Episode 344 Scott Adams: The Wence Funding, Kurds in the Way, Mattis, Gatwick Drones

Date: 2018-12-21 | Duration: 39:31

Topics

The Wence gets 5.7B from the house, now for the Senate The “baseline noise” that forces President Trump to go big General Mattis wrote a scathing letter and quit over Syria CNN now supports unauthorized wars, like Syria Will Turkey slaughter our allies when we leave Syria? President Trump failing an ally? Does that sound likely? Where is the UN on this topic? Iran will be worse off when we pull out of Syria fight against ISIS Russia and Israel will take over for US, and be effective The markets are down because of UNCERTAINTY Jobs are always the key Jobs are strong and unemployment is low “Steel Slats”…is that a wall or a fence? Call it a wence so both sides are happy

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:08]

bum-bum-bum bum-bum-bum pom-pom hey everybody come on in here you know what it's time for it's time for coffee with Scott Adams and we've got a lot to talk about I was not expecting to have a lot to talk about right before Christmas but our president the entertainer in chief comes through once again with plenty to talk about plenty I say and before we talk about that would you raise your cup your mug your stein your goblet your tankard your container of fluids I like coffee and join me for the simultaneous enter so let's start by talking about that drone that's been closing the Gatwick Airport over in England so apparently some so far undetected person

[1:09]

apparently some so far undetected person operating a drone has been buzzing the airport which is causing the entire Airport to close and it really sort of it tells you how unprepared we are for the the world of drone well terrorism really could you believe that there's a major airport that did not already have anti drone technology now that is scary to know I would assume that all the big airports would have anti drone technology but apparently only the military has that at least over in Great Britain so that's a big wake-up call but probably it was not a terrorist probably just somebody who's a bad actor but we're gonna have to watch that alright let's talk about the fun stuff we'll talk about Madison a minute but wall funding

[2:12]

wall funding so I think the news is doing a good job of covering all the elements of wall funding Nancy Pelosi said you'll never get the votes in the house and then Trump not only got the votes in the house but they approved 5.7 billion I think he was only asking for five billion and they not only didn't an see Pelosi not count the votes right because he actually won comfortably but they gave him more than the more than I asked for
for that's about as wrong as you can count the votes however the Senate will be a different situation unless unless here's the most interesting thing about the wall funding the most interesting thing is when it's happening because don't you imagine that all of these senators don't you imagine that their family is on the phone with them about every hour saying

[3:14]

phone with them about every hour saying all the relatives are here already for Christmas you really need to wrap that up and go home so the president weirdly has time on his side because I think he cares less about you know where he is because his his his family sort of travels with him so he doesn't have to go home he's sort of always home when you're the president you're just always home because your family's wherever you are if you want them to be so I think he's holding Congress hostage in a way because they really really want to get home and no I don't hear anybody really talking about how much that would influence people's votes I really do think people could vote differently maybe not enough to make a difference but I do think people who would change their votes because their family members are on their backs you know just get this done get over

[4:15]

you know just get this done get over here but it doesn't look like the Senate's going to pass it so it looks like the government's going to shut down now we're going to talk about also Madison Syria in a moment but there's a there's a larger sort of story here it seems to me that the Democrats have inadvertently made the biggest mistake that they can ever make you won't hear this anywhere else so this will be the first time you have ever heard this theory and you can judge yeah how much credibility to give it and it goes like this do you remember when I made my move into politics and I took some really big risks with my career with my reputation with my income etc the only reason I was able to do that or really willing is because I didn't have anything to lose so history

[5:19]

didn't have anything to lose so history and circumstance had put me in this situation where I didn't mind taking higher risks because I can handle them now take president Trump if he had been an average president doing an average job what would what would be his instinct to be if if there were enough people saying hey you're doing a good job let's say he had a let's say he had a solid 47 percent approval rating would he be as risk-taking as he is when everything's going to hell let me put it in another way the president's critics have unleashed the weapon of mass destruction in other words the legal challenges on Trump are so extraordinary and so bad that they've pushed him into a situation where he has nothing to lose

