as an attorney that it's supposed to be the governor of Massachusetts that's supposed to pardon her, but he went with that because he knows it's gonna go on and on and he's gonna be talked about. So it's like the energy monster kind of thing that Scott would bring up. That's just my—

Right.

Stands on it because he knows that it's not a federal crime. So then, right.

But you're totally right, Marcel. I mean, like, yeah, it's gonna bring the energy and everyone talking about it. And I'm looking at it like, it is so freaking dangerous to start to keep going down this road with this insanity.

He's smart enough to know that though.

But yeah. Yeah. But for me, just as a, an American human being, not an attorney. I'm just like, this is so dangerous because now this other woman hung her child, another woman shot her kid in the face, um, all these women posting this stuff. And now it's like, oh, what she's been through. What is— what has she gone through? She murdered her children for whatever reason. And not— it's not psychosis, you guys. Let's get a grip. I mean, That's like saying then we need to pardon everyone who, like, mur— it was like a mass murderer because they had a psychotic break in that moment. So should we pardon them? Like, oh no, it was a psychotic break. It was the medication. It was the doctor. It was their spouse. It was social media. We've got to pardon them. Like, it's so gross to me. Um, Joel, what's your take?

Well, first I want to just compliment Marcella because she did exactly what I was talking about at the beginning of this show, which is you come into a situation and you introduce something that people weren't expecting. So Marcela's point was, wait a minute, Trump doesn't give this pardon. It's the state of Massachusetts. It has to be the governor that pardons her because it's a state court. It's a state crime.

Wow.

You know, like, so that's what you're gonna remember. I mean, so what does that tell you? If the lawyer is smart enough to know that, he knows he's obviously using President Trump for rhetorical purposes.

Right.

And What Marcella did is just so cool because that's the goal I think you have to have when you go on any show like this or any other. You've got to say something different because everybody's heard it already. Everybody can imagine, you know, we, we all, we all divide into camps, right, based on whether we think Clancy should go free or Clancy should get the death penalty or whatever. Like, you know, very little daylight between those. And Marcella comes in and says, well, let me look at it this way. Let's look at it from a totally different perspective. I mean, Let's look at what's happening here. He's not just kind of being the best defense lawyer he can be, and you hate him or you love him, but he's also using a technique here that is changing the way we're going to debate this.

And it's kind of like a trap for Trump to fall into as well.

Yeah. I'll say this about it. I mean, you can't really joke about this. It's the most horrific case. But I did sort of tell a joke. Off camera. I was on Fox News at night a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about the case. And I think— I don't think the cameras are rolling yet. And they said, what do you think about this? And I said, you know, there's usually one kid you want to get, not all 3. Like, you know, if you have a lot of kids, there's usually one you would sort of do away with. And obviously, I'm joking.

Of course.

Yeah. There's actually something to that in the sense that if she had a psychotic break, it's not like she killed all 3 of them in a single act, right? She didn't drive them all. There have been mothers who've driven cars, you know, with all their kids into a lake and stuff like that. She had to go and not just kill the first one, but then strangle the second and the third. So there's something happening in her mind. If the first one is a psychotic break, it's very hard to say that, for me at least, about the second and the third. You would think that you'd be so shocked after the first experience that you'd either collapse emotionally or turn yourself in or call 911, something's happened to my child. But she intended, she had to have intended in my mind to have killed all 3 because she continued after the first one. So it doesn't really fit what I would understand to be a psychotic break. I would see a psychotic break as maybe the first one. And again, I didn't mean to make light of the situation by joking about it, but I have 4 wonderful kids. I'm very blessed. They're all healthy and everything like that. But my toddler was screaming the other day, and I told him he was going to be the first toddler who knew how to fly. I was going to teach him how to fly if he kept crying. I didn't mean it, of course, but there's usually one that gets on your nerves for whatever reason.

Yeah.

Um, but you know, it's so— it's hard to think yourself into her mind, but I, I just think that, you know, you could understand if it was one act of psychosis.

Well, the, the other thing that, that I wish the Commonwealth would have been better at persuading and explaining is that you can have psychosis like you described and still know right from wrong.

Yes. Yeah.

So even though— because many— it's been tried before, right? And there's many serial killers that have psychosis. And hear voices, and yet they know right from wrong. So the thing is, past that level, get an expert, explain it further. They didn't have the right attorneys on the other side. That's just my attorney point on the Commonwealth. That wasn't explained to the jurors.

Mm-hmm.

