The Scott Adams School - 5/20/26 Joel Pollak joins the Home Team.

Good morning, good morning everyone.

Good, good. What is it, Wednesday morning?

I see Steven, but again, Steven, you're slacking. You were third.

No, no, he was first.

It shows up as third for me.

We have pre— with the pre-show going there.

There's Joel.

How you doing, Joel?

You're live right now. Were you swimming?

No, he was praying.

I was praying. Everything's running late this morning. I'll tell you why in a minute.

Well, everyone's here looking at you now, so say hi.

Hello. This is my morning ritual. I told you I do the 5 things every day, right? Prayer is one of them. And I got to get the morning prayer in before 10 AM Eastern or 10 AM Pacific, wherever I am. I was in California yesterday. I'm in DC today. And DC makes LA look good, and that's not saying much.

What?

The infrastructure here is so terrible. So I get in, my flight's delayed, I come in to BWI, take an Uber to the house where we're living, and miss the school bus. The kids get on the school bus, I missed them. I wanted to surprise them, but they were already gone. Anyway, uh, we have a walk to the train station. My wife is going to the train station with her intern. I said, oh, I'll just drive you to the train station. You know what, we'll all go together because I've got to take my son to his daycare, which is a few metro stops away. So we get to the train. There's a derailed train or some kind of downed train, they said, on another station. So now we're delayed on the train. And then they make us wait 10 minutes. Then they tell us, actually, the train's out of service. But we've already gone one station, so we're not at our original station point. I can't get back into my car. So I tell my wife and her intern, I say, why don't you guys just go take an Uber downtown? Now, going on the roads in DC and rush hour traffic into town is a total nightmare, but there's no alternative because there's no train. So now they are, they're in an Uber going downtown. And then meanwhile, I say, oh, there's a bus, there's a bus going back to the metro station we were just at. Let me get on the bus with the baby, we'll go back. And we'll get in the car and I'll figure something out. We get on the bus. I said to the bus driver, uh, do you go to such-and-such station? He goes, yeah. So we get on the bus and my son is thrilled because he loves buses. He's 18 months old and, you know, buses are the most important thing in the world. And he's excited to be on the bus. Then I realized we're going in the wrong direction. I only realized about 20 minutes later. We're not at the station yet. I said to him, you told me you go to the bus station. The bus driver says, Oh yeah, that's the last stop. But we go through all the streets around, you know, like this way and that way. So I was like, how much longer to the train station? He goes, oh, about 35 minutes. I said, okay, you got to let us off here. So I said, you could have told me that when I asked you if you're going to the station. Like, you know, you know, he said, I said to him, are you going to the station? He said, yes. So I said, you could have told me it was the end of the line. He goes, You didn't ask.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Well, you know, in the long run, we're all going somewhere, right? I mean, what is it like?

You know, like, I thought you knew.

You know what you need, Joel? Did you—

wait a minute, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah. So I get an Uber with the baby, which is totally illegal, and then we get in the Uber, we go all the way back to my car, drive home, and here we are. So I made it in time to do prayers and all in one piece, so I'm grateful for that. So how about that?

All right. If Joel can do these things— hello, people— we can do these things. Good Lord, you know what, Joel? You, you need, you need a simultaneous sip is what you need.

Guess what I've got? I've got this beverage. This— I mean, I'm not advertising Diet Coke, but like, I'm not doing coffee today. I'm doing like a half liter or whatever.

Patriotic.

Wow, Joel's like, that's what I'm doing.

He's on fire this morning. Okay, guys, so grab a beverage of any kind and any kind of vessel. Let's go.

And before that, we have the simultaneous sip. And all you need to enjoy the simultaneous sip is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen, jug, or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better, the simultaneous sip. Go! Ah, the fog is clearing.

The fog is clearing. It's the name of our new song. Um, okay, so, well, let's just kind of— my name is Erica. Welcome everybody, you are at the Scott Adams School. We're so happy you're here. We have Marcela and Owen as always, thankfully, and today our special guest co-host is Joel Pollack. The man is on fire. He gets it all done and shows up for us and shows up for Scott. And Joel, serenity now.

So I'm serene.

This is my serene state. You don't want to see me in an excited state.

It's not pretty. I don't know, I kind of want to. Um, so I want to just kick off with one quick thing, uh, one quick video. My girl Sandy reminded me that it's Military Appreciation Month, the month of May. And she said, like, now Joel just gave us an example, like, what a great dad. We know Owen's a great dad. So I just want to show this clip that Sandy sent to me for Military Appreciation Month. Okay, and it's, it's a segment now called I'm Not Crying, You're Crying.

I have died every day waiting for you, darling. Don't be afraid. I love you. Time stands still.

Beauty in I just realized I might get dabbed for the music. Uh-oh.

Yeah, shit.

Look at this kid.

Let's pretend we hear the music.

I can't even hum it. Oh, you guys, sorry, YouTube. YouTube, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh my gosh. Okay, so dads and their kids, dads and daughters and their sons, and like, dads are just so important. Moms and dads, you guys. I just, I love it. I love it. Um, does anyone want to reflect on that clip? It is amazing. And the sacrifices, you know, these, these parents that go off, you know, it's like, yeah, they're, they're going off, but the rest of the family too, like the worry and the love. And, you know, you see through the kids just how important their parents are. It's so beautiful. What do you want to say about that, Joel? You love that like I love it.

