Episode 192 Scott Adams: Talking About the “Worse Than Watergate” Guy

Date: 2018-08-22 | Duration: 43:54

Topics

Clear example of two movies on one screen Viewers of one movie…see nothing illegal or worrisome Viewers of the other movie…see serious crimes, and impeachment Carl Bernstein weighs in, as usual…”it’s worse than Watergate!” CNN reports Cohen said President Trump committed a crime Mollie Tibbetts news coverage, from a persuasion perspective Hiring decision insights and Trump administration choices Hiring is a guess, firing is a skill Risk management is an important consideration Loyalty matters

Transcript

The Simultaneous Sip

Hello Joanne and Laurie and where are all the guys? JP, about time. Get in here. Erica, Jerry… your names are going by very quickly. I’m so tired this morning. Sorry I’m a little bit late, but it’s never too late for the simultaneous sip. That’s how tired I am. Join me.

Normally when I do these Periscopes, I’ve been up for an hour or so, sometimes two hours. I’ve collected my thoughts. This isn’t one of those days. This is one of those days where I looked at the clock and I said, “Hey, I’d better do a Periscope.” Somebody said their coffee is getting old. I got to do this.

Two Movies on One Screen: Cohen and Manafort

So many of you remember back in the wayback machine, back to 2015, when I introduced the concept that we were watching two movies on one screen. Think how many times that way of looking at the world has intruded on your thoughts since then, and have you ever seen a better example than today?

Of course, we’re all watching the fallout from the Manafort and Cohen situation. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe we’ve entered two distinct Schrodinger’s cat worlds. In one world, the President is surely going to get impeached, if not in legal trouble after he’s out of office. In that world, he’s obviously committed a crime. The evidence is crystal clear and there’s no doubt about it. There’s just no way this guy can stay in office. That’s one movie.

In the other movie, nothing happened. That’s the whole movie. Nothing happened. In that movie, no crimes were committed. Think about it. Both of those movies are running in full Technicolor, just as clear as possible. A huge part of the country believes that the President has been implicated in a crime that’s easy to prosecute. They’ve got a witness; his name is Cohen. He believes he’s part of the evidence against the President and the President will certainly be impeached, if not in legal trouble.

I’m sitting in a movie in which I don’t see any of that. Now, I’m not saying there might not be some secret thing we don’t know anything about that somebody’s talking about in some closed room somewhere—I wouldn’t know about that—but if you’re just talking about what we’re seeing, the evidence that’s presented to us, I don’t see any legal risk at all.

Do you remember when I came on here yesterday? I was one of the first pundits to weigh in, and if you remember what I said, I said I’m not sure I understand why this could be illegal. I was talking not as a lawyer, because I’m not one, but I said just commonsensically, how could it ever be illegal for a candidate to spend their own money making themselves look more attractive as a candidate? Whether it was Hillary Clinton spending a lot of money on her wardrobe, or somebody getting some plastic surgery, somebody painting their house, anything that’s a personal expense—including paying off somebody not to talk about you.

I waited, of course, until Alan Dershowitz weighed in. The question to him was: Has the President committed any crime, even if everything that is said about him is true in terms of the Cohen and Stormy Daniels stuff? And what did Dershowitz say? No, it wouldn’t be.

Let me clarify—I don’t want to put words in Alan Dershowitz’s mouth. That would be the dumbest thing I could do because he says smarter things than I do about the law. But what he did say was that if he just spent his own money on Stormy Daniels, that would not be against the law. But there might be some complication because Cohen spent the money to pay off Stormy Daniels, and then Cohen would be reimbursed by the President from his personal money, and there was something about that that made it illegal.

