Episode 152: Scott Adams Talks About Putin, Lying and Carter Page

Date: 2018-07-22 | Duration: 37:20

Topics

The media shapes our opinion on topics They’re programming our brains If MSM stopped reporting their opinions, and just reported news… Would we be as divided as we are right now? Gallop poll on American’s priorities is same as President Trump’s James Gunn and Judd Apatow insulting Scott Adams on Twitter

Transcript

[0:10]

I’m unpumped, unbuttoned. Hey everybody, come on in. Come on in. It’s time for coffee with Scott Adams. This one might be a little extra delicious because I overslept yesterday and missed our window. But today, I’ve got some semi-delicious coffee because I’m on the road. I’m in Las Vegas today, and I hope you’ll join me in the simultaneous sip. Ready? Get your coffee. Ready, it’s time. Grab your vessel, your cup, and your beverage, and now the simultaneous sip.

So I’m watching the Carter Page FISA story, and here’s my summary of the Carter Page FISA story: I don’t really know what’s going on. I think I’d like to speak for approximately 300 million Americans when I say, “Carter Page FISA? I’m confused.” I can’t really tell why it’s important or what the details are, or why some people are saying one thing and some are saying the other. But from a persuasion perspective, I agree with President Trump’s approach. I think everybody knows the public is not going to understand the whole Carter Page thing. It’s just one of those topics people are just not going to understand the details. Because nobody understands it, whoever frames it wins.

[2:12]

So the President has got out of it quickly over the weekend and framed it as showing that it was all a witch hunt. He says, “Congratulations,” blah blah, it talks about the Carter Page FISA document. This is Trump’s tweet from today, I guess: “As usual, they’re ridiculously heavily redacted but confirmed with little doubt that the Department of Justice”—he put “justice” in quotes, his own Department—“and FBI misled the courts. Witch hunt, rigged scam!” It’s exactly the perfect thing to say persuasion-wise. I reiterate that I have no idea what the Page FISA warrant being released actually tells me. I don’t understand the issue. In that context, it’s great for the President to just frame it any way he wants.

[3:14]

He could just say anything about it. You know, “I think the Carter Page FISA release with all of its redactions is proof to the public that I’m an alien from outer space.” You could say anything about it because nobody understands what’s going on at this point. “Nobody” meaning the public. There are some pundits and experts who might have a grasp of it, but I wonder about that even. It says that dossier info was used to get FISA warrants, but other people look at it and say the opposite. So you’re seeing the “two movies on one screen” approach again. People will look at that document and they have completely different interpretations of whether it’s important and what it means.

[4:15]

Let me get to my more fun—oh, I’m just talking low because Christina is still asleep. I’m not sick. I saw a story on CNN today that CBS did an interview with the President in which the President said he didn’t want to talk about whether Putin was lying. His exact words were, “I don’t want to get into whether Putin was lying.” Trump was asked on this new interview—the interviewer said, “Do you believe your own Intel people that Russia meddled in the election?” And he says, “Yes. Completely trust them. Yes, that’s true.” So on the question of fact, he agrees with everybody else that there was a meddling and the Intel agencies know it.

[5:17]

I didn’t really need the Intel agencies to tell me that because I’m pretty sure everybody’s meddling with everybody. The big story would be imagine if we found out that Russia was not meddling with our cyber-everything. That would be a bigger story because it would be more surprising. But then the pundits on CNN looked at the clip in which the President said, “I don’t want to get into whether Putin is lying,” and they look at each other and they try to act like they don’t understand how these two things could be coming from the same President. How could it be that he says clearly he believes his Intel people that Russia was involved, at the same time, why will he not say that Putin was lying when it’s obvious he was?

[6:18]

The President says, “Don’t want to get into whether Putin was lying.” Now, isn’t it a hundred percent obvious to you what’s going on? Why are the pundits on CNN confused by any of this? He is very clearly just giving Putin a little diplomatic space. In other words, it’s sort of the “last chance.” We’re going to downplay what you have done. The past can’t change the past, and we’re not going to try to change the past, but if this crap happens again, the future is not going to look good for you. I think the President has clarified in my mind, anyway, exactly what he plans to do and what his strategy is. His strategy is to try to get Putin to be productive and be on the side of mutual progress, and he doesn’t want the past to get away.

Let’s have another simultaneous sip, mostly because I’m thirsty.