Yeah, you know, those guys had a harder time getting home than I did. Um, the interesting memory it evokes for me also is watching these Instagram videos that were put up about a couple months after October 7th happened in Israel. Of course, basically the entire population mobilized for war. And if you were an adult male, 40, between the ages of 18 and 40, you were basically at war. I went to cover the war, um, less than 2 weeks after October 7th. And when I got to Israel, the streets were basically empty. And that's because so many of the men were at war. And there were these Instagram videos people started putting up as they would come home on leave. And there were a couple of songs people used over and over again, sort of like that one, which you might get dinged for on YouTube, but people were accompanying these videos of soldiers coming home. And it was the same thing. It's a little more intense in a war where, you know, people are being shot at. Typically, if your spouse or dad or wife, whatever, daughter goes to war, Very few of our roles, thankfully, are combat roles. A lot of times people are going overseas for different reasons, logistics or whatever they're doing. My wife is a former helicopter mechanic in the Navy Reserve, so she was in maintenance. But a lot of these soldiers coming back after October 7th were in combat roles. And so there are some famous cases of soldiers who had these viral videos coming home who then were later killed a month or two later in combat. And, you know, I had a friend who— I mean, I still have a friend, but I have a friend who I write to quite often. She's married to another friend of mine, and they live in Jerusalem. And during the Iran war, before this current ceasefire, so, you know, back in March, they were constantly going up and down into bomb shelters. And she said eventually it was driving them crazy. And I said, listen, What you're doing by taking care of your family is every bit as important as what husbands and fathers are doing on the front lines, or pilots are doing, or the air defense people are doing, because this war has become— and it still is really— a test of will on either side. And you can see from the way the Iranian leadership is behaving that they are acting as if we are about to quit. And in our news headlines, you have people claiming that the Iranians are about to quit or the regime is going to fall. It really has become a test of psychological will, who's going to back down. And the mother who is taking care of her kids in a bomb shelter has an extremely difficult task, but it's part of maintaining that sense of will, because if the mother doesn't keep it together and the kids are scared or can't function, then the will of the home front starts to break down. And I said to her, what you're doing is, is really a soldier's duty. I mean, you're— don't never underestimate the heroism of what you're doing. It might seem like mundane things like feeding kids and changing diapers and making sure the kids have a blanket when they go to the bomb shelter and that kind of thing, but that is That is heroic in its own way, because if, if you don't hold it together, then your country's will basically starts to break down.

Yeah.

And we haven't had a situation like that since 9/11, but I think the same is true here, you know, for military families that, that do have to live for long periods of time without a mom or a dad around.

Mm-hmm.

People holding it down at home are the people who allow our military to function and to keep us safe because because if that doesn't work, then the country just says this, you know, it's not worth— let's pay whatever price the enemy will demand because we just can't tolerate war anymore. Um, we obviously don't want to go to war, but if we have to, we have to be strong at home as well as on the front lines. And so I love those family scenes. Uh, I know, also just, you know, it's— I want to salute the, the families at home, especially the moms who, who really do so much work.

Yeah, I think, um, you know, I love the pictures you guys are dropping in the chat and, um, You know, you have to show respect and appreciation, you know, that— I mean, would I go do it? I don't know. But I am so grateful, and I think it's really important as a country, for any country, wherever you live, you know, to show that kind of support for these people because they're doing it for all of us, you know. They're doing it for their families and for your family and for our country. Um, Owen, you were in the service.

Yeah, I was in the Army Reserve and I never got deployed anywhere, which I consider myself lucky. And, you know, because I was in during the original Persian Gulf War and it was, you know, a little bit of a panic when that first started. I actually kind of predicted it was going to happen before anybody else knew. I actually told my ROTC class, hey guys, we're about to go to war. I think everybody thought I was nuts. And then it happened and You know, a lot of the people that wanted to go reserve duty, which means you're part-time and you can have a real job and, or, you know, civilian job and, you know, do it on the side. Um, a lot of them ended up going active duty. I think half the people that wanted reserve duty got sent active duty, uh, when I graduated. And, um, again, I never had to get deployed, but my unit was deployed before I got there to, uh, the Persian Gulf, and they were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan after I left. And certainly one of the things that I took away from that whole experience was a lot more respect for what the military does for us. That, you know, I knew because I was, you know, in a position where I might get sent over to do that and face who knows what threats, IEDs, other things like what was going on at that time, that I was very appreciative of not doing it. And even up to the end when I was ready to get out, I submitted my resignation and I was told, "You can't quit." They said, "President Bush has put in a stop-loss order, so you just, you're still in, sorry." I was like, "All right." And it was 2 years later. I was out of town. I had little babies at home. And we got a letter from the Department of Defense. And my wife called me, like, kind of panicked, like, "What's going on here?" And I just said, "Well, open it up. Let's see what it is." And I wasn't sure if it was going to be orders to deploy or what. And it said, "The stop loss has been lifted and we accept your resignation." So that was a big sigh of relief.

Whew.

Okay.

Because again, you know, it's just you're envisioning like, okay, I've got babies at home and now I might be sent overseas and who knows what happens to our finances. And, you know, it could be so disruptive to a lot of families, which I'm sure it is very disruptive to a lot of families.

Oh, it sure is.

And obviously they're, you know, risking their lives.

And let's not forget the moving and like the uprooting all the time and like not being able to like put roots somewhere and like have like friendships and the kids that sacrifice. They go from school to school to school and And it's such an honorable job, you know, like I don't want anyone to think, you know, oh, you know, just people that don't go to school. No, it is so honorable. And the, the character and the strength that you gain from that and the pride and leadership skills, and it's, it's invaluable. Oh, and I'm just going to go to Marcela, so because I want to go on to some other stuff in a second, but Marcela, your thoughts on the clip? I mean Love it.

I love the little kid at the end with the, like, the, the little baby that had the same outfit as his dad.

Yeah.