But it seems to me—correct me if I’m wrong—imagine you’re on a jury and the case they bring to you is this. They say, “Yes, yes, we agree it’s totally legal if the President just wrote a check from his personal account to Stormy Daniels or anybody else.” Let’s say the judge and everybody says yes, everybody agrees that’s legal. But it became illegal somehow that I don’t understand because the idea was to finance it essentially in a way that made it hidden, so that Cohen would pay, then Cohen would be reimbursed by the President through legal fees. There’s some idea that that would make it illegal.

Now imagine if the President is on trial and the defense gives you this: The President knew that it was totally legal to write a check for personal stuff, so that would have been totally legal. And then, wait for it, his lawyer recommended that the way he pay for it personally is through this mechanism that goes through the lawyer. How is the client supposed to know that that turned a legal act into an illegal act if his lawyer did not inform him? Does the client go to jail for taking his lawyer’s advice on how to do something that’s perfectly legal?

If something that Cohen did in his advice about running the money through him made it illegal, even if that were a crime for the client—and I can’t imagine it is—how big of a crime would it be? For somebody to do something that, if they wrote a check directly it’s completely legal, and their lawyer, who is supposed to keep them out of legal trouble, suggests that they do it this way? You as a citizen, you’re not a lawyer. Trump isn’t a lawyer. If his lawyer says, “Just run the money through me,” what would have set off any bells in his mind for him to even imagine that was illegal?

On what planet could client Trump possibly have known that running the money through Cohen would be illegal if his lawyer said to do it? I don’t see how that would be illegal if I were the client. If I were the client in that situation, would I know that this had turned it into a crime somehow? Well, first of all, I don’t think it does. And second of all, even if it did in some technical way, how the hell would I know? I’m not a lawyer.

Now, I think we all agree that the legal system says ignorance is no excuse. But what happens if you make a mistake in your taxes? It’s something complicated that no citizen would ever really understand, but their high-end tax attorney does. If a high-end tax attorney says, “Do your taxes this way,” and it turns out to be illegal, how does the IRS handle that? Do they handle it the same as if the client easily should have known it was illegal? I don’t think so. Again, I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think it’s handled the same. It might still have to be illegal, but if you got your advice from somebody whose job it is to keep you out of trouble, and it was so complicated that even they didn’t know it was illegal, you’re a lot safer. The person who gave you the advice ends up taking some of the burden off of you because, realistically, citizens don’t know the intricacies of campaign finance law.

Even in the world that I don’t live in, in which this is somehow illegal to do, isn’t it the smallest illegal thing you could ever imagine? Imagine something that, first of all, not only doesn’t have a victim, but it has a beneficiary—several of them. Stormy Daniels is a beneficiary. If things had worked out and they’d paid her $130,000 and she didn’t talk, she would have been a beneficiary. What laws do you know of where somebody goes to jail for helping somebody and everybody just comes out ahead?

I know there are laws where there’s a victimless crime. But if you could rank things, there’s a crime where there’s a victim—that’s way down low. There’s a crime technically where there’s no victim. And then the very best kind of crime is where there’s not only no victim, but everybody came out ahead. Nobody lost anything. What do you call that? It’s as close as you can get to the opposite of a crime. Everyone just comes out ahead. Stormy gets some money; the President gets some privacy.

Carl Bernstein: The “Worse Than Watergate” Guy

You’ll be watching the two movies develop. Yesterday I was waiting for this. When the news broke, I was waiting for CNN to trot out Carl Bernstein. I was thinking, “Where’s Carl Bernstein? Where’s the guy they bring on to say, ‘It’s worse than Watergate! It’s worse than Watergate!‘”

Carl Bernstein has become the “worse than Watergate” guy. That’s all he says, no matter what the situation is. If the President got a parking ticket, it’s worse than Watergate. If the President took a phone call, it’s worse than Watergate. So they trotted him out. I just tweeted the headline: “Carl Bernstein says it’s worse than Watergate.”

