Episode 255 Scott Adams: Trump’s Moral Code, the Two Movies, Angry Dems, Walls
Date: 2018-10-11 | Duration: 1:01:48
Topics
Drug sniffing dogs are effective at detecting Fentanyl Can we train our family dogs to do that if we have teenagers? Continuing uproar over Bakari Sellers and CNN panel Kanye comments Juan Williams statement about universal health care Juan says it will save money Conservatives says it will cost 32 trillion dollars Newt Gingrich believes the wall will help with Fentanyl trafficking A social process for convincing others to register and vote Dems have decided that they need to be more like President Trump Universal health care is a Trump-like “big ask” to begin negotiations In capitalism, if you have negotiating leverage…you use it The “theatre of Trump” is intentional and effective Hillary “never got it” Rand Paul and Kanye get it Managing ego is an important skill that President Trump and Kanye share Replacing Nikki Haley with Dina Powell?
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## Transcript
Hey everybody. Scott, Joanne, you're quick. Eric, Andrew, come on in here. Jenna, Donna, Badger, Valentine, Olga, Fuzzy, Clayton, come on in here. It's time for the simultaneous sip. Grab your mug, your cup, your chalice, fill it with your beverage of choice. Coffee is the best. It's time for the simultaneous sip.
## [Fentanyl-Sniffing Dogs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=4s)
So, in the news, there were two fairly large busts of fentanyl on the border. What caught my attention was that both of them were caught by dogs. Drug-sniffing dogs apparently can sniff out fentanyl really easily. I didn't know that, but there's a downside because apparently a lot of dogs are overdosing. Drug-sniffing dogs are actually dying from over-sniffing fentanyl. It's that deadly.
Now, I have a question: how hard is it to train a dog? Let's say your family dog, who is relatively trainable—could you train that to sniff fentanyl? How hard would that be? It seems as though any family that has a teenager would be well-served if the parents would say, "Alright, our kid's 12 now. Let's take the family dog in and train it to sniff fentanyl, just in case." Then just have the dog do its thing. Every once in a while, the dog goes to work: "I smell fentanyl." I'm pretty sure when you train a dog, it does that—just like that. "Well, where is the fentanyl?" That could be a great aid for parents.
Is that a good idea? How hard is it to train a dog to sniff fentanyl? Could you do that with any dog that responds to treats and can be trained for anything? I don't know. I wish that I could use my company's app interface (WhenHub) so I wouldn't have to ask that. I just went on there to see if there were any dog trainers. This is an app where you can go on and get some expert advice. There are two dog trainers, but if there's somebody who wants to get on the app before I'm done here and has expertise in training dogs specifically for sniffing drugs, put in a keyword that says "sniffing" or "drugs" and "dog," and I will look for you before the end of this Periscope.
See what I was talking about regarding using my company's app to fill in those blanks? That's either a really good idea—training the family dog to sniff out drugs in the teen's room—or it's not. It might be a bad idea, but there's no way to Google that. I'm guessing it's probably un-Googleable. You'd actually have to talk to somebody who does that to even know.
## [The CNN Kanye Controversy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=191s)
Let's go on. Most of you have seen all the jabbering about the CNN panelist Bakari Sellers. I talked about it too on Don Lemon's show night before last, in which Bakari Sellers and I think at least one African-American woman were making negative comments about Kanye. The folks on the right—the Republicans, Trump supporters, and conservatives—are making a lot of noise about the fact that I think Bakari was the one who said... what was his statement? He said—and he was quoting somebody else, might have been Chris Rock—he said this sentence that you would not normally say on television: "This is what happens when Negroes don't read."
This is coming from an African-American man on television; this is not me saying that. The conservatives are saying "racist! How can you say racist things? How could you call him a token?" To which I say: when did we start calling black people racist for saying things about other black people? Let's be at least a little bit consistent about what racism even means. If you're calling a black person racist for talking about another black person who's not, in their opinion, being "black enough," it doesn't even make sense.