But I also, you know, it's funny that, um, you know, we, we do this when people go off to war and, and, and, you know, get excited to see your father, you know. But I think you should always be excited to see your parents because you won't always have them, and I think people forget that, you know. So like, oh, 'Oh, my dad doesn't serve in the military, he just works down at the factory.' It's like, who cares, Dad? That's home, you know? So, but I think it's, um, I think people need to think about also, you know, maybe your dad didn't— was not in the Air Force or in the, the military, but maybe he's out working, you know, when he comes home, you know?

Yes, we're just highlighting this because it's Military Appreciation Month, and we do appreciate Everybody in every job, every role. Um, yes, and how many of us would just kill to see our mom or dad again? Um, for sure. So Joel, I am going to play a clip and ask you to react because I saw you react already on X, and a lot of people want to get your take on, on this, this creature. Okay, here we go.

We have agency, we have a responsibility. It's just like the issue of redistricting. We could have decided it to write an op-ed. We could have decided, you know, you know, hold hands, have a candlelight vigil, win the argument. These guys are ruthless on the other side. Trump's not screwing around, and nor can we. Yeah, it's uncomfortable fighting fire with fire. Yes, we all want the better angels. Yes, we want the Sorkin sound and music, a little West Wing.

I do.

But we'll lose our country. We will lose our country.

Fire with fire was probably not the best line for him to use. But anyway, Joel, I saw you spout off about this yesterday. So what's he talking about for those that haven't heard it? And what's your take?

Well, he's talking about the redistricting fight, and I didn't hear the question that prompted his response. But he's talking about the fact that when President Trump pressured Texas to redraw its congressional districts, California responded with Proposition 50, which redrew California's districts in between census periods. Now, I'll say Texas allowed that by law. There was no law that Texas had to change or break to do that. In California, we had an independent redistricting commission. That Newsom just set aside, and then he asked the voters to ratify his setting that aside. But I would argue that that was unlawful. You can't do the thing that voters said you couldn't do when they passed the constitutional amendment to create the Independent Redistricting Commission and then go to the voters and say, oh, by the way, I did this thing which was illegal, can you make it legal? That actually is not how things work, and the Supreme Court decided not to intervene, but had the Supreme Court taken up the case, I'm pretty sure that Proposition 50 would've been thrown out. The Supreme Court didn't take it up, just like they didn't take up the Virginia redistricting decision because they just don't want to get involved in these state redistricting efforts if they can avoid it. It's messy. They get accused of political interference. The California Supreme Court is super liberal, so they did not stop Gavin Newsom from doing what he did. He spent $300 million to redraw the districts. And Texas gave, let's say, 4 or 5 new districts to the Republicans, or will have given by the end of this. California basically canceled that out because there were 4 or 5 Republican districts that were essentially eliminated by Proposition 50. Had they left it there, people might have said, you know what, we learned our lesson. You fought fire with fire, you know, terrible metaphor for Gavin Newsom to be using given that, yeah, he had this devastating series of wildfires. But, um, it, it's, it is what it is. Let's leave it alone. We all learned our lesson. But no, they went further, and then Virginia redistricted, and Newsom was all in on that fight. When Republicans saw that Virginia was going to be moved from a 6-5 Democrat-Republican district to a 10-1 Democrat-Republican district, Then Republican, uh, legislatures in other states said, okay, we cannot allow this to happen. We thought we would just let this go by, but now we're gonna eliminate the remaining Democratic seats. And so they're doing so— South Carolina, Florida, other places. And so now Democrats are going to be at a huge loss, and it's because Gavin Newsom didn't know when to stop, didn't know when to quit, didn't know when to listen to those better angels about. And that's, that's where we are, uh, today because of him. And he's now posturing as the party's leader on a national level because he says he's leading the fight against Trump. Well, if you lead your party, you've got to lead it somewhere better. Instead, he led it into a cul-de-sac and he's led it into losses. And I want to just make two other observations. First of all, this reference to Aaron Sorkin and The West Wing. I never watched a full episode of The West Wing, and I'm glad I didn't. I'm convinced that a lot of the Obama-era White House staffers were obsessed with that show, and when they got to Washington, they thought they were living that show.

Mm-hmm.

And in that show, a well-meaning liberal president runs into all kinds of obstacles, but eventually triumphs. And there are good people in Washington, and the good people are mostly on our side. The bad people are mostly on their side. And we basically try different things. We have to be daring and bold, bend a few rules to get things done. That's the plot of The West Wing as I understand it. I saw a few half episodes. I never really wanted to get too into that series. But the Obama people were obsessed with it. There's even an episode of The West Wing— Slate wrote about this at the time— there's an episode of The West Wing that sort of predicts Obama's victory many years before it happened. So I think the people in the Obama White House were living out The West Wing. They're obsessed with that. I think they don't know anything about politics. It's a fantasy of liberal dominance that is just not reflected in reality. And it's just funny to me that he's still referring to that. But the bigger problem there is When did he make that statement? He made it in DC at the Center for American Progress, the big lefty think tank funded by all the major donors, and they come up with all the crazy left-wing policies that Democrats implement. Okay, so he's at the Center for American Progress in DC. He's talking to donors. He's talking to opinion makers. He's talking to influencers. What's happening in California? It's on fire again.

Yep.