[6:27]

so the critics of the president have pushed him into a situation where if he doesn't do something big that makes a difference he will lose because they're chipping at him with all the legal stuff and the media is chipping away he has to get above the noise so there there was this baseline level of legal challenges and noise and criticism that was higher than we've ever seen for probably any president although Obama had it pretty bad too and in order for him to get out of that the one and only way to do that is to do something that's so big it's it's outside of it so that this stuff becomes less important so they have forced the president to do bigger things than he might have otherwise been inclined to do because if they were if the reporting had been you know we didn't support this president but even we have to agree things are going well if that was the reporting how big a risk

[7:31]

if that was the reporting how big a risk would he take to ruin a good thing probably not very big so it seems to me that the in the sort of accidental effect of the criticism from the left becoming more effective and I say more effective because now that the the Democrats will have some control of the house and they're gonna they've already said we're gonna unleash unlimited legal pain what would you do if you were in that job if you put me in the presidency I would I would put away my list of ordinary tasks I would say to myself okay here are all the ordinary boring things I was planning to do okay there's my ordinary list now let me take out the list of things that will set your hair on fire let me take out the list of things that nobody would even dare to do

[8:32]

things that nobody would even dare to do boom that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna do this list because doing the other list is a waste of time because if I do the other list of the boring ordinary stuff I'm gonna stay below the noise level I'm gonna stay below the danger level I need to get out of that zone entirely and so I believe the president is has been sort of politically pushed into a high-risk high-reward frame of mind and the he's taking advantage of it he's taking advantage of the fact that they have that the opposition has a boot on his throat if if you're in a fistfight and somebody gets you down and starts choking you to death and you you know and the only thing you could do is reach a gun you're gonna use the gun even though it's a fistfight they've kind of forced Trump out of his comfortable box

[9:33]

forced Trump out of his comfortable box and you know his his comfort level was a pretty big box to do something that you just wouldn't even imagined which is to keep his keep his campaign promise nobody saw that coming nobody saw it coming that he would keep his campaign promise I'm getting a sadness area now let's talk about Syria a little bit general mattis says you know wrote a scathing letter and quit he quit and people's hair is on fire and one of the funny things is it caused MSNBC to love war Glenn Greenwald was tweeting this morning and I retweeted it that the bizarre thing about this whole situation is that Rachel Maddow who literally wrote a book not too long ago about how the US should stop being in all these unauthorized Wars is complaining about the president for leaving an unauthorized war she literally wrote a

[10:34]

unauthorized war she literally wrote a book on the opposite opinion that's how easily they're switching opinions and and the world is turned upside down and the boxes the boxes shaking like crazy so you're saying I guess Chris Matthews came out in favor of the president's action and you're seeing some a few lefty is being in favor of it I don't know about I haven't heard from Bernie Sanders yet but he probably likes it you're seeing the Republicans going crazy let's talk about matters now Madison's job and the president's job are not the same job and it would not be surprising that when you hire a war general meaning a general who is really good at winning wars that once you've won all your wars and you could argue whether Isis is completely defeated or just you know mostly defeated on the battlefield but for all practical purposes we've sort of won all our wars

[11:38]

purposes we've sort of won all our wars and so the guy who's really good at fighting wars doesn't have the same value as he did when we needed to go in and beat Isis so that's the first thing the second thing is that mattis being a military guy he has no doubt made promises to allies and and as a matter of Honor if he can't keep his commitments to his allies he resigned I don't hate that I think as a military principle if you can't maintain what you consider your honor or your commitment to your allies they're resigning might be exactly the right thing to do which doesn't mean the president is wrong it just means that mattis can no longer be consistent with his commitments and with his you know here's his view of honor etc with what the president has done

[12:38]

etc with what the president has done which is a hard decision so I'm not entirely sure that we should make too much of the fact that mattis who has a completely different set of circumstances would have such a strong agreement with the president who is you know of course carrying out his campaign promise and now it seems like the big discussion is going to turn on the Kurds the Kurds and are I suppose other allies in Syria that we now feel are exposed and will be slaughtered what was the first thing you heard about this story probably the first thing you heard is that some Turkish defense minister or some job like that had announced that when America pulls out that they will move in and slaughter our allies the Kurds the allies in that fight now 24 hours later as I expected that story