I thought to myself, “Can I just write the news now?” I’ll tell you what the news is a day ahead of time. Yep, Carl Bernstein will be on CNN and he will say it’s worse than Watergate. So there’s your weird news today. You’ve got something that shouldn’t be illegal, probably isn’t illegal, and if it were illegal, it would be the smallest technical crime anybody’s ever seen in the history of crimes, because everybody came out ahead. What the hell kind of crime is that? Worst than Watergate. It just sounds like good alliteration.

CNN and the “Accusation” of a Crime

How long is it going to take CNN to realize that they don’t have anything? Some people are saying that Cohen is accusing the President of being a criminal. The way it’s being reported on CNN—I think Anderson Cooper said it this way—is that Cohen in court accused the President of the United States of a federal crime. Did you see that? I didn’t see that in my movie.

In CNN’s movie, Cohen said in public in court that the President committed a crime, and they’re reporting it like that’s a fact. That didn’t happen. Nothing like that happened. I’ll tell you what did happen: Cohen described what the President did, which was direct and coordinate these payments. If it’s not illegal to direct and coordinate those payments of your own money—and it absolutely, unambiguously is not illegal to use your own money for stuff of this nature—then what Cohen accused the President of doing is something totally legal.

In the non-CNN movie, Cohen got up in public and accused the President of doing something totally legal. How do you not call that fake news? Is it unfair to say that it’s fake news when CNN refers to it as “accusing him of a crime” when the experts are weighing in and saying it doesn’t look like a crime? No, it’s not real news; it’s fake news. I think that’s a completely accurate label. You don’t have to be on one side or another to see how completely fake news that is.

Mollie Tibbetts and the Persuasion of the Wall

Let me talk about something else that’s bothering me a bit. You’re watching the Mollie Tibbetts coverage. There’s a young white woman who was killed—and the “white woman” part matters in this story—who was allegedly killed by someone in this country illegally. Now, that’s being used in the news as an example of why we need more walls.

I’m not comfortable with that framing because, to me, it just feels racist, honestly. Now, I want to be very careful: I’m not saying that the people who are talking about this are racists. I’m not saying they have racist intentions, because if I did, I would be reading their minds. That would be mind-reading. I’m not a mind-reader. It is certainly a crime for somebody to come into this country illegally, and if they come into the country illegally and kill a citizen, that’s a really bad crime. We would like the rate of that to be zero.

We can all agree the proper number is zero. Nobody wanted her to be killed. Nobody wants illegal people to come into the country and commit crimes. There is 100% agreement all over the country on that. But to highlight it looks racist, and it feels racist. If your intention is to get your wall and to not look like a racist in the process, it kind of works against you. If your intention is to just get the wall and you want to scare people as much as possible—watch how the comments are completely misunderstanding my clear point. Watch how people are totally triggered on both sides.

What I’m talking about is persuasion. What you’re mad about is not what I’m talking about. Just check your thinking here for a moment. Understand that we’re all in complete agreement that this should not have happened. The right rate of murder is zero. Wouldn’t it be better if nobody was coming across the border illegally? The fact that somebody got murdered definitely makes it worse. We’re all in agreement on the facts. Don’t give me a hard time about the facts.

I’m telling you that if you’re trying to convince the other side—the people who don’t want the wall—that you want a wall and that the reason you’re doing it has nothing to do with being racist, this is exactly the wrong way to do it. It might be the best way to get the wall if it gets the base fired up enough to elect more Republicans, so I’m not sure it doesn’t work. That remains to be seen. It’s worked so far; we’re closer to the wall than we’ve ever been.

But the Democrats have already, at one point, offered to pay for a wall under certain conditions. The Democrats themselves have essentially acknowledged that border security matters. I feel like at this point, focusing on this Mollie Tibbetts thing—it’s hard for me to understand this messaging. It’s completely legitimate to talk about how some crime got into the country. The facts are on the President’s side. Someone came across the border and killed a citizen. The right amount of that is zero. The wall might help.