Simi Valley on fire. Riverside on fire, other places on fire. Okay, it wasn't as devastating as the Palisades fire. There's only one woman who lost her home so far, thank God. But you have wildfires, you have CAL FIRE, your state firefighting agency, in place. You've got planes and helicopters and evacuations. You're in D.C. talking about how Trump didn't give you fire money the last time. Why aren't you on the ground? He does this all the time. He's always away during disasters. He was there during the Palisades fire doing nothing. But during a blizzard that we had a few years ago where people were trapped in their homes in the San Bernardino Mountains, he went on vacation to Mexico. And he will troll Ted Cruz for going to Cancun during the deep freeze in Texas a few years ago. Oh, you know, you got another flight to Cancun to catch, you know, whatever. And yeah, I think Ted Cruz's excuse was stupid. Like he was escorting his daughter to a spring break or something like that. Yeah, Ted Cruz shouldn't have led to— should not have left Texas during the deep freeze, but he wasn't the governor, he was the senator. You're the governor of California, why do you go on a family vacation in the middle of an historic blizzard where people are trapped in their homes and some people died?

Yeah.

And the media never hold him accountable for it. Like, California media just never— they never hold him accountable. I mean, until the California Post came along.

But it's like, why did you go to the French Laundry when he's telling everyone else to lock down?

Yeah, he just wants to troll Republicans and do what he wants, right? French Laundry, right? Have a good time. He was eating with healthcare lobbyists. While he shut the rest of the state down. I remember that night because I went out with my wife for a drink at the restaurant the night before it closed. At the second— it was the second set of lockdowns because they, they opened up over like the late summer and fall and then they locked everything down again. I'm looking at all the wait staff thinking they're all going to lose their jobs tomorrow, and we're having a drink at Hank's in Pacific Palisades, which no longer exists. Not because it burnt down, just because it went out of business. But, um, you know, it's like This is Newsom. This is how he governs. He just trolls all the time, makes his hair and teeth look nice, and that's what he does.

Um, and I also just want to say, so that was The West Wing, and the Clintons, in my opinion, um, was House of Cards. Okay, so, uh, Marcella, you're in California. Um, bless you, and I'm sorry. And, um, to you, Marcella, not for long.

The way things going.

I know. So I, I do think, you know, tell me what you think, Marcela, what you see, because I feel like with Spencer coming out, he can— he's like a way— I feel like he's a way for celebrities to sort of start to like come out of the Republican or not crazy Democrat closet, because they can be like, well, he understands Hollywood and the industry. And so I feel like now there's a shift in California where you're starting to see people at their wit's end and start to embrace people more like Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt. Um, and are you getting that sense at all? I know you before thought like, no, it's just going to be firmly with the Democrats, but Spencer's numbers are bearing different.

I only get it when I'm on X. When I'm an actual, like, living through talking to people, you know, I talk a lot about politics Um, most people know my politics now, uh, obviously. Um, and I get this other sense that they're not voting— they're voting for the same people, the Sarah, uh, for— or, or Bass. So maybe Joel knows something I don't, but, um, there has been a popularity, you know, this idea that we can possibly have Hilton as our governor and Spencer Pratt. And I hope that comes true.

Yeah.

But when we talk about the Prop 50 for redistricting in California, it passed by 64%. Now, you know, this comes down to fraud, or whether it comes down to fraud voting, or whether we can, like, as Scott Adams would say, can we really put our faith in the elections? You know, recently, the DOJ Well, actually, it was a plea deal, um, that we talked about. O'Keefe filmed these people in Skid Row, and there was one lady, Brenda— I forget her last name now— uh, she basically was paying for people to register to vote. She was registering to vote, uh, homeless people in Skid Row, um, under her address or some other address. And then she has pled guilty to that. It's like a 5-year federal sentence. Anyways, so I'm just letting you know, like, they're not going to make it easy on these people. And part of it is this idea of what's behind the elections, the harvesting, the homeless voting.

Marcel, I see, you know, Harvey Levin now is like, oh, oh, you know what's interesting, Joel? I wonder if you know, but I don't think you should spill the beans. And Owen, I'm coming to you in a second, but I heard Harvey saying Yesterday or the day before, that Spencer told him privately that he has a really good team willing to work with him and assemble around him. So Harvey, being skeptical, um, asked, you know, who some of the people were. Spencer told him he called one of the people to ask them, and he didn't reveal who it was, but he said, yeah, I asked the person, like, are you in on this? Like, are you actually going to help him? And he said, yes, that's 100% true. He said it's someone amazing and someone who knows the issues and I guess lives in Los Angeles. And did you hear that story? And is it— I can't remember his name— the guy that owns all those shopping plazas everywhere?

That—

yeah, Caruso. Is it him?

I haven't heard anything about that. I did see Rick Caruso earlier this week when he came out to endorse Jake Levine. Jake Levine is interesting. Jake Levine is running for Congress in my district against Brad Sherman. And Jake Levine is pretty far to the left, but he seems pragmatic at the same time. And I was very impressed with what he had to say at this event, especially on the sidelines as he talked to some of us. So Caruso is throwing his weight behind this primary challenge to an incumbent entrenched Democrat. Very hard to do that. And Caruso must feel like he has nothing to lose because typically those challengers lose those races, but he did it. And that's interesting, but I don't see Caruso necessarily working with Spencer Pratt. You know, I think Caruso wants to be on the outside influencing in that way.

I wonder who it is. It's someone juicy.