[13:41]

hours later as I expected that story changed turns out that didn't happen so the most critical story that formed your opinion on this doesn't seem to have actually happened it was fake news what did happen as far as I can tell and again we're still in the fog of war so you know fact-checked me on this I could be wrong by tomorrow but my understanding is that the defense minister or whoever it was over in Turkey had made a general statement about defeating the Kurds that was unrelated to whether or not we pulled out it was just sort of a general statement just like all of their other general statements so nothing really happened there the next thing you have to ask yourself is what would the United States do if turkey tried to slaughter our allies as soon as we left would we do nothing well I don't know exactly what we do but it seems like that's part

[14:43]

what we do but it seems like that's part of the details that need to get worked out I would say if turkey immediately or even soon after attacked our allies who we had given guarantees of safety we might have to attack a NATO country that that wouldn't be good but we're in the world where all the choices are bad it's a bad choice to stay it's a bad choice to leave so here's the main thing about the Kurds we have 2200 people there who are mostly advisors I do believe that that's enough people to maybe keep the teams apart in other words nobody wants to accidentally kill any Americans because that would be bad for their national interests so they probably do serve some kind of a peacekeeping role let me ask you this if the main reason that we're still useful in Syria is in a peacekeeping role whose

[15:47]

in Syria is in a peacekeeping role whose job is that is it the United States job to be in a peacekeeping role to keep two warring parties apart nope that is the United Nations so where is the discussion of the United Nations keeping this probable Massacre from happening seems like that's right down there there Lane I haven't even heard that mentioned have you where where where was the argument that says the United States needs to get between all warring parties sorta not our job secondly I'm pretty sure we could say the turkey and maybe already have but what do you think is happening privately in the discussions between the United States and Turkey I've heard some conspiracy theorists say that in order for Turkey to shut up about to show Keyes murder by Saudi you know we're gonna give them something and we're gonna give up the Kurds that's ridiculous

[16:48]

ridiculous I'm sure that conversation has never happened anywhere but I'll bet the conversation with Turkey goes something like this if we pull out and you slaughter our allies we're gonna you up [Laughter] so do you think there's any chance that Turkey has a green light to slaughter our allies while the world watches there's no chance of that now the details of how we could protect the Kurds if indeed we want to do that and that's preliminary that seems to be what we want to do there is no way that we that we have told Turkey you know whatever you want to do that's okay with us there's no way we pull out without putting the fear of God whatever God they want to pray to in Turkey there's going to be if they move on our allies

[17:49]

going to be if they move on our allies and embarrass us in front of the world by doing so you know much less yeah you know the bigger tragedy would be the massacre of the Kurds obviously but if they want to do that and embarrassed in the United States in so doing the price that Turkey would have to pay for that would be higher than they're willing to pay and I'm pretty sure that that message has been communicated by now now here's the one way that I could be wrong about that more ways than one I could be wrong about that one way is are we entirely sure who our allies are over there doesn't seem to me doesn't it seem to to you that we can't really tell the difference between the Allies and the terrorists over there you know is it true that some of the Kurds are also terrorists is it true that is it true that it's just a big mess of sometimes

[18:49]

that it's just a big mess of sometimes you're terrorists and sometimes you're an ally it just depends which which direction somebody's shooting I don't know if we even know who our allies are exactly so that's the other thing you have to realize is it's not like hey here are our friends it's probably nothing like that it's probably like well they did fight on our side and we did say we keep the Turks away but they they've got some issues too that we don't love they got some people in that group they've got some objectives we don't love it's probably something like that so the main thing you need to understand when you're watching all this stuff is that you should assume you don't know anything
hold on afternoon let me make a message here Christina's texting me now so years

[20:03]

here Christina's texting me now so years here's the here's what's interesting about this story if you watch the coverage of it in the pundits you're going to see a lot of what I call the half pinion a half pinion is where you consider only the benefits of something or only the costs a full opinion is where you've considered both and I would say that Trump is making a full opinion meaning that he is considering the Kurds he's considering the Israel will have to fight harder he's considering all the all of the pluses and minuses and he's decided to make a hard decision that will be very unpopular to many people that appears to be what's going on now watch the coverage the coverage the the pundits will be talking past each other without addressing the other's point and it goes like this the people who are against the pullout will say if we pull out we'll be letting down our allies and the Kurds will be