But if all you’re talking about all day is the “brown guy killed the white woman,” that’s not registering to me as solid facts, even though it is a set of facts. It’s registering to me as “I feel like you’ve already won the argument that we need good border security.” If we’re still talking about “brown guy kills white girl,” I feel like that’s sending two messages, and one of them is very destructive.

I’m a little bit undecided on the utility of talking about it. It might be that getting people fired up gets you your wall, but I don’t think it’s free. I think you’re giving away something pretty big, which is the sense of racial harmony. I’m not talking about what people are saying; I’m talking about how the message feels. If you spend time on this one person killed this one person, you don’t have to talk about their race, but that’s how people are going to receive it.

When I talk about what the persuasion level is on this, I’m talking about the irrational level. If you’re going to argue to me about the facts, remember, I’ve agreed with you on all of the facts. I’ve agreed with you that it wouldn’t matter if the person came across the border was brown or purple or white. Race was not part of the story, but it’s going to feel like that. Why would you message something that will make things worse if you know it’s going to make people feel that way?

“You wouldn’t if it was your daughter.” That is a completely ridiculous thing to say. Of course I would feel differently if my own daughter were killed. What’s that got to do with anything? Everybody feels differently if it’s their own kid. That’s ridiculous. We are irrational creatures. If you ignore our irrational nature, you can accidentally message exactly the wrong thing.

Watch the comments. Every time somebody points out a fact, there are two things you should know about it. One: I already agree with the fact. The facts have nothing to do with this; it’s just how it feels. Watch, there’s going to be somebody else who comes up with another fact. “What if it was an illegal white immigrant?” Irrelevant. Let’s see how many more people will be caught in this. “She was likely to be killed by a citizen.” Fact, but not relevant to the point. Every fact you say is irrelevant if you don’t understand that I’m talking about the messaging.

I’m telling you how persuasion works and that people are irrational. You’re watching right in front of you a sort of cognitive blindness. Somebody just wrote “illegal” three times. That’s a fact; it has nothing to do with my point. For those of you who can see past what I’m talking about, watch how many people are arguing how it feels by giving me a fact, which is a completely different topic.

“Feelings are more relevant than facts?” Yes. Feelings are more relevant than facts in many situations. I’m not saying they should be; I’m saying that we’re irrational creatures and we react that way. Read my book, Win Bigly, to understand the larger points.

“Scott is mind-reading again.” I think I’ll start blocking the people who just start spewing that I’m mind-reading. If you give me an example, I’ll deal with it as something that’s true or false, but if you just start spewing, I’m going to start blocking you for being a troll.

“No skin in the game.” Are you kidding me? Who has more skin in the game than I do? I’ve literally at risk of dying. I have so much skin in the game on these topics that I could personally be murdered if I go into public. That’s not even a joke. The odds of me being murdered in public because of the things that I say on this Periscope are pretty high compared to the average person. If I don’t have skin in the game, nobody does.

“Trump haters feel lots of irrational feelings.” That is a very aware statement. It would be more aware to say everybody is very irrational all the time. It’s not a question of whether it’s wrong to have irrational feelings, because we just have them. That would be like saying air is good or bad. It doesn’t matter; we have air. When I say the messaging would make people feel something, I don’t mean every person feels the same thing.

“Were you happy that the judge asked the jury about having their names released?” Yes. It would have been a tragedy for the judge to release the names of the jurors without their permission. Manafort was guilty enough, and I love the fact that the whole Manafort thing is just being conflated with Cohen to make the Cohen thing seem worse. Nobody’s saying that directly, but our minds are conflating the two because they happened at the same time.

Trump’s Hiring, Firing, and the Loyalty Asset

Here is one additive thing that I’ll say today. You might see this in the media later. Part of the criticism we’re seeing after the Cohen and Manafort decisions is the laundry list of all of the Trump appointees and people that he’s worked with who have been run out of office in disgrace or got in legal trouble. It’s a pretty big list now. You look at that list and you say to yourself, “My God, I thought the President said he could hire good people.”