I, let me talk about Spencer Pratt for a second. You know, he's one of my neighbors in Palisades and he lost his house. I think he's running an incredibly entertaining campaign and I think that you have to get people's attention, which he's doing. He has to develop a ground game. He started doing that, which I noted this week when he went to the San Fernando Valley, which is great because he's got to pull those voters in off the sidelines. Those people don't vote in LA elections. Because they're not motivated. They're registered to vote, they can vote, part of LA, but they typically get ignored. And he's going out there and saying, hey, you have a reason to vote this time. So I think that's good as well. The problem that you face in LA is a similar problem you face statewide, which isn't just the massive voter registration edge that Democrats have. And although Pratt's running as an independent, he is a Republican. The problem is that the public sector unions decide the fate of these elections. And it's not just because of political corruption and other things like that. It's also just because they train themselves on how to turn out voters. They have a whole infrastructure in voter turnout devoted full-time to registering voters, making sure voters know what to do, where to go. They're not filling out the ballots, we think, for the voters, but essentially they're controlling the process of voting. And in California, where you can harvest ballots, where you can hand in other people's ballots, The unions are also collecting ballots from people and handing them in. So the unions have a machine that basically runs the election. If you're a challenger who doesn't have the union's endorsement, you have to build your own machine. Well, how do you do that? You need a lot of money. You need a lot of extremely well-organized people who can do it. You can't just rely on advertising to encourage people to show up spontaneously. And I think the key for any challenger to winning a race in California is you've got to be able to either exploit a division among the unions, or you've got to go straight to the union members and see if they are fed up with their leadership. The example I like to use is Scott Adams— Scott Adams— Scott Brown. Scott Brown winning in Massachusetts in 2010. Scott Brown was a Republican, is a Republican, ran for Senate after Ted Kennedy died against a well-entrenched Democrat who was expected to win. And the reason Scott Adams won was because of Obamacare. There was a lot of Republican frustration with Obamacare, which hadn't been passed yet but was being brought up for a vote in Congress. So there were Republicans who wanted to vote against Obamacare, but there were also union members who didn't like Obamacare because union members already had great private health insurance through their collective bargaining agreements. And now their union leaders are sitting with Obama coming up with Obamacare, and your rank-and-file union members saying, wait a minute, I'm gonna lose my health insurance to some kind of government plan when my union fought for, and we went on strike for, this great healthcare plan with all these benefits. Why would I want to do that? So you had this split between the membership and the leadership, and Scott Adams was able to appeal to union workers. Trump did the same thing on the trail in 2016, and, you know, he went into those blue states and said, I can bring the jobs back. You know, you're part of a union, what good is a union membership card if you don't have a job? So I'm going to bring the jobs back. I think Spencer Pratt needs to do that, and the union I think he should start with is the Screen Actors Guild. I think he should go and say, none of you is working anymore. Hollywood has contracted by 30%. The small businesses, the below the line people, those jobs are just disappearing. And it's because of horrible management by LA civic leaders. And you deserve a better deal than what SAG is offering you. What the, what the, the writers union and what I forget what they're called, but basically I think Writers Guild of America or something like you, you, you deserve a better deal than these unions are offering you. And they might be endorsing the Democrat or the socialist or whatever. But only I can bring this back. And I think that's the pitch he has to make.

I think he's doing that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think he's starting to do that. So I think if he can, if he can drive that message, but it's, it's a tough, it's a tough road. Look, it's an exciting race.

It is.

He has a good chance to qualify for the general election polls.

Um, so we're going to move off of California in a second. And I meant to play this the other day, but you guys, the people that are backing Spencer, the creatives, the creative people with their AI advertising and whatever. Like, there was— I don't know if you guys saw the one with the yoga, the women in the yoga classes. And I'm like, yes, like, they're showing— like, are you— are we allowed to say that we're the secret? Yeah.

And it's—

I just feel like this is what I'm feeling now coming around. Like, even like with, you know, I've— I, I— listen, I'm actually not a fan of Harvey Levin at all. I actually really don't like him at all. And even him talking about, you know, liking Spencer to some degree and whatever, um, that just is giving permission for other people in the industry, which are all of LA, to, you know, secretly come forward and talk to their friends. But I did want to play this one little clip.

This is that—

this is one of the ads that went out for Spencer that was so good. Um, if you didn't see it, let's just take a look at it, and then we're going to move on to the elections, um, yesterday. And we'll let Marcella and Joel, you know, take over on that. But check this out.

Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down, and I had to take a minute to run for mayor. I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air. In West Los Angeles, Palisades, my backyard is where I spend most of my days. Feeding hummingbirds, relaxing all cool, avoiding all the bums outside of the school. When a couple politicians who were up to no good started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fire, my mom got scared and said, "You're moving in with Harvey Levin in Bel Air." I—

okay, I cut it off. You got the idea. Um, so anyway, good luck Spencer. Oh, Spencer followed me on X. I wonder if we can talk to him. Let's see. Yeah, right, that would be fun.

Well, I, I know you want to go on to the next thing, but I was gonna say is that as long as he's able to have a runoff, meaning that she has, uh, less than 50 or 50% or something like that, um, and he's able to add more time. Maybe we can get Scott Pressler out here. We can get Lara Trump out here, um, you know what I mean? Like, maybe we can—

I don't think so—

be more added time.

We need Scott, maybe Scott Pressler. But I kind of hope— I actually hope those people just stay out of it. He's doing fine. Like, if they want to razz the other per— you know what, here's what I feel like: don't endorse Spencer, just leave him alone. But if you want to trash the other two, go ahead. That's— this is my personal feeling, but Spencer's doing fine. He's got like a grassroots effort behind him. But if people want to highlight, you know, Bass and Ramen and what losers they really are, do that. Just leave Spencer alone. He's doing good. What do you think, Joel? Don't you feel like that a little bit? Like he's doing so good.

Is that the convalescent homes?

Who?

The convalescent homes.

What about them?

That's where they get their harvesting votes.