Here is a rule that I would propose: when black people are insulting each other, white people should not label that as racist. It just feels silly. Now, there are racists—they exist—and when they get labeled as racists by somebody who's offended, especially someone in the target group, that's fair game. If a white person calls another white person racist because that other white person was saying something bad about black people, well, that's fair. But it's kind of weird for white people to accuse a black guy of saying racist things about another black guy specifically because he's complaining that the other black guy is siding too much with who they think are racists. None of it makes sense. I think that's a totally wrong attack from the right.
What was more valid was that they were also making fun of Kanye for his past admitted mental issues. Kanye himself has talked about being checked into health facilities for some mental problems briefly at one point. I saw Glenn Greenwald did a tweet—I retweeted it—where they said that's the bad part. Discounting somebody because they once had an admitted medical problem that they got help for—that's pretty low. Especially since a third of the people watching CNN at any minute probably have had some kind of mental problem, anxiety, phobia, PTSD, or something. That was actually a good criticism because it's not who we want to be. We don't really want to be the kind who says, "You had that problem one time in the past, therefore you can never do anything."
## [The Two Movies of Healthcare](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=440s)
Let's talk about the "Two Movies" thing. I saw something that was just flat-out hilarious, accidentally, yesterday on *The Five*. It's my favorite show on Fox News. They have Juan Williams, who plays the part of the opposition on the left, and the other four panelists are more likely to approach things from conservative types. You have that setup. It's quite normal that on that show you'd hear two versions of reality: one from Juan and one from the other panelists.
Yesterday, I heard two versions of reality that are so stark it was amazing. They were talking about universal healthcare. I forget who, it might have been Jesse Watters, said the estimate for universal healthcare would be 32 trillion dollars. Alright, so one version of reality is that universal healthcare in this country would cost 32 trillion dollars. And then Juan Williams said, "Well no, I think actually it would save money."
There is a bit of a difference between 32 trillion dollars and "it would save money." Those are not even on the same planet. I believe the 32 trillion is way overstated because of the way it was calculated, and I believe the "it's going to save money" is ridiculous and overstated. Neither of those are true. I'm no expert on this, but my suspicion is that neither of those extremes is really accurate. But those are the two extremes that the average viewers of CNN and the average viewers of Fox probably embrace as the truth.
How much further apart could you get on agreeing what reality looks like than something that's greater than 32 trillion? One says it's going to be 32 trillion plus a cost, and the other says it's not even going to be any cost, it could be saving money. That's maybe a 35 trillion dollar difference in reality. I don't know how to emphasize that enough. That's as big a difference as you can get in what the world actually is.
You think that's rare? It is not rare. We have exactly the same situation with climate change. You've got one side saying climate change is the biggest problem and if we don't deal with it to the tune of trillions of dollars, the world will fall apart. The other side says it would be better to not deal with it, just increase your economy, save your money, and use it to help people who are hurt by climate change. But the difference in the analysis is trillions. That's the difference in what people think those two paths would cost. These are not the same planet.
I've just never seen such a stark example of the "Two Movies" playing on one screen. We think we're watching the same information, but somebody's seeing 32 trillion and somebody's saying, "Well, I think that'll save money." Crazy stuff.
## [Newt Gingrich, The Wall, and Fentanyl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=685s)
I saw that Newt Gingrich tweeted yesterday that we need to build the wall. Kevin McCarthy has a proposal to fully fund the wall, and Newt was listing some of the benefits. He listed that too much fentanyl and opioids are getting in across the border.
There are only a few people in the world that, when they disagree with my existing opinion, I will actually stop cold and say, "Oh, I better change my opinion." Alan Dershowitz is one. If his opinion is different from mine, I just stop cold and go, "Okay, what am I doing wrong? Why is my opinion different from the smartest guy on TV?" Newt Gingrich is one of those people for me, too. When he and I disagree on anything, I stop and I go, "Okay, what the hell am I doing wrong here?" If Newt's got a different opinion, and it's not obviously just a political opinion—if it's a logic opinion or a strategy difference—I stop.
One of his opinions that did that with me today was that building the wall would somehow help with the fentanyl stuff. Now, I understand that a lot of fentanyl is coming across the border, and therefore the better your border security is in general, you would think that would help. If you had more dogs at the border, you could check more cars. It makes sense. But on the other hand, fentanyl is really small. It feels like the one thing you could get across the border easier than just about anything else—easier than weed, probably easier than cocaine, even just the size of it. No matter how tall that wall is, all you have to do is put it in a sock at the end of a rope, swing it around a few times, and toss it over the wall to your friend who's standing on the other side. So I don't know how the wall actually stops the fentanyl in that case.
I'm going to make a distinction between that and my call for executing the Chinese lab owners who are creating the fentanyl in China. Executing the people that we can identify as actually being behind it in China is not just about stopping the supply. It might slow down the supply, and that would be great, but it's more about making sure that people know those people need to be killed because they have killed so many Americans. It's a lot about the message. When I say let's kill the executives—or let's insist China kill them, because China does like to execute their drug dealers—the benefit of that is the message sent about the importance of stopping fentanyl. We're using their lives as part of the message because they are mass murderers. If somebody is literally a mass murderer responsible for possibly thousands or tens of thousands of deaths in the United States, I have no hesitation to kill them if we can get some benefit out of it. And the message would be the benefit, as well as it might disrupt the flow a little bit.
The wall, on the other hand, does send a message, but I don't know that it actually stops any fentanyl from coming. That's a slightly different question. So yes on executing Chinese executives of drug labs that are creating fentanyl illegally. But whether the wall stops fentanyl? I would like to hear from somebody who knows more about that. If only somebody had an app in which you could talk to somebody who's actually involved in drug interdiction at the border—an expert for an app, perhaps.
## [Voter Registration Persuasion Technique](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=1054s)
There's an article that I tweeted this morning from a Democrat who has switched from anti-Trump to pro-Trump. You really have to read it. First of all, it's really well-written, so it's worth your time just for a good read. But secondly, to see that mental transition from anti-Trump to "Oh, I think I've been taken," and it felt like it was somebody who was getting out of their cognitive bubble. I think that's actually the phrase he used. I'm a little bit biased because after I read it, I thought, "Well, that's really well written," and then I saw the author tweeted that he had just finished *Win Bigly*, and I think that had some influence on him.
Let me ask you this: how many of you tried my technique to get at least one person to register? Tell me in the comments right now. Have any of you used my technique? "I got six." "I did." "I registered three." "I've got four." Holy cow. Look at all the people who said they used the technique and they registered multiple people. I was saying just try one, but it looks like people got anywhere from two to six people registered already.
Here's the technique: You pick out somebody who you think would vote your way—somebody who is philosophically like you and is likely to vote the way you would like them to vote. The only thing is, you don't think they're going to vote. So you want to see if you can influence them to vote.
The technique is you want to simplify the process to the smallest step and then offer to help them with that smallest step. The smallest step is to register online. There's just a website and it takes about 60 seconds. If they have never registered before, or haven't registered in a while, or they're putting it off, it helps to say, "Hey, have you registered? It only takes 60 seconds, and here's the link. Just click it. In one minute, you'll be registered."
Then people think, "Oh, but on that day, I've got to get to work early, there's traffic, I've got to get to the polling place." That's a lot of work. So you take all that away from their mind and you say, "Oh, just check the box that says you want to vote by mail." Just check the box that says you vote by mail. "Here's the link, 60 seconds to register, and they'll just mail you a ballot."
Then the person is going to be thinking, "Well, I don't want to learn about all these topics. I don't want to do a lot of homework." And then you say, "You don't have to vote on everything. You can just vote on the things that you do understand and care about. You just leave the others blank."
So the process is you take this big thing that in people's minds seems hard—how do I register? Do I have to go to the post office? Does it take a long time? Do I have to drive to the polls?—and you shrink it down to the smallest thing. "Here's an email with the link. Click it. In 60 seconds, you'll be registered. Check the box that says you want to vote by mail. It just shows up in your mailbox. You don't have to vote for anything you don't know about. And by the way, I'll help you. Let's vote during lunch because I'm going to do it by mail, too. We'll just go to lunch and I'll help you fill it out if you want."
If you use that process, you've made it a social process. You've simplified it in people's heads to the smallest step, and then you've provided the step: "Click this link." You've chunked it down to the smallest bit. That's the technique. You want to start with somebody who's sort of pre-sold—someone who would vote, they're just busy. They don't feel like figuring it out. They're halfway there, they just don't know how to get the other half. Instead of standing on the street corner with a clipboard, you just find one person you know and say, "Hey, here's a link."
## [Dems Copying the Wrong Trump Trait](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=1297s)
Here's another funny thing. The Democrats, as you have noted in the news, have become far more aggressive. They're talking about harassing Republican leaders in public. They're yelling in the streets. They're talking about impeachment. They're using more provocative rhetoric. It seems that they've figured out that what they need to do is be more like Trump.
Am I wrong about that? The Democrats have decided to be more like Trump because they believe that his impolite, aggressive approach is the secret to why he won. Is it my imagination, or have they completely misanalyzed why Trump won?
They seem to think the reason he won is the only part they can see: that he was provocative and insulting. It's like they've looked at this big, complicated bag of persuasion and policies and hard work and energy and having the right message for understanding the real feeling in the country—adding the business perspective, "Making America Great Again." All of these things. There's a lot of variables. But they looked into this whole world of variables and they did the only losing thing you could do.
They looked at all these good things that Trump did that are unambiguously good things—like understanding the voters better, playing a better strategic game in terms of what states he goes to, having rallies, using social media, coming up with great nicknames that are scientifically, cleverly created branding—and they figured out the only thing that people *don't* like about him and decided to copy that.
Am I wrong that they decided to copy the only thing that even Trump supporters are uncomfortable with, which is the fact that it's a little risky and a little aggressive? Even the people who like Trump are a little uncomfortable with that stuff, right? And so the Democrats have picked the only thing Trump does that is not the important part and decided to copy it. It's hilariously incompetent. In fact, you can see it backfiring all over the place. What is it we're talking about when we talk about the Democrats now? We're talking about their bad behavior.
Now, when we were talking about Trump, we were talking about his wall, we're talking about what he wanted to do for the economy, what he wanted to do with North Korea, etc. When you talk about Trump, you're talking about policies and stuff. But when we're talking about the Democrats, we're just talking about their bad attitudes and the fact that they're whiny and provocative and insulting. It's all of the bad stuff with none of the good stuff.
## [Aggressive Persuasion in Healthcare](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=1544s)
There is an exception. You're not going to like this at all, but I'm going to be consistent. There is something that the Democrats are doing that is pure Trump smartness. Do you know what it is? It's healthcare.
The Democrats went from the bad version of trying to sell healthcare—something like Obamacare. Trying to resell Obamacare to a country that they couldn't get it down their gullet last time would have been the old way the Democrats would act. "Obamacare... it's got all these problems... why do we want more of that?" It's sort of a halfway, committee-driven monster of policies that nobody even really understands.
But did they do that? No. They went far to the left. They went "Full Bernie." And by the way, credit Bernie for being the first one to be onto this. Their first "ask" is so aggressive that in all likelihood, they're going to get something closer to it than if they had settled for arguing for Obamacare minor fixes.
Be aware that when the Democrats go way to the left and say, "How about we go full Democratic Socialist and let's have government-sponsored healthcare," whether or not that's feasible is far less important than the question of whether it captures your attention and moves your thinking so far left that if they could get something halfway to what they're talking about, it would be a big victory for their side.
When you see the Democrats just picking up Trump's combativeness, they're just missing the whole point. But when you see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say, "Heck with Obamacare, let's go all the way to Bernie-like healthcare for everybody"—and let's credit Bernie as the one who made that a national conversation—have you seen the polls of how much the public is interested in single-payer healthcare? The polls have really moved in that position. Who did that? That was Bernie. That was Cortes. So if we're going to talk about just persuasion: good job. The deep lefties get an A-plus in persuasion on healthcare because they have really moved the dial. And they did it in a smart way by asking for way more than the public thought should be asked for at this point. That was the good move.
## [Trump’s Philosophy: Theater and Business](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=1796s)
Let's talk about the issue that I have been seeing a lot of: the idea that Trump has no philosophy, no moral ethical core, no strategy or vision that's a cohesive philosophical binding that would predict everything he's going to do. People say Trump doesn't have that; he's impulsive, he's all over the place, he doesn't know what he's doing.
I bet, again, I've been watching the same movie, I thought. But it turns out I was just in the same theater, watching a different movie. On my movie, Trump's philosophy, his ethics, and all that are so transparently obvious that I don't know how anybody could be confused.
Here's what he did: he simply took two extra skill sets and combined them with government. The two extra skill sets are as follows: **Theater** and **Business**.
He understands theater. When Trump said recently about Hillary Clinton that she "doesn't get it and she never will," that's a comprehensive statement. Part of what she doesn't get is that the theater of Trump is intentional and it's functional. The things people thought were the unimportant part about Trump were actually a very important part. He understands that bringing "The Show" is government. You have to bring the show. That's why the rallies are important, that's why the base is fired up, that's why people got off the couch and voted. He brought the show. He understands that theater is a skill set which, stacked upon government—as long as your intentions are good—is a really important skill set to bring over. That's the first skill he introduced, far more so than any other politician.
The second skill set he brought in was business—an actual capitalist business perspective. You can see that in terms of "Make America Great Again." What does a capitalist do when competing with other companies? The capitalist does not try to kill them. The capitalist does not say, "I hate your CEO." The capitalist says to that CEO, "That's great, I love that guy. I'm going to compete as hard as I can, and that other CEO should compete with me, and if we all compete hard, we'll get somewhere. But what we're not going to do is leave money on the table if we have negotiating leverage."
The old political way was, "Well, we don't want to hurt our allies, we don't want to ruffle any feathers, we want to be good people, we want to be diplomatic." All that stuff is good to a certain degree. What Trump layered on top of that was capitalism. In capitalism, if you have the negotiating leverage, you use it every time. There are not situations where you have the power to get a better deal where you don't use it. That's what he brought to the trade negotiations. Trump came in and said, "What kind of deals are these? We have all the power, we have the biggest market, the biggest economy, we have all the leverage, and these are the deals we negotiated? Why don't we negotiate deals like a capitalist?"
By the way: "China, I have great respect for you. North Korea, I have great respect for you. Russia, I have great respect for you. But we are going to compete your asses off. And you should too. The best thing that could happen is we're competing, it's completely transparent, we're telling you what we're doing, we're not breaking any laws, we're just using our market power. And if you had market power, we would totally expect you to use it."
To me, capitalism is a very clear philosophical moral code. You could not like it, but I don't know how you can say it's not clear. Trump has the clearest strategy and moral code that I've ever seen in government. It's completely unambiguous what he will do in any given situation.
The test of a good moral code or strategy is that anybody from the outside could predict how you're going to act. Being predictable has benefits in some areas. In other areas, like military or negotiating, you want to be unpredictable. But in a general way, isn't it true that other countries know exactly what Trump would do? Which is to say: if there's something that's good for the United States, it's completely legal, and it's doable, we're going to try to do it. Just like any capitalist would.
Capitalism itself has flaws. It has sharp edges. Not everybody wins. It's unambiguously bad for some members of society. Those are all true. But it's also true that nobody's come up with a better plan. As soon as there's something better than capitalism... and by the way, I think that might be coming. The age of robots might be an age in which capitalism as we've understood it doesn't make sense anymore. But at the moment, nobody has a better plan. Capitalism has gotten us to the level where half of the world is middle class or better.
Where Trump seems to be failing the fact-checking more than normal politicians, that's also because he's coming from capitalism. Capitalism sells. Capitalists use hyperbole, marketing, and exaggeration. They're exaggerating how good their own stuff is and how poor the competition is. If you move that framework into a political context, the politicians say, "Hey, that's a lie!" I keep telling you that he's "directionally accurate," meaning that any time he doesn't pass the fact-checking, he's at least on the right side. He's moving our thinking and our energy in a productive way.
The example being that if the president says the economy is doing great under his leadership, the fact-checkers may say, "Hey wait, Obama set this up." But it's still smart for Trump to say his leadership is causing these good things. Why? Because capitalists understand that economies run on confidence. They run on psychology.
Trump, understanding psychology, capitalism, and business, is telling us consistently that he's a big part of why things are going well. Whether that's exactly true or not is less important than the fact that it's exactly the right thing to say, because that's what makes the economy actually confident. That's what makes people invest. They're like, "We got the good things, we got this president, he's the right person, things are going well, I'll invest." And then suddenly the economy *is* doing well. You're watching the president actually persuade the economy into a higher level right in front of your eyes. I'm positive that historians and economists of the future will describe it that way.
It's crazy to me that people say the president doesn't have a clear strategy. If you think of it as starting with politics, which is nasty and ugly, then layering theater on top of it—because theater is a really good tool for managing expectations. And expectations are what you have to manage for everything from negotiating to war to the economy. Leverageable persuasion is a big variable that moves those things. He brings capitalism and theater and adds it to politics, and you've got a full system that is proven. He doesn't have to invent anything.
## [The Evolution of Rand Paul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=2410s)
Somebody just said Reagan also understood he had to bring the theater. Good example. I would argue that Trump is a clearly higher level of theater than even Reagan, and Reagan was the best we'd seen, right? Reagan understood the value of the theater; Trump understands the value of the theater. And then you hear Trump say about Hillary Clinton, "She doesn't get it and she never will." Now it makes sense. She never got that theater is a tool, because she wasn't good at it. So she discounts it. JFK was theater, too. He brought the family, the look, the Camelot—and it made a difference. Bill Clinton was more charismatic and just one heck of a speaker, but I wouldn't call it "theater" for Bill Clinton. He was just charismatic and really good at being a politician. Romney didn't get it. Exactly.
I keep talking about Rand Paul because, in my mind, Rand Paul's credibility and his game just keep getting better. I didn't think he was a serious threat to become president because he didn't quite have a strong enough game—the persuasion part. But I feel like Rand Paul is watching the world's greatest display of persuasion and he's so close to it. He's right in the persuasion zone. It's got to be affecting him.
The thing you should be looking for is that the Rand Paul you used to see is evolving in front of us to be a newer version. "Rand Paul Classic" is rational, science, logic, out-of-the-box libertarian. A lot of good stuff, but he didn't really package it well. He didn't have the theater. But now does he understand the importance of the theater? My assumption is that Rand Paul, being a bright guy who is right in the middle of things, it would be impossible for him not to understand at this point that what Trump does—the theater of it—is part of the effectiveness.
He's starting to think how he could incorporate the better parts of that. The parts he would be able to incorporate would be doing something a little bit wrong, a little bit provocative, just to gain attention. You remember when Rand Paul, during some budget time, got the cameras to follow him around and he was knocking on doors to see if anybody had read the big report? It told me that he has recognized the importance of "The Show." He got the theater element. He's picking the pieces that he can fit into his personality. Rand is clearly on an uptick in terms of his talent stack.
## [Kanye West and Ego Management](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=2661s)
The other one is Kanye, of course. People are criticizing Kanye for not doing his homework and not being an expert in the things he's getting involved in, meaning politics. They criticize him for comments about slavery and everything else. Now, who does that sound like? Well, sounds like Trump. In 2015, Trump was the guy who didn't read up enough. First of all, it didn't stop Trump, so why would it stop Kanye?
The thing that Kanye and Trump both have in common is an understanding about theater. Kanye comes in with a full understanding—maybe better than anybody's ever understood it—about how the theater works and how to get your attention. He also has that entrepreneurial part; he has the capitalism. So Ye—as we like to call him now—has the capitalism and the theater. The part he lacks is the background in policy and some of the historical context. Just like Trump. He's probably behind Trump because he's much younger.
Kanye has jumped in and he's already having meetings at the White House with Jared Kushner about training convicts, which is very important. He picks the hardest issue and he goes right after it. By 2024, will Kanye be too uneducated in terms of politics to run for president? 2024 is a long way away. In six years, how much can a Kanye West learn? Seriously. He could learn so much that he would be completely qualified in terms of background, context, and understanding the politics of it. Should he choose to do that. He's not a steady-state guy. "Kanye 2024" is going to be a whole new invention, and it's going to be stronger, more qualified, and more substantial.
Have you noticed that Kanye has a weird ego? It would be easy for you to say, "Well, wait a minute, he's an egomaniac, he's a narcissist." You could make an argument for it. But at the same time, we're watching Kanye jump into areas that he knows he's going to get invited for—areas in which he is not an expert and admits it. When he jumps into politics, he's saying, "I don't know this field yet, I'd like to help."
It is the most ego-vulnerable thing that anybody could do in his position. Remember, he's starting with a reputation that's sky-high—loved by people, a creative genius. He just put the whole fricking brand right on the line. That is something you don't do if you're trying to protect your ego. I have argued that people who can understand the ego as something that you pump up when you need—and you see him do that right in front of you—and then he sucks it down and he completely sublimates it. He pushes his ego in the back to get a job done. The fact that he would put on a MAGA hat and talk to the president, the fact that he would stand in front of the *Saturday Night Live* crew and say what he did—he is someone who knows how to manage his ego. He pumps it up when he needs it and deflates it when it would get in the way.
## [Taylor Swift and the 25% Simulation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=3030s)
You saw the quote where Trump said... I guess Taylor Swift said something anti-Trump political, I forget what it was. Trump was asked about it and he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "Now I like Taylor's music 25% less."
What was funny is that he picked a specific number: 25%. That little bit of "wrongness" is why you can't look away. If Trump had said, "Well, I like her music less," it's not that interesting. But as soon as he said 25% less, it immediately captured your mind because how can you calculate such things? That specificity was the wrongness, and it's what made it so viral. Of course, he knows that.
The funny part was that Taylor was at the American Music Awards, and the report was that the ratings were down for the show. Do you know how much the ratings were down? 25%. I don't know what the odds of that happening are. It kind of looked like the simulation was winking at us. Trump looks at the camera, says, "I like her music 25% less now," and sure enough, the AMAs are down exactly 25%. I'm not saying it's related, I'm not saying that's proof we're in the simulation—it's just hilarious that it was the exact number.
Trump has had the best week anybody has ever had. I don't think any politician has ever been more successful in one week than this president. And then he even gets that 25% thing by weird coincidence. It's just perfect.
I don't want to ignore the hurricane winds or storms in Florida. I hope everybody does okay. I just don't talk about the hurricanes too much because I don't have anything to add. I think FEMA, in all likelihood, is doing a great job and I hope the people there are paying attention to the safety stuff.
## [Nikki Haley Replacement Strategy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFqq6r7avU&t=3278s)
Regarding the Nikki Haley decision: the top two candidates are Dena Powell and Richard Grenell, who is the ambassador to Germany. Pundits are trying to guess who Trump will pick.
Richard Grenell is a gay Republican, which looks great. Having a gay Republican in the highest diplomatic office any president has ever had—someone who's out, anyway—is great for the brand. But if you were to move him from Germany over to be the UN representative, you haven't really gained that much in terms of your brand, have you? You already had him in one of the most important countries in the world.
And then, what would happen if you replaced Nikki Haley with a woman? If a woman had been in that job, but then the next time a woman was promoted it was for Ambassador to Germany, it would feel like a bit of a demotion for women coming into the midterms. But if Dena Powell is picked to replace Nikki Haley, not only do you replace a woman with a woman—which would be a better look—but you still get Richard Grenell doing a great job in Germany.
Why did Nikki Haley announce so early? Have you wondered about that? I can think of one reason that would make a lot of sense: it's so the president can announce another high-level position for a woman before the midterms. What's it going to feel like if the news is focused on a high-level appointment of a woman right before the midterms? That is the best situation for President Trump.
If they announced it now, it gives Trump the opportunity to appoint a highly qualified woman for a high-level position, and even though it's just a replacement, the headline is going to look good for Republicans and women. If you had to bet: if the only thing came down to how it looked, the woman is the right choice. Not only because, as our external face to the rest of the world, half of the world is female. Having a woman in that position is a good look. Putting in a gay man as the face of the United States would also be great for all the signaling it does that we're the kind of country that has gotten past that. But here's the thing: only 5% of the world is gay, but half of the world is women. The woman seems like the better interface for our exterior-facing personality. It just makes more sense.
Alright, I'm just looking at your comments here. I think we've said enough and I'm going to talk to you all later. Bye for now.