[7:20]

Just like North Korea—somebody said in the comments, that is correct. Breaking news: Kelly steps down? Is that true? Let us see if we’ve got a headline like that. I will see on CNN. It’s not a webpage yet. How relationships do better with short memory—that is very wise.

[8:25]

I’m not seeing anything about Kelly, so don’t assume that’s true yet. Could be trolls. “Putin used the media to divide us.” Well, why is it that we don’t blame the media? Why does the media get a pass for dividing the country? Why is it okay that the media, who are the supreme programmers of our minds—I mean, the media literally is reprogramming our brains—and if we’re divided, it’s because of the way they framed it. Think about every story that divided America in the past two years. Think about every story that divided America and think about how it could have been covered that would not have divided America and would still be accurate.

[9:25]

Take the time that President Trump announced he was running and he said that Mexico was sending us their rapists and their murderers, but “some I assume are good people.” Now, they could have reported that by asking for his clarification, and then whatever the President clarified, say, “Oh, this is the story. We weren’t sure what he said, but now he’s clarified.” And he’s clarified by saying, “Of course, I’m not saying every man, woman, and child that comes across the border is a rapist, because obviously I’m not saying the children are rapists or the women are rapists or most of the men. There’s just too many of them.” Now, if the news had said, “Hey, that first thing he said was ambiguous, we better ask him what he meant,” and then they reported what he said in his clarification, would that not be the news? Isn’t that the entire news? We were confused, it was ambiguous, we asked for a clarification, he gave it to us, the clarification is perfectly acceptable.

[11:28]

The dog-whistle part is the imaginary part of the news. If the news stopped covering the parts that are imaginary—as in, “What is somebody really thinking in their mind? What is the magic whistle that people are hearing? What is his long-term strategy? What do we hallucinate is the future that will happen from this?”—if the news reported the actual news instead of reporting opinion, wrapping every news story with massive layers of opinion, we wouldn’t have a divided country, would we?

Do you think the country would be divided if the news just reported the news? Charlottesville is the perfect example. The first thing the President said about “good people on both sides” was ambiguous. What did he mean? “God, I hope he doesn’t mean the tiki torch guys.” So then they asked him for a clarification and he said, effectively, “No, not the tiki torch guys. Not the racists. I just mean the people who support statues versus the people who don’t. There are good people on both sides.” So it would have been easy to report Charlottesville as just an unclear statement that became a clear one. That was the whole story.

[12:28]

You may have seen some people tweeting around a recent poll—I think it was a Gallup poll—in which the public was asked which topics they thought were most important, their top priorities. It was hilarious because the list was almost a Trump list of priorities. In other words, if you asked the President to name his own priorities, it turns out that the public has the same priorities as President Trump.

Now, one of the top priorities that people were worried about was racial relations. That’s something that the President has not been a superstar on, to say the least. So that’s one issue that I would say the press has put at the top. But between the media who dislikes the President and the President himself, they have completely reshifted the public’s opinion of what matters and what’s a big risk and what isn’t.

[14:29]

If you ever thought that people had free will, look at how much Trump and the anti-Trump media completely rearranged the opinions of what matters in this country, completely different than two years ago. The funniest thing about the list of the top concerns is that out of that—I think the top 36 concerns—climate change wasn’t even on the list. Climate change didn’t make the list. Terrorism was way down the list. Who gets the credit for that? Should be the administration, right? If you take terrorism from our biggest fear to way down the list, that means the administration is doing something right. Now, I include the Obama administration, which obviously set things in motion. We wouldn’t be where we are if they hadn’t done whatever it is that they did. Environmental concerns were way down the list.

The Cohen tape, a big deal? My prediction on the Cohen tape is that it’s a minor problem.

[15:34]

“Trump took out ISIS, not Obama.” You know, you lose credibility when you give Obama no credit. These things are not binary. You could certainly say that Trump did a better job than Obama; you could make an argument for that, and that would be either right or wrong, but it’s credible. But it’s not credible to say that Obama did nothing for the economy. It’s not credible to say Obama did nothing to fight ISIS. Those things are just clearly not credible statements, and it hurts your argument. A better argument is that Obama made headway and Trump finished it. Trump’s kind of a finisher, so he’s a closer. I think that’s a better way to put it. I would say Obama is a good starter and Trump is a good closer.

[17:36]

“What did Obama do for the economy?” Are you kidding me? When Obama took over, the economy was on the edge of completely going down the drain, and he took it from a basket case to a solid base. I would give Obama a B-plus, probably. At least that. And B-plus is a good grade.