Oh yeah, I think, look, I think that there's no harm in having all of the forces you can bring in come in. I would question it only because I think there are congressional races that are probably also on a knife's edge that can use more of that national help and you have limited resources, but they're going to attack Spencer as a MAGA Republican anyway, even if he says he isn't one. So. Why not bring Trump and everybody, you know, just bring in everyone you need to, to get everyone to vote. Now Trump is a lightning rod and he'll probably also get some of Spencer Pratt's opponents out to vote, but they're going to label him as a Trump supporter anyway. So just, you might as well just bring everything you can. The most important thing is just stay focused on fixing LA. If you can stay focused on fixing LA, then, then that's what you need to do. And yeah, I mean, they're going to need to register as many people as possible, and it will be people who don't typically vote. That's the only way to do it. You know, the LA electorate— Rick Caruso should have won 4 years ago, and he was leading in the polls, and then the Democrat machine kicked in and he lost by something like 10 points to Karen Bass. A lot of people wish they had their vote back, but it was too late. And you've got to overcome the machine, and to do that, you have to build your own machine or you have to expand the electorate. Obama did it. Obama did that when Hillary Clinton controlled the Democratic Party machine in places like South Carolina. Obama had to go outside of the infrastructure of the party. He had to go outside the unions. He had to go outside the church. He had to create a new set of Democratic Party voters. So he went to rural counties in South Carolina and got black voters out there to register to vote, people who hadn't participated. And Trump did the same thing by going into blue-collar areas and saying, I'm giving you something you haven't had from either party. And so Spencer Pratt has the same flavor of campaign. It is that kind of an upstart campaign, but you've got to go and register people who don't normally take any interest in politics. And again, I think his voters are the people in the Valley, right? Talking like suburban kind of LA, still part of the city of LA, but people who just don't feel like the city ever has anything to do with them that's positive, and there's nobody who really appeals to them. And he's got to say, hey, You know, this is, this is your chance to take control of your lives. So we'll decide everything for you, right?

So, you know, we'll see how that plays out. And the reason, like, if you guys are like, God, you're talking about California non-stop, like, who cares, I live over here or over there— California is really important because they have put some of the most insane regulations on things that affect our everyday lives. Like, you can't even believe, like, from the flow of your shower head, or if you can have a gas stove or not. Like, these people are crazy. California has regulated themselves so hard that they can't even do the rail— the whatever it was called— the bullet train, because they've regulated themselves out of being able to do it.

Can I give you an example?

Yeah.

I have to run in a few minutes, um, but I want to give you an example. So my house is in the Palisades near Spencer Pratt, and my house survived the fire, but it got damaged, so we're in the process of repairing it. One of the things we discovered in the course of repairing it is that the soil is contaminated by the fire. There were a lot of heavy metals that got picked up in all these buildings burning down— lead, zinc. You can't have that in your yard, especially lead. So we had to have our soil removed. Well, here's a problem: once you have your soil removed, it's hazardous waste if it's contaminated by lead and zinc and other things. You can't just put it in a landfill. You've got to take it to a hazardous waste dump. But California does not have hazardous waste dumps that will take that kind of soil because we're California. We're clean and environmentally friendly. We don't want to pollute Mother Earth with our hazardous waste. So what do we do? Do we wish it away? Do we wave a magic wand and the hazardous waste disappears? No, it just goes to Arizona. So I had to truck my soil to Arizona. And it's ridiculous because it's so much more expensive to take it 5, 8 hours in a truck, maybe 2 trucks, covered trucks to Arizona just to put some soil there.

And, and you pay for that, Joel?

It's— yes, it's so expensive. I'm still wondering how I'm going to pay the bill because it's not covered by insurance.

So I have an idea. Why don't you guys use the empty reservoir? No, use the empty reservoirs to dump it in.

Reservoir, right?

Yeah.

But that's the point. Like, we're so wonderful and high and mighty, we have no hazardous waste, but it just goes to Arizona. Or we have electric vehicles, we don't have emissions, we don't have an oil and gas industry anymore because fossil fuels are bad. Oh, but we have to get oil from overseas now because we don't want to take oil from Texas. So we have oil from overseas, we don't want to pull it out of our own ground or our own offshore, and we burn so much more carbon by shipping it, because how do the ships run? The ships are not nuclear oil tankers, right? They're not running on nuclear power. They're not running on solar power. They're running on oil and gas, and they are putting carbon into the atmosphere. So we just don't count that when we add up like our emissions in California. I learned recently we don't count the fuel burned on all those nautical miles to get from East Asia to the United States, or the Strait of Hormuz to the United States, right? We only count it when they're in the 12-mile zone off the coast of California. That's when we start counting those emissions. So we play this funny game of pretending that we live in, in the land of, as my utopia, you know, the land, the land where unicorns fart rainbows.

So you guys, if— so the reason why it's important is if California can get its head screwed on straight, that would be a net positive for the rest of our country. California is like killing us by, you know, acting like they're so woke and right when they're just wrong about everything. Like, it's, it's insane. So, you know, it's important. So we do want the right people to win. Yes.

Uh, this just happened, and, you know, one of the things I'm proudest of working for the California Post is that the California Post and the New York Post often have the news before everybody else. You know, when I was at Breitbart, we often had the best political takes on things So that's really Breitbart's forte. The Post's forte is getting things first. President Trump broke his silence. This happened just now.

Oh, no.

On Spencer Pratt's insurgent campaign for LA mayor, saying he'd like to see the former reality star do well. So essentially Trump is endorsing Pratt.

Okay.

Is that all he said? I'm good with that. That's good.

Good. He said he was asked if he endorsed him. He says, I don't know. I don't know him. I assume he probably supports me. Does he support me? But basically he said he'd like to see him do well. There you go. I don't know if that's an endorsement, but it's a round of applause.