That you can have exactly everything that Lindsay Clancy was and still not know right from wrong.

And I still want to do a shout out to that one juror who was like, you're not going to bully me into changing my mind, Owen. But that would be you. I, I, it would be, it would be Owen. I know it.

Yeah.

I just think the other thing is like, this is so backwards. Cause like I posted a story today about a mother who was convicted and put on some kind of like child abuse registry. And the crime was letting her 5-year-old walk to a pond inside a gated community.

Yeah.

And it's like, how can these 2 things be on the same timeline? Like what? Like you've got the helicopter parent people saying you can't let your kid walk to the store or walk to a pond, and it's a crime if you do. And there's been many cases like that. And then you have people trying to let this person off for murdering all of her children. And I would just say it's— I think it's worse than you even made it sound, Joel, where it's like she took a call with her husband in between and she'd been planning it for months. Like this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing.

No.

Mm-mm.

It was well thought out. And, uh, you know, it's, it's pretty gross. So we're gonna see the worst of women right now, uh, and humanity. But, you know, with Charlie Kirk's assassination, uh, anniversary, there's already been women posting themselves, just more horrific behavior. Um, and this whole Lindsey Clancy thing. And now the new trend that these idiots are doing is belittling their husbands and men on TikTok. And, you know, they're getting— some of them are getting dressed up and setting up their camera and then talking smack about their husbands while they're probably out at work. And it looks like most of them live in nice homes and, you know, they look well put together and it's just like, what are we doing? So I'm so disgusted and I'm so disgusted by the state of this, you know, these young women, I guess. What is it? They're like Gen Xers?

Mm-hmm.

Not X, I'm sorry, Z. And then how are guys ever going to meet like a suitable woman? And we already have a problem with marriage and having families and children. And again, I say take away social media because it has destroyed everything with this world full of narcissists. It's pretty pathetic. Um, I don't know. So buckle up, you guys. This is a rough week coming up the rest of this week. And, um, Just expect a lot of BS and, you know, keep your head straight. And I don't know, just pray for our country too. So Joel, um, how— I know we're like at the end here, but how are things going with the Scott Adams biography?

Well, they're going really well. I just did some more edits to the draft this morning, and we're really just making a few final changes. A lot of interesting material appeared at the last minute, and I'll give you a little teaser. We discovered Scott's journal from 1979 to 1998. So he kept a journal for 19 years, not every day, but he would check in once or twice a year and talk about what was going on with him. And that was an incredible, absolutely incredible find. And that now is in the book as well. Not the whole journal, obviously, but relevant quotes and things like that. So there are things in this biography that are going to be mind-blowing, I think, to people who loved Scott and people who are encountering him for the first time. But I've, you know, it's been an incredible project, and I'm just really grateful for the opportunity to work on it. We're coming to the end of the Of the writing phase. I really just have a few more corrections and things like that to make, and then Joshua Lysak is going to take over and work his magic. And then we'll have hopefully a great biography for you guys November 12th, and hopefully some information soon about where you can preorder. So really looking forward to that.

Joel, what were Scott's parameters? Did he say, do whatever you want?

For me, for the biography?

Yeah. I feel like I would die if someone found my journals. I'd be like, oh my God, what's Joel putting in there?

You know, I had some experience. I mean, on his shelf, he had a biography that I wrote about my mother-in-law.

Yeah.

And my mother-in-law gave me all of her journals, and she had journals that were much more extensive. I mean, one for every year going back to the early '80s. And there were things in those journals and things that I knew about her personal life that I did not put in the biography because they weren't actually that important. They weren't important to who she was. You know, everybody has things in their life. Maybe they seem important on that day to you. You know, you're having a a bad breakup or a car accident or something. It seems like the most important thing. It's not actually that important. You don't need to turn somebody inside out to get a sense of who they are. So I think there was just a high degree of trust. I mean, I think he knew that I would try to get to the core of who he was and is. And there are some things that I talk about in the book that he really didn't talk about to me very much. Specifically about some of his romantic relationships that you guys may not know very much about. He didn't talk about publicly very much. They weren't always secret, but these weren't things he talked to me about when he talked about what he saw as the biography. But I wrote about them in the book because I do think they tell us part of the story that's important to understand some of what he went through later. But I'm not telling you every little thing. It's not, it's not, you know, fair to him. It's not fair to, uh, people involved. Sometimes it doesn't even tell the whole story of things. And so you just have to be very careful. Um, but I, I do think that there are things in the book that, that are just absolutely incredible that, you know, we've— we, we just discover along the way. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing. I, I wish Scott were here Some of it was fascinating. Some of it was really funny. He talks about how he went through a rough patch in college in the book How to Fail, how he basically almost failed out of Hartwick College and had to get his act together. I've seen his report cards, and I know which classes he wasn't doing well in. And I kind of want to tease him about it, but I'll give you a little snippet. Think about how influential Scott was on politics and government. And, and one of the grades he, he had that was worst was in government affairs or whatever the course was called. I mean, he got a really bad grade in some government class. And meanwhile, you know, one of the most influential political voices, you know, of the last several decades. I mean, so it's just, it's, I would've teased him about it if I, and I would've asked him about it, um, if I, if he was still around.