Giuliani says the tape is exculpatory. Has he heard the tape? I don’t know that. Yes, the Assange story. I was reading up on the Assange story, and it’s interesting that he hasn’t been charged with anything. The best take on this is Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept. His article on Assange is worth reading. It’s a really good context, and I say this even though Glenn Greenwald has been pretty mean to me on Twitter at least once. I think he may have misinterpreted—I don’t remember the topic—but despite the fact that he and I are not buddies and never will be, as a person, he seems like a terrible person, just my observation of watching him on TV. But in terms of his positions, he is uniquely unbiased. Greenwald is probably the most unbiased journalist working. Can anybody think of anybody who is more unbiased and willing to take a clear view of both sides? He’s probably one of the few genuine reporters.

[19:43]

Mike Cernovich would be another one. Almost everybody else is biased. Recession coming? Somebody says there’s always a recession coming, we just don’t know when.

“He lies about Sam Harris all the time.” I don’t know about that. I think I’ve said enough. Are there any other fun topics at the moment? I do think Glenn Greenwald does not play well with other pundits, but I don’t hate that about him. If you can separate his personality from his professional—his personality appears to be terrible; his professional work appears to be outstanding. Somebody asked about my startup. I’m gonna have some exciting news about the startup maybe in two weeks if things go well, so look for that.

[21:46]

I’m watching the news about the various Hollywood people who have said bad things, and I’m watching Mike Cernovich call them out by showing their past tweets. I gotta say, there’s some ugly stuff in those tweets. But beyond that, I’m not a mind reader. I do not know what any of them are thinking or feeling. I only know what’s in their tweets and you have to be a little bit cautious to over-interpret them. But it’s certainly fair—it’s always fair to reprint somebody’s own words. It’s up to them to clarify. I’m whispering because Christina is still asleep. “Gunn called you a horrible person.” Are you saying that James Gunn said something about me? That’s not true, is it? I didn’t even know who he was until recently.

[22:53]

Joking about kids. I have sort of a mixed feeling about where to draw the line with humor, because the moment you say something is too far, then humor is under attack. But at the same time, there are some things which are extremely offensive. Here’s my take on it: I think the market takes care of this stuff. If people say stuff that the market doesn’t like, they’re going to react. So I think I just leave it to the public. It’s not for me to say whether a joke is or is not funny, and it’s not for me to say whether a joke is or is not appropriate. If the market decides to punish him for a joke, that’s how the market works.

[24:01]

Well, here’s another perspective. There is a form of humor that I often practice, but only privately. Most of you who have seen my professional humor work—when I’m talking professionally to the public, I draw some lines for myself and I’ll say, “Okay, this is below the line, this is above the line,” and I’ll make sure that I don’t offend the public any more than I want to. But privately? Oh my god. Privately, I have said and laughed at some of the worst things you could even imagine. Privately, I will laugh at the absolute worst, inappropriate joke. Something that nobody should ever say. A thought that should never even be formed in your head. Something that’s offensive to all humanity.

[25:05]

The reason I would laugh—here’s the important point—the reason I would laugh is because of the horribleness of it. The trigger for the laugh is that it’s not supposed to be said or thought. It’s something so inappropriate that it just triggers a laugh response in me. So if I laugh at a topic which you should not be joking about, if you laugh about them privately and you’re not offending somebody who hears it—there’s nobody in the room who’s a victim or personally affected by it—then you’re actually agreeing. Your laughter is agreeing with the people who say these topics are inappropriate. If I laugh at an inappropriate topic, I’m not laughing at the victim, ever. I’m laughing at the inappropriateness of the topic. That can be funny. But there’s nothing funny about the victims, of course.

[26:07]

Somebody’s challenging me to look for a Gunn tweet and see what he said about me. Also, Judd Apatow said something about me. This is the response to me: I called myself a professional humorist in the context of explaining that I’m recognizing something as a joke and other people are saying it’s not a joke. In that context, I’m saying, “Well, I’m a professional humorist, I can recognize a joke.” Judd Apatow says, “No one who is actually funny says they are a professional humorist.” He’s already done on the first sentence. Who made that rule?