Oh my God, that is amazing. Okay, so he—

Barney Frank died. Oh my goodness.

Oh, did he? Oh yeah, he looked— oh yeah, he was really ill.

Yeah, Barney Frank's the reason you know who I am.

Is he?

Oh really?

Yeah, I had an argument with Barney Frank that went viral when I was in law school, and that's how I got involved in politics.

Oh wow.

Oh, poor Barney Frank. Sad.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't like his politics, but as we say, there's a blessing you say in Judaism when you hear bad news, which is Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam Dayan Hai Emet. You bless God for being the one true judge. It's sort of a neutral kind of a blessing where you just sort of accept God's fate, the fate that God decrees, which is all of our fates really at the end. But I'm sorry to hear Barney Frank passed away.

Oh yeah, Barney Frank, rest in peace. Yeah, he was a character.

He was He was very difficult to get along with, but, but, um, you know, we had a good— we had a good fight, and that's why you know who I am.

Oh, good. Well, well, thank you, Barney Frank, and rest in peace. Uh, do you need to go, Joel?

I do need to go. I've got to do another interview for California, a radio station for Jennifer Horn on AM 890, which I do.

Amazing. Oh, oh, quick update on the book.

The book is going well. Uh, I'm on schedule, and It's amazing. I'm learning things every day. I'm interviewing people every day for the book and writing the second draft. It's, it's a labor of love. And I think that the Scott Adams biography is going to be a kind of rebirth for a lot of fans and people who admired him and enjoyed what he did, because I think people are going to feel like this comes full circle in a way. So I'm just really grateful to be able to do it every day and And yeah, still on schedule, still going forward.

Oh, thank you, Joel. And thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate you and love you.

Thank you. Love you guys too.

Okay, we'll see you soon.

Bye-bye.

Oh God, Marcella, we're gonna get big. Back up. Sorry guys, now you got us.

All right, we got big, man. Um, so the elections, the primary, uh, Scott Pressler Um, he was elected. Um, here I have it somewhere. Scott Priscilla was elected to the state committee, uh, for the state committee for Beaver County, as we said, uh, yesterday. And, um, just off the top, 37 of the candidates that President Trump backed won.

Wow.

He had 37 to zero. So Pennsylvania, 10 of the candidates he backed won. Georgia, 9 of the candidates that he backed won. Alabama, 6. Kentucky, 6. We'll talk about Kentucky. Idaho, 5. Oregon, 1. But that was the only one.

Oregon's, you know, Oregon. Yeah, they're their own country.

California, like, yeah. So, you know, Massie lost.

Masi lost.

Yes, he lost in Kentucky, the 4th District, I think. KY04, I don't know. Um, Masi, although he lost, I saw— some of you probably saw his speech. It felt like he won. The speech seemed very maybe presidential governor coming up. Something else is coming up for him, but he basically embraced and amplified. He, uh, you know, took the loss. Um, he, he was a bit petty about the loss. Some people are saying— I don't say that, but he was saying something like he was trying to call Ed Galleran. Sorry, Ed Galleran is the one that won. And, um, he said that he was trying to reach him I don't know where I have it, uh, but it was hard to reach him because he was in Tel Aviv or something like that.

Oh yeah, I didn't watch any of this. Not— I was so busy last night trying to figure out what laptop to buy.

Um, I know, I was like, what laptop should she get? Um, so, you know, it is what it is. The, the races that, uh, we have is that in Georgia, the US Senate That's the race that we have to watch out for. We're trying to— the Republicans are trying to— like, we— like, I'm a Republican, I know, but I don't control the party. Uh, Jon Ossoff is the U.S. senator there. He's the incumbent. He was unopposed on the Democratic side. Um, Mike Collins on the Republican side won. We'll see that race, uh, whether Mike Collins can win and get John Ossoff off of that, and that would be another vote in the Senate. Um, Pennsylvania. Oh, Pennsylvania. Uh, so in Pennsylvania, something happened. So a socialist, Democratic Socialist, won. Oh, really? This is, you know, in Pennsylvania there's certain very conservative areas and there's some very liberal areas. In the chat, you can write where do you think this socialist, Democratic Socialist, was from. But it was in the, um, I'll wait. But basically, this person won, is a very progressive person. His name is Chris Robb.

And what did he win, Marcela?

It's kind of like the simulation. Anyways, Robb. Anyways, I won't, uh, he's a state representative member of, uh, so he won a 3rd congressional district. Oh, in Philly for the Democratic primary. So the Democrat candidates there did not win. They went further and voted for the Democratic Socialist. Um, yeah, and it was in Philly. Yep, you guessed it, Philadelphia, the area of Philadelphia. So that's one of the things. Um, Oregon, you know, because these are primary elections, we don't have final candidates, but basically there is a chance in Oregon for the Republican governor— for a Republican governor to be seated. Christine Drazan has a very good opportunity to beat the incumbent Democratic governor, Tina Kotek, in November. So we'll see. I guess she's well known Christine Drahsan in the— because she was a former state house minority leader in Oregon. So there's a chance Kentucky's US Senate seat— there was the US Senate seat in Kentucky. Your favorite Mitch McConnell is retiring. He actually spent 41 years in the Senate.

Yeah. Okay.

It's like insane. 1985, 1980, 1985. Yeah, yeah, he— well, you know, he showed up for his job for 41 years.

You don't do that. You're supposed to be, uh, uh, you know, you're like there to like give back to your country, not for 41 years and getting yourself rich and ruling the world. Sorry, get out. Let younger people come in with fresh ideas who who have a whole future ahead of them to worry about. When you're 900 years old and you can't say the alphabet, you don't really give a shit about your future. But if you were younger, maybe you had like a young family and you want everyone to be good, like, can we hear from those people? I'm sorry. Sorry.