My, my reaction to that is it makes sense. Because like, if you think about what a government affairs professor would try and teach you, right, and how effective that would be if he did well at it, like, it makes sense to me that he would struggle with that.

You know, I, I, I used to work for Andrew Breitbart. He hired me at Breitbart 15 years ago, and Andrew went to Tulane and studied American Studies, and he had all of those kinds of classes. And he said, basically, I partied for 4 years, which is good because if I had paid attention in class, I would have come out as a brain-dead liberal.

Right? It's true. Oh my God, that's amazing. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. Um, and you guys, I have, um, there's gonna be more surprises for you as the year goes on. My lips are sealed right now, but, um, you know, Scott is a forever type of person. You know, he, he's, he's not a moment. He's not a blip. He's not like a A season. He is forever. So, uh, I'm so glad that, you know, you're gonna immortalize him with the book. And, you know, the shows continue and other people are doing their own things and writing books and podcasts and everything and using his techniques. And why wouldn't we? So, and I mean, look, I mean, Owen and I fully believe we just watched Jared channel him yesterday and it was pretty amazing. So Joel, I cannot believe we had you for the whole show. Like, what a treat.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, thank you so, so much for being here. Um, and Owen and Marcela— Owen, thanks for popping in. I'm so glad you could pop on too with us. That's amazing. Uh, yeah, yeah.

So I want to just answer a question. Kevin ETF here in the comments says, any pics of him in the suit his parents gave him? If it's the suit you're thinking of I think, yes, we probably will have one of those pictures in the book.

The infamous suit should be at the Smithsonian, the non-woke Smithsonian. Right? So you guys listen, the 3 of us will be back for the rest of the week. And tomorrow, you guys, it's happening. Walter Kern will be here. So we made it happen. He'll be here tomorrow with us for the entire show. And Get excited and tell your friends and bring an extra cup of coffee. All right, you guys. So listen, let's say thank you to Scott and to Shelley who allowed this show to continue, to keep this going, to keep this community together, which was the most important thing to Scott—that we all stay together and to be useful. And thank you to every single person who shows up here and everybody watching the replay. Thank you so much for being here also. And we want to give a closing sip to our beloved. Scott, and let's let's do author yourself in honor of having an author here and in honor of Scott telling us to author our lives. And it'll be by video, but we'll we'll hang out in the chat. Okay, a closing sip to Scott, to Scott, to Scott. Thank you, Joel, so much. Thanks, guys. Okay, let's. Do it, you guys. Author Yourself. I put it in here. Watch, it won't show up. Here it is. All right, let's go.

All right, um, here's one. How many of you have ever thought, or maybe gagged when you heard somebody else say it, that they were trying to find themselves? I need to find myself. I need to, I need to figure out, you know, who I am. Bad idea.

Bad idea.

Here's the reframe. Instead of being an explorer and trying to figure out who you are, how about authoring yourself to be what you want to be? You can author your situation. You don't have to discover who you are. You can make yourself who you want to be. That's one of the great things about human life, is that you don't have to be. You don't have to be. Anything, anything. You can author yourself into almost any kind of situation. You know, obviously you can't author yourself a billion dollars just because you want to. Maybe some people can. Maybe some people can. But I love these words. I love these words. Instead of finding yourself, author yourself. Author yourself. That's very powerful if you take that to heart. Author yourself. Because sometimes we forget that we have that power, that we can turn ourselves into whatever we need to turn ourselves into. Author yourself.

Water yourself.

Water yourself.

Instead of fighting yourself, water yourself.

Love it, love it. Okay, you guys, say goodbye and we will see you in the morning. Bye everyone. Don't forget Walter Kern will be here. Love you guys.