[21:05]

down our allies and the Kurds will be slaughtered the people who want to pull out will say nothing about the Kurds they'll just say well war working out lasts forever this was his campaign promise we can't be in these unauthorized Wars you'll find that neither side will address the point of the other because that would be a full opinion and nobody can really give a full opinion because it would look rid Nickolas or it would look like you would agree with Trump which would be even worse for a lot of people so now when Trump threw in the pulldown of troops in Afghanistan he really made it clear that the u.s. is looking to you know reduces its footprint now I've said before that you have to look at the big big picture and I think there's a chance for peace in the Middle East because of all the

[22:05]

in the Middle East because of all the moving parts moving in the right direction and this is one of them one of the things that could help peace in the Middle East is a general impression that the United States is looking to reduce its footprint in favor of the locals taking care of business now in this case it's locals plus the Russians but in the you know as long as as long as the Russians are not against us in this case we're in good shape now one of the things that matter said was we have to be clear-eyed about Russia not being our friend and I think he's right but here's here's the thing I keep asking myself why is it that the most logical alliance in the world is not the US Russia and China wouldn't you say that the US Russia and China can never gain by fighting each

[23:06]

China can never gain by fighting each other that that's just a truth right none of us can make an advantage by directly fighting each other all we can do are these little stupid proxy wars that don't help anybody because whatever they proxy us we're going to proxy them we'll know what they did to us they'll figure out what we did to them and all we're doing is biting each other's ankles doesn't it seem like Trump Putin and she could sit in the same room and say here's the deal fighting each other with cyber with proxy wars and all this stuff just never works the
the only threat that the three of us have is from other smaller countries and from you know terrorists basically so it seems to me it seems to me that the three countries that should never be biting each other's ankles are China Russia and the US I just don't know what

[24:07]

Russia and the US I just don't know what reasons we have given that we can detect everything they do and they can detect everything we do it would be a different situation if we could do things secretly you know if China got hacked and they would never know it was us but that's not the case they sort of always know who it is and there's just no profit in the three countries being at each other now so here's my big picture I think that the big picture is that we'll figure out something to do to either protect the Kurds or we'll find out that that situation was more complicated than we imagined and it's not what we thought I think that Russia was always going to be the ones taking the fight to Isis at least in Syria forever probably let's put that on their budget I think Israel was going to do with Israel was going to do no matter what anybody else wanted

[25:08]

do no matter what anybody else wanted them to do or was doing and Israel will pick up its fight in Syria and probably be pretty effective Iran seems to be the big loser here now I know people are going to say eh Iran is a winner because the u.s. is pulling out I don't think so because Iran has to deal with Russia and Israel now that's not exactly fun so I don't think I don't think Iran is a winner I think Russia might be a winner but not in a way that's necessarily going to make us worse off we'll see now the other thing to keep in mind is that most of what people are worried about with is resigning is that they believe they can they can predict the world and it's bad ask yourself this have you correctly predicted anything that's happened in

[26:08]

predicted anything that's happened in the last three years if you have correctly predicted a lot of stuff that I would say well you're probably a good predictor but if you have not accurately predicted anything for the last three years and you're worried because what you predict will happen looks pretty bad maybe you should be less confident in your predictions here's a here's a truism about government and big business any time something happens that looks as enormous as a resignation of madis that looks pretty enormous to you doesn't it that seems like a big big deal a month from now well he'll still be in office a month from now a year from now what are the odds that anybody's gonna care the general mattis left and was replaced by a very capable general who has probably been at one of many very capable generals do you think you'll notice I

[27:08]

generals do you think you'll notice I don't know that you'll even notice one of the things that Mathers had working for him besides being terribly popular in the service is that he had a great reputation he was fun to talk about and he was very quotable and all that stuff but I don't know it's gonna make of that much difference a year from now you probably won't know the difference the other thing you have to take into account is that everything seems more tense and more dangerous and more scary because it's almost Christmas tell me this is true or not every one of you is more stressed this week than normal true or false true or false you're all more stressed because of Christmas and you've got 20 things to do instead of 10 things to do right so when you're looking at this news story about mattis you're taking that frame with you you're

