Episode 333 Scott Adams: The Trump/Schumer/Pelosi Meeting, Cohen, and “Manhood
Date: 2018-12-12 | Duration: 33:29
Topics
Branding the Trump shutdown Possibly the safest position anyone has ever taken in public Classic President Trump: The meeting with Chuck and Nancy Pelosi’s position: The Wall should be a stand-alone negotiation
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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript
[0:02]
hey everybody it's a very special evening edition of coffee with Scott Adams and featuring water what's wrong with my label unlabeled water it's the best so there's so much news that I had to jump on right now and if you're on your with me I hope you have a beverage it doesn't need to be coffee it could be water it could it be burek would be wine but join me for the simultaneous evening sip oh yeah that's good good water so you probably have all seen the clips now of the exciting meeting between President Trump and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck show issue were bickering about the wall now the funniest thing that came out of that meeting are the Roger pence memes if you're only following conservative social media you
[1:04]
following conservative social media you may have missed it but there's some pretty funny memes about Mike Pence because apparently you look a little sleepy there it wasn't he wasn't quite engaged so they're comparing him to the Alpha and the Shelf and some other stuff so check that out so if you notice that CNN if you check out C then they've started to do this in this graphic image of 16 faces that are Trump related people who have had some kind of contact with Russians and it fills the entire the entire screen it's like 16 people and the funny thing is there's not one of those conversations that any of them had the so far seems to mean anything there's just a lot of people talk to Russians it turns out so who knew that if you're in the government Russian Russians want to talk to you but I I'm pretty sure that all 16 of them are male
[2:04]
pretty sure that all 16 of them are male which is interesting because as I've been saying the parties are starting to become divided on gender lines so it's probably no coincidence that they like to put up those 16 male faces that probably plays pretty well now you may have heard that Nancy Pelosi after the meeting about the wall referred to Trump's desire for the wall as something about his quote manhood she actually brought up unprompted Russia's need to compensate for the size of his penis by getting a wall at least that's the way to interpret it and I thought to myself hmm not really hiding the misandry at this point I mean it's just pure anti male stuff that couldn't possibly work if had come you know for in the other
[3:05]
if had come you know for in the other direction so so I I started the 48 hour clock by Twitter and Nancy Pelosi has 48 hours just like everybody else it's the same rule to either apologize for such a sexist comment or to clarify in case we already wrong maybe maybe that's not what she meant but I'm not expecting that to happen but I it's kind of shocking that the one thing that the Democrats like least about this president is the one thing they're willing to imitate why is it that the only thing they dislike about President Trump is the thing they're most eager to imitate it's interesting all right so one of the big stories on CNN right now is that the timing of the payments to stormy Daniel's and Karen McDougal being as it was very close to
[4:06]
McDougal being as it was very close to the election is strong evidence that the President did it for election reasons so real lawyers who get paid to be lawyers are going on CNN and saying the timing of it pretty much tells you it was for election reason because it was for right before the election does anybody see a problem with that does anybody see does anybody see a hole in that that logic that you could drive a very large truck through all right so the the defense has been from the beginning that it wasn't done just for reputation reasons so in order for it to be done exclusively for election reasons and that's the important part if it was done partly for personal reasons
[5:06]
it was done partly for personal reasons but it also had a election benefit I think you're in the clear because if you get Botox and you're running for office you know campaign doesn't pay for the Botox but it looks like you can't pay the expense right it's something that you'd wanted to do personally hey I think I'd like to get rid of these wrinkles for my own reasons but no no one would doubt that looking better helps you win an election so the the standard here is is there something that is a is a reasonable story for why it was done for personal reasons now the president's story was that it was for personal reasons protect the family etc protect the reputation the only problem with that say the lawyers who were paid to be lawyers on CNN well they're paid to be lawyers but neither on CNN they say the timing of it is the giveaway to which I say even I could be
[6:07]
giveaway to which I say even I could be the lawyer to defend this case and I don't know anything about the law it goes like this what is the time you know of all the campaign what is the time that it is most likely going to happen that somebody is going to dig up something from your past and publicize it why is the most likely time that somebody would try to reveal this information it's the same as the quote gate revelation right the most likely time that your opponents are going to try to bring up something like this is the closer you get to the election October in fact there is no smarter month to do this than October because until you get there you didn't even it never really look like Trump was gonna win anyway it wasn't until about October when it looked like he had a shot that's the
[7:08]
looked like he had a shot that's the time you have the greatest reason to pay off people who might spill the beans now here's the thing you have two reasons to do it at that time one is the opponents will say it's because of the election the other time to do it is that that's when people are most incented to embarrass you so if your so if your intention was to keep your family safe and keep the reputation safe that's the time you're going to be worried the most about your personal life so put me on that jury and I don't think the president needs to worry yeah now my understanding is that if it were a criminal situation that somebody's gonna have to know beyond beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn't care about his family how do you prove somebody didn't care about his family being hurt I've