Here is the correct response to that. Two things are very important. Number one: the opposition spent a year and a half painting Candidate Trump as an insane, racist maniac until that was his brand for a big part of the country. Even within the Republican Party, a lot of people said, “I don’t want my brand mixed up with his.” They wanted to keep some distance. The last thing they wanted to do was put their reputation in that grinder after a year and a half of him being called a monster and a Hitler.

So what was the pool of potential people who could work for Trump after the election? The pool of potential applicants was very, very small. How many high-quality people were willing to work for the President when he got elected? A few. Basically only people who were already on the team. Ben Carson—he was basically already on the team. The number of people who would cross that line given the way he had been framed was very small. He had a very hard time getting the right applicants. Nobody would disagree with that statement.

Secondly, I’ve made this point before: the smartest people I know will agree that hiring is sort of a guess. The skill is in the firing. You hire people who look good on paper, but you don’t really know how they’re going to perform. Most of these people are hired into jobs they’ve never done before. Kelly had never been Chief of Staff. Most of these people have never been in the Cabinet. How in the world would you know how they would perform? You wouldn’t. But what you can do is fire people who don’t work out. Trump is willing to fire people when it’s time, so he’s got that working for him.

Thirdly, how many people work in the Trump administration? How many have been hired directly or indirectly? Hundreds? Thousands? And then how many of them turned out to be bad? Maybe 5%? If you’re guessing from a small pool of people and only 5% turn out to be bad, and you’re willing to fire them, it’s not the worst problem in the world. You have to put it in perspective.

Our focus is on all the bad actors. CNN is not going to run a story about the person that Trump hired who is doing great. You’re never going to see that story. Since we only see the negative, your sense of how many have gone bad is exaggerated. The press is also good at throwing people into the mix who are simply supporters of the President but had unrelated legal problems. They throw them into the mix like that’s Trump’s problem.

The news is trying to package every problem as being a bigger problem. Finally, there is the issue of loyalty. Whether you like it or not, loyalty matters because it’s an asset. The more loyalty you have, the better your operation runs, all things being equal. But of course, all things are not equal. The people who are loyal are not necessarily going to be the most capable.

You have to preserve loyalty because it’s a two-way street. You can’t expect your staff to be loyal to you if you’re not loyal to them first. Loyalty is an asset; if you destroy it, the whole thing falls apart. Did the President put that man or that woman in that job just because they were loyal and not because they were exactly the right person? The answer is yes. Why? Because loyalty is an asset.

There are cases where you have to conspicuously choose loyalty over even competence, but you try to do that on the jobs that won’t break the world. If you put somebody in a Cabinet position, the department itself has a bunch of professionals. Whoever the boss is, they probably can’t break anything. That is a risk management situation where you’re saying, “I need to preserve my loyalty. People need to see that if they work for me, I’ll take care of them, and then I can ask them to take care of me.” I might have to pick somebody who’s not exactly the right fit, but I’m going to put them in a job that won’t hurt anything too much because it’s staffed with career people.

Would the President use loyalty for his Chief of Staff? Reince Priebus—that didn’t last very long. Notice that he worked his way out of that situation when it wasn’t working out, and now he’s got Kelly in that position. Kelly has a very important job. That’s not a job you want to give somebody who’s just loyal and doesn’t have skill. Kelly has tremendous skill. If you look at the important jobs, like Mnuchin or Mattis, those are important jobs. What is their skill level? It’s very high.

This whole “Does Trump hire good people or not?” has at least four levels of complexity. You have to consider how many people he had to choose from, the need to preserve loyalty, and the fact that you don’t really know how they’re going to perform in a new job. You don’t have time to vet everybody’s tax returns, but you can correct as you need to. And he’s correcting as he needs to.

That’s all for now. I’m going to go do something else and I’ll talk to you all later.