Yeah.

Bye bye. Okay.

Well, you know, and that's the other thing is something that Scott Adams would say is like, A lot of the legislation, it doesn't look into the future because, you know, one of the things that Massey was all about was the national debt and figuring out— and a lot of his voters were young voters. They were— he didn't win the 65 and over votes. He won the below 65. And one of the things Scott Adams would say is that, you know, if you have a legislature that just is over 65, maybe in their 70s, maybe in their 80s, they're not really going to care about their future. I mean, they should because they have grandkids and children, and maybe, you know, but it seems like them, you care a little bit less because you're gonna be gone, so you're not gonna have to deal with it, you know, let the other generation deal with it. While a younger, maybe younger politicians probably would think more about a family and affordability and all that. But, um, one of the people that chimed in on the Massey loss was Cernovich, who I look up to a lot. Massey losing— he said in his post, he said, Massey losing 45 to 55%. I put that in there. Would not have been my wager. I thought he had pulled it off by a hair. So voters don't care about the growing debt. That was my opinion, in my opinion, and what I said during the OBB, which is the one big beautiful bill. Now we have ground floor confirmation, printer about to go brrr again.

Oh my God, Marcel, you're so funny. Bless. All right, so is that all the election news? It's killing me.

That is— well, there is election news, um, You know, the big— I mean, the big election news is that Trump is still in control of MAGA and the Republican Party. And you should have seen— I mean, I know you're busy figuring out a computer you want it, but oh my gosh, MSNBC, CNN, they were like, oh, they're upset. Like, they were like, they thought Trump wasn't in charge of his party. Oh, they did not like that. They did not like that. And they just felt off. Um, so another big thing, another news that came out before the election results were that Trump endorsed Paxton. Yes, in Tennessee.

Good.

Tennessee— what am I saying? In Texas.

Texas. Yeah.

Jeez, Marcel. Um, so this is going to be on the 26th, next Tuesday, and we'll see how it goes. The voting already started in Texas. If you're in Texas, let us know what your thoughts are on this, uh, but Ken Paxton is sure to possibly win with how things are going. Um, so much so that Senator John Cornyn, who is— he is going against the incumbent, um, he responded publicly on X to the endorsement of Trump. He never talked bad about them. He only focused on working closely with Trump in the past. And then he also posted on X a little bit later that he was going to go back to D.C. because he was going to cancel his campaign event today so that he could go back to vote for ICE funding and the Border Patrol funding.

Okay. So, all right.

He's more willing to do what Trump wants.

Uh, let's see, let's see. All right, so I like— oh my God, I hate politics. Like, to me, I'm just like, uh, um, but I guess we needed to know. Thank you, Marcella.

Did you, did you see JD Vance?

Did I see him? What did he say yesterday?

He was the acting press secretary.

Oh yes, yes. They're all doing a great job.

Yeah, everybody's gonna have you do it next.

Oh, let me at him, let me at him. Imagine me as the press secretary. That would be amazing.

Yeah, they went wild with him, uh, in the room. And these people are— I mean, journalists, I mean, they were just killing over each other. And he was like, I never knew. Marco Rubio did it before about 2 weeks ago, and I guess Marco talked to him about it and he said, you know, they're going to be wild. You know. So he just didn't assume they were gonna be so wild. But the reason why I'm bringing up— I know I'm on a crunch right now— is that— where is it, where is it, where is it? Um, JD Vance yesterday— Erica, yes, you didn't say Erica's name, but almost— said the DOJ is probing Ilhan Omar over immigration fraud. He confirmed it.

Mm-hmm. So let's go. I'd like to see it. Love to see it.

Positive note there.

So, um, in closing, um, in Maria Bartiromo news, because I'm suddenly obsessed with Maria— she has no idea she's being highlighted. Maria, we're highlighting you on this show all the time because you're hot and we love you and you're smart and you're amazing, don't get me wrong, but Look at this uncanny— where'd it go? Did I delete it? No, here it is.

Look at this.

It's like a Maria Bartiroma fish. Oh my, this is not AI.

Is that real?

Yes. So listen, they're the red-lipped batfish and they live, um, off the Galápagos Islands and they, um, they have their lips are like that to seduce the opposite sex. So anyway, that was my Maria Bartiromo news. I can't—

no, they got to be AI. That's easy.

One more time, guys, this is legit, right? The Galápagos, they have all sorts of stuff going on there.

Come on, look at their little—

that they walk on. They can't really swim. Yep, I read a whole thing about them. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us today, you guys. Okay, tomorrow we have Gad Sad. Marcella will not be on, but I think she might be in the chat tomorrow. Um, Owen and I will be here. Um, EJ, a special plea to you. I'm talking to you specifically, EJ. I'm begging you, I'm begging you, okay? You know what I'm saying. So we'll be here tomorrow with Gad Saad. Um, as always, we thank, uh, Scott Adams and Shelley Adams for allowing this show to continue. We really value and love it so much. Um, and, uh, go out and be useful today, you guys. Have some fun in your lives. And, um, thank you, EJ. EJ, so now I know you heard me. I'm begging you, don't embarrass Mommy. That was a joke between EJ and I. Okay guys, so, um, let's have a closing sip to Scott. As always, we miss him so, so much, and I have some great, um, things coming up with Scott lessons that he did for us, so it's going to be so great. All right, you guys, bye, Beav! Love you. All right, you guys, start saying your goodbyes, and Marcella and I are going to give a closing sip to all of you and to Scott. Okay guys. To Scott Adams.