[8:11]
care about his family being hurt I've never been to law school but if you put me in a competition with somebody else who's whose case requires me to prove that my my family man defendant that that he doesn't care about his family he only wants to get elected he's not going to win that case because everybody's sitting in the in the jury box is going to say to themselves well if that were me I wouldn't want to hurt my family of course he cares about protecting his family of course yeah I've heard I've heard her she would say that it it might fit the definition of a blackmail or extortion but I don't think you even need that all you think all you need is that from an economic perspective and from every other perspective it was it was most likely a problem the closer you got to the election that's all he needs he had
[9:13]
the election that's all he needs he had two good reasons and one of them was personal that's all you need now I I heard on CNN that Cohen may be willing to testify that you know the President did it for political reasons but here's the thing Cohen is going to jail for lying he is literally a famous liar you know you might have asked yourself why is it the Trump surrounds himself with with liars and I'm thinking to myself well if they ever have a story to tell about you nobody's going to believe it so it has that benefit I don't think that's why it does it but yeah I understand stormy Daniels has some legal bills to pay because of because of not prevailing in court which is funny so stormy did not seem to come out ahead of all this all right
[10:20]
now let's talk about the negotiation for shutting down the government this is one of the funniest things you're ever going to see so the the shut down the government thing is sort of a game of chicken you're trying to see who blinks first now president Trump has wisely wisely said he set the table for it and he said yeah these are my words but this is essentially what the president saying if I get the money for the wall I win if I don't get the money for the wall I close down the government over the wall and I win he only has two ways to win and no way to lose Schumer can only lose yeah he doesn't really have schumer doesn't have a winning path if he gives Trump the money well that doesn't look like a win on his side but if he closes down the government then he's the guy who's closing the
[11:21]
he's the guy who's closing the government and punishing Americans to protect illegals coming into the country it's not really a strong position to be to have and so the smartest thing that Trump did is take away from them and take away from the news cycle the idea that closing the government would ever look bad for Trump in fact you said he wants to brand it the Trump shut down it's like yeah this one's mine the last was yours but this one's mine I will close the government over border security and the wall in particular and I'm thinking that's probably the safest position anybody ever took it in public he has two ways to win no way to lose now the other thing that Trump has going for him is that his reputation and indeed the reason his base voted for him is that he's willing to go farther and he's gonna be more of a badass take more pain if necessary to get where he needs to get the Democrats brand is if you're
[12:26]
to get the Democrats brand is if you're negotiating let's say with China over trade you don't want them to get mad so you should surrender the Democrats position on trade negotiations with Canada if I recall were you don't want them to get mad at you so you should surrender I believe the Democrats position on trade negotiations with Mexico were we don't want to get them mad so we should surrender I believe the negotiations with South Korea and Japan the Democrats position was trade wars are bad we don't want to get them mad we'd better surrender now they come into this this negotiation with the President of the United States how can they be consistent with their philosophy the surrendering so you don't make the other side mad is always the best way to go I think they're going to have to surrender to keep Trump from getting mad
[13:29]
surrender to keep Trump from getting mad because he might close down the government and of course he will now if they're smart they'll get some kind of an agreement that says something along the lines of it's not all wal if the Democrats need something that looks like a win or they can spin it as a win even if it isn't so both sides need something like a win and my guess is that the win will look like yeah maybe they'll throw in some daca it's possible but I think they're just gonna say we didn't fund the wall and then the president will say we did fund the wall I think that's the because there's nothing to stop them from having a completely 180 degree difference in interpretation of what just happened it would be exactly like every other news story every news story we watch people walk away thinking in an entirely different thing happened than the other side thinks why should this be different all they have to do is Trump say he got
[14:31]
all they have to do is Trump say he got money for the wall humor say we gave money for you know for border security and we don't think it all needs to be a wall now I don't see any way the Democrats can win this it just doesn't look winnable on their end there's going to be something like walls getting built and you know although Trump gets a lot of pressure for not delivering on the wall so his base and I think Ann Coulter leads the pack of people who criticize him every day for not having the wall built but it's hard to watch him operate in this context and not think that at the very least he's putting it all out there right he has not delivered the wall for those who want it but it does look like he's putting it all out there he's not really yeah it looks like he's leaving it all in the field and the hilarious meeting today with Schumer and Pelosi was sort of
[15:34]
with Schumer and Pelosi was sort of classic Trump and one of the things that he likes to do is bring the battle to his home field ahead you notice that if he's if he's debating you in public with the cameras on that's his home field and you can see Pelosi quickly realizing that she had to that she had to shut this down because this wasn't working for them hey maybe we should negotiate in private yeah private now let's negotiate in private to which I say who wins if one of you says I can't talk about this in front of the voters who wins that round if one of them says how about more transparency let's do it right here while the cameras are running and it's a simple enough topic that you actually could do it right there you know so there's not a lot of fact-checking you need to do and one of them says no we shouldn't do this in front of the voters who are paying us
[16:36]
in front of the voters who are paying us now as I said before there are lots of good reasons to not negotiate in public that's that's not surprising but this probably isn't one of them because the public fully understands this topic and I believe Pelosi is the one who said let's not connect it to anything if they had connected it to anything such as daca I even I would have said hey maybe you know maybe you shouldn't do this in public because you need to do a little trading under the hood you know I'll give you a little bit of dacha you give me a little bit of wall but because Pelosi said we're not going to connect the wall to anything the wall has to stand on its own that's what made it simple enough that you ought to do it in public if you're really just going to talk about the wall what is it that we voters can't hear I can't think of anything you know if you throw doc in there than you have behind closed doors but that's not
[17:37]
behind closed doors but that's not what's on the table right now so now I'm seeing some of the social media comments like Rob Reider saying that it looked to him as if Schumer and Pelosi just ate Trump's lunch they hate his lunch they ripped him apart in that meeting now I'm willing to bet that most of you watching this periscope had exactly had exactly the same kind of impression I did which was nothing really happened but in terms of positioning the president absolutely won there was no real negotiating happening so what the president one was that he branded the shutdown as good for him and his brand well that's pretty good setup for what's to come he also got got Pelosi to go full sexist and question his manhood associated with the
[18:39]
question his manhood associated with the wall that too is a victory for Trump because he he caused her to get down in the mud and really overshoot the mark and then he offered to do it in public he offered to do it right in front of the voters right there and she said no we can't do this in front of the people who are our bosses the people who pay us and like this we can't do it in front of them who wins that round Trump so to me it looked like from a negotiating standpoint Trump had two and a half at least major victories that came out of that and she had none that I could see but to rob reiner that looks like a victory somebody said they thought it was also about putting the GOP on unnoticed to vote for the wall well I think that's I think everybody's
[19:41]
think that's I think everybody's following the issue so nobody really had to be on notice did they yeah the the news was that the Google CEO said that Russia paid a total of 47 hundred dollars to Google to influence the elections and I keep saying this I keep saying this but if you're gonna compare explanations for what was happening during the election with Russia and interfering the the thought that Putin and the KGB were behind it and it was a high-level national effort to destroy our election that doesn't really match what happened because what happened was it was not even a half-assed effort it was about a a one minute 256 acid method half-assed would be way better than what they did I don't believe anybody who actually
[20:43]
don't believe anybody who actually looked at the memes that Facebook passed around or at least they had on the platform if anybody looked at those memes I don't know how they could conclude that Russia the state and the KGB had a brilliant plan to disrupt our election based on that it Scott this is so beneath you we'll get rid of you so whoever thought it was beneath me it doesn't have to watch me now you're a smart man that can be so dumb you don't have to watch it blocked and by the way you've watched me long enough you know that I don't mind if somebody has a reason to push back it's just the people who come on here and say stop you're so dumb but I don't
[21:45]
and say stop you're so dumb but I don't have reasons I don't like what you said it does not agree with what I said I've said before but I don't know exactly what's wrong with it but you sure are dumb blocked blocked now here's an example of how I don't mind a reasonable pushback happened today so I had made the the point in an earlier periscope that the skeptics of climate change are always leave out the fact that the problem is the rate of warming not the fact that the world always changes temperature so I made a big deal about how if you're ignoring the real argument that the rate of change is what's changing not that it's just getting warmer you know none of that and then of course one person said but Scott you're lying because you know why are you leaving out the fact that the temperature hasn't actually gone up to which I say I'm not sure you want to die on that hill because it does seem that
[22:47]
on that hill because it does seem that the the number of new high temperatures is breaking records every year so it does feel like the temperature's going up at a high rate but so here's my point somebody on Twitter I forget who pushed back and said something very reasonable that actually does counter my point to some extent and they said you can't really tell how fast or at what rate things warmed in the past you can't tell you can measure the things we're you know relatively warmer or whatever but since you're looking at you know these eons apparently it's not easy to tell how quickly anything went up in the past so if you're saying the way things are going up now is at a high rate but and then if you've finished that and say we've never seen high rates of increase before we don't actually know that
[23:50]
before we don't actually know that apparently there's something about the way we collect the information that's a little more let's say it's a it's a grocery picture you can't send the details of something going up in a hundred year period something like that yeah the granularity isn't there so I said that's actually a good sounding point that I can't verify or one way or the other but I asked for a link and I'm perfectly open to looking at that argument because it sounds reasonable sounds like a reasonable argument I just don't know if it's true or false all right is there anything else we need to talk about I don't want to use up all my a material before the morning because you know we have to have coffee in the morning I'll probably have to repeat some of this tomorrow all right anything else