[27:08]

This is Judd Apatow, May 12: “No one who was actually funny says they were professional humorist.” Well, Judd, I have sold approximately 25 million Dilbert books and calendars. Why do people buy them? Was it because I’m not funny? People who think that humor is objective—people who think that humor is not subjective—are not really credible. But then he goes on to say, “It’s so easy to excuse hate and racism by saying Trump is making jokes. He is an awful person to his core and you should be ashamed of voicing this type of absurd support.” Judd Apatow was insulting me on Twitter and I never knew it until now. I never noticed. So I guess ignoring him was the right thing to do in this case. Judd, I think, is suffering from a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and honestly, I see it as a medical problem. So I’m not going to respond to Apatow as if what he said is an opinion, because it doesn’t come off as an opinion; it comes off as a medical problem.

[29:11]

Then James Gunn jumped in. I didn’t know this until just this moment. He’s talking about me when he says this: “He keeps explaining what makes a joke a joke and then backs up his argument by linking to a blog he wrote on what a joke is,” and then he says it’s weird and he seems completely clueless about how weird it is. Well, yes, I am completely clueless because I just read your tweet and I don’t even understand it. I guess I’m going to agree with you that I don’t understand why a professional humorist, who often writes about what makes something funny, could link to his own blog on the very topic he’s talking about. Apparently, it’s weird to tweet a link to your own blog post which is relevant to the topic—a topic in which you are literally an established expert.

[30:14]

In this context, I would say anybody who’s made millions of dollars publishing humor would be considered a humor expert. That doesn’t mean you like them, it doesn’t mean they’re the funniest person in the world, but if you’ve made millions of dollars doing this thing, you’re kind of an expert. So I would say James Gunn—and then it looks like he blocked me. Oh no, I blocked him. I guess I blocked him for something; maybe it was for this. I didn’t know who he was. The funny part of the story is that there are famous people in Hollywood who were insulting me and I’ve never even noticed.

I don’t have an opinion on James Gunn’s past tweets. They are for you, the public, to respond to any way you want. It’s completely fair to call them out because they’re public, but you can do with that what you will. I’m not going to be the humor police, but I agree with you on the general concept: some things are not funny.

[32:20]

“You’ve been insulted by Andy Cohen.” I’m not sure if I can tell you this, but I think I will. No, I think I won’t. You could probably imagine that those of you who have been listening to me for a long time—as much as I do tell you about the interesting things going on in my life and elsewhere—it’s the tip of the iceberg. If you could see the rest of the iceberg, it would just change your entire worldview. The things that I personally experience and have been exposed to and have learned about how the world works is mind-boggling. I’m not talking about one thing; I’m talking about a body of things. There are some things you just can’t talk about in public.

[33:22]

One reason you can’t talk about them is that there are people who have given you their confidence; they expect you not to talk about it. I hold that as one of my highest principles, to not blab other people’s secrets. But the second part is you wouldn’t believe it anyway. There is so much I could tell you that I know to be true that you absolutely would not believe. Just unbelievable. Anyway, enough on that.

I had an experience the day before yesterday. Now, how many of you are familiar with comedian Jim Gaffigan? How many of you know who he is? Christina and I went to see a show here in Vegas at Caesars in the big room. Probably 4,000 people came to see him and oh my god, he just killed. He killed. His act is clean, totally clean.

[34:24]

And yet, probably the funniest comedian working right now. I actually got dizzy. I laughed so hard that I was actually dizzy. It’s one of the best things. Many years ago, before Jim was as famous as he is and before Dilbert was as big—he and I worked together for a day. I did a commercial for Barnes & Noble. One of my books was a bestseller at the time, so they were having bestselling authors do Barnes & Noble commercials. Jim Gaffigan, who was not yet as famous, was the host. I hung out with him for half a day while filming. And then I got to watch his career go from a guy doing a commercial for Barnes & Noble to arguably the best comedian working, I would say.

[35:26]

That was fun. I noticed that we follow each other on Twitter, so I sent him a message and asked if we could just say hi after the show. If you meet the star after the show, generally there are lots of people doing it—just a group of people who for whatever reason got to go backstage. This time it was just Christina and I. We got to go back and chat for a while and hang out with him and Ted, his opening act that day. It was really a fun experience. He’s a great and interesting guy. “Careful Scott, you’re gonna ruin his career.”

[36:28]

He’s probably the best comedian working right now in terms of live comedy or even televised. Brian Regan—is it Reg-an or Ree-gan?—is also an excellent clean comedian. Somebody said, “What did you talk about?” Well, that’s the point, is that I don’t talk about what I talk about. But it was a fun experience.

All right, I think I’m done for now. I’ve got to go do some more work and I will talk to all of you later.