[28:08]

you're taking that frame with you you're taking your you're already your hair's on fire before any news even happens and then you look at something like mattis resigning and writing this negative letter to the President and and you say to yourself my god it's the end of the world what's gonna happen blah blah blah blah keep in mind that in three weeks it won't feel like this and nothing will have changed in three weeks nothing will be different but it will feel completely different in three weeks because the world didn't blow up and Christmas is over and then we're just talking about who's replacing mattes and you know we figured out you know what we're going to do to protect the Kurds or not you know that we'll have more visibility on that in three weeks this won't even feel like anything and keep in mind that the business model of the press is to make this seem like a big bigger deal it is so you've got the Christmas stress on

[29:10]

so you've got the Christmas stress on top of that you've got the press whose job it is to get you more scared than it's necessary and on top of that you've got a president who's been pushed into a high-risk high-reward decision-making mode where he can really get some stuff done if things go well every part of that is scary and then on top of that you put the you put the stock market going nuts how much should you worry about the stock market going down what it whatever it's been ten percent or something should you worry about that probably not because the stock market is is reacting to all this all the stuff swirling around its reacting to uncertainty my guess is that we're entering one of the best buying periods that the stock market has ever seen now don't take my financial advice because

[30:12]

don't take my financial advice because that would be crazy I'm not really good at financial advice so let me let me give you a dose of completely earned humility in that regarde don't buy stocks because i said it could be a good opportunity but the reasons that the stock markets are down matter the the markets are down because of uncertainty there's uncertainty over trade there's uncertainty over now Syria and there's uncertainty over the presidency because of all the the stuff going on the trade the trade negotiations will will resolve one way or the other so that uncertainty will go away Syria will get better better look at that that will go away so most of what is our uncertainty is because the news is getting us all excited but as long as jobs are good that's the thing you should look at if jobs still look

[31:14]

you should look at if jobs still look good the economy almost always does well I don't know if there's any if there's a economic historian here perhaps you can give me the the rundown but has there ever been a time when jobs are great you know unemployment is really low and then everything went to hell you see you know you the first thing that's gonna happen is a loss of jobs if you don't see that I'm not worried about the stock market the stock market goes up and down on on motion alright let's talk about the when's so did you notice that Sarah Sanders has changed her language about the wall so I tweeted this she said that it might be a wall or it might be steel slats when the president announced did his little talk before the farm bill he said yeah look

[32:15]

before the farm bill he said yeah look if it makes the Democrats feel any better we'll call it steel slats so if it's steel slats is that a fence or is that a wall or is it one of the prototypes that sort of steel slats up to a point and then so it's hard to get over there's a wall toward the top so remember my weirdly specific prediction the prediction that I made is that the the border security thing would get solved when when both sides could find a way that one could call it a wall and the other could call a defense and sure enough here it is steel slats some can call it a wall and some can call it a fence now that's not enough to get it through Senate probably but I'll bet it comes closer than you think

[33:17]

comes closer than you think somebody says do you think somebody is paying me to do these periscopes the answer is the people no I don't I don't take money from anybody who's an individual or powerful just from micro donations on patreon at the moment but we'll be looking to change that platform and if you give and if you give super hearts here on periscope apparently that turns into money for me so those are the ways that I make money in this and then in addition to the extent that doing these periscopes helps me sell books I'm writing another book so my my financial interests are completely disclosed it's it's patreon donations it's super hearts and it allows me to write books and maybe do better you know selling them because I have this attention so that's my only financial incentive but beyond that I

[34:18]

financial incentive but beyond that I really like it I've said this before I don't think I'd do any of this periscoping except that I like it yeah and if you'd like to buy a Dilbert calendar as a gift that would be a great way to get more of this all right now tell me who else who else predicted that the solution to the border would be something that somebody could call a wall and somebody else could call a fence I believe I'm the only one in the world am I wrong am I wrong that all of the language is starting to come together and even both sides are saying well well it's not a wall all the way but maybe we need a little bit of wall I'm not wrong we're in complete agreement they just needed to fix the language and it looks like they have but I doubt I don't know if the Senate will I don't know if the Senate will get this room now one of the

[35:19]

Senate will get this room now one of the reasons I like calling it a wince because it's a combination of wall plus fence but also if you're want to be illegal immigrant and you come up to that structure what's going to happen you are going to return from whence you came it's the whence because you must return to whence you came once you see