[24:59]
this tomorrow all right anything else Oh giggle yeah so I only watched a bit of the the interrogation of the Google CEO today but it didn't look like he was doing well and it's not because he's not good at what he does he does see him he seems like really smart you saw him seems like he's really you know capable but the questions were just so damning that it looked to me like he was getting slaughtered but I don't think it matters because I don't think that the news carried much of it and if you see any of it out of context you'll see you know a little clip error there it's not gonna probably make that much difference to Google so something tells me that although they did not really have all the right answers that probably nothing is going to change
[26:08]
so those of you who never get to see me live this is for you yeah that the $4,700 that Russia spent on Google to influence the election was hilarious I think all they spent on Facebook was like a few tens of thousands something like that and now compare the official story again compare the official story with the alternate explanation of the Russian hacking thing did the troll farm do this bad a job working for the KGB which feels a little unusual or were they a commercial enterprise which is what they presented themselves to be where people can go there and hire them well we know that's true they were a commercial enterprise where people can go hire them now given that they did some some memes that were anti-hillary but far more memes that were yeah they
[27:10]
but far more memes that were yeah they did some anti-hillary stuff but also some pro-hillary stuff there was far more anti-hillary than proud what is the what is the best explanation of the facts in evidence is is the best explanation that this troll forum is so bad at their job that they accidentally made anti-hillary memes and they were working for the KGB in this top priority putin authorized a scheme maybe I mean I've heard of bad employees I write about them every day but it doesn't seem likely that you that somebody could say hey your job is to make pro-trump a memes and then one of the people hears it wrong and he goes and makes and actually publishes a bunch of anti-hillary memes is that really what happened or was it a troll farm that will take anybody's money and somebody bought some anti-hillary memes
[28:11]
somebody bought some anti-hillary memes and somebody bought some anti-trump means which is more likely given that they were commercial enterprise this sells their time to do whoever pays them money all right oh yes the monopoly man was hilarious that's one of the best political pranks if you could call it that all right
China lowering tat tariffs on US automakers well allegedly everything about China is a wait-and-see I don't believe that I don't believe that they're gonna do most of what they say just in general so I'm not gonna believe anything about fentanyl from China until until I hear that their table dealer has been executed short of that I'm kind of
[29:11]
been executed short of that I'm kind of not gonna believe anything they say because they know who's doing it they know his name they know where he lives he's very well known and if he's still alive in six months we can say for sure that China never meant to crack down on defense all yea Canadian executive was rested in China so China's putting the putting the pressure on Canada and here's a question that I have for you if China holds this Canadian guy and you hear that the charges against the Canadian they're holding are obviously just you know baloney and they just grabbed him to use s pressure against against the the person the Canada grabbed this the C CFO would you ever check would you ever travel to China again if China grabbed a Canadian just
[30:14]
again if China grabbed a Canadian just to hold them as a hostage to get somebody back who who had committed a pretty serious crime I would sure never go to China not for business not for anything
I definitely would not go to China now the other day I made the accident of buying something that was made in China and it angered me because you know I I'm not very Pro China at the moment my son-in-law died from an overdose and fentanyl China is the primary pusher of fentanyl so I thought to myself why isn't it more obvious when things are made in China I would I would definitely alter my behavior to buy fewer Chinese goods if it were more obvious to meet you when I shop maybe we
[31:15]
obvious to meet you when I shop maybe we should have a law that if you're buying on Amazon just to pick one example that it has to say prominently whether it's made in in any way made in China now I think you'd have to distinguish between American companies that are using Chinese manufacturing versus being an actual Chinese product so maybe that matters you know it's surprising enough that there's a law that this says where it's made but why can't it be more prominent prominent why can't I know what is made in China so I can avoid it that's just information it's not it's not a government anything because I'm pretty sure that American consumers can get China to give us a good trade deal because if I'm not happy I'm gonna be looking at labels pretty pretty extensively so my personal thing is that I wouldn't deal with China under
[32:17]
is that I wouldn't deal with China under the current conditions so it's not a yeah I need to call it a boycott it's just that China is an enemy of the country at this point and it wouldn't make sense to give money to your enemy it doesn't make sense all right
[Music] yeah so in most cases if you're buying stuff in the store it's easy to read the label what I'm suggesting is that if you're buying stuff online they could put that right in front of you and make you make you actually make a decision about whether you want to buy Chinese or not I want it to be a decision it should be a pop-up that just says you're buying from China did you really mean to do that that's legal kind of a law that says that just make sure that Americans know they're giving their money to China all right I think that's all we need for now some
[33:18]
I think that's all we need for now some of you need to go to bed I see and and to you I say good night and I'll probably see you in the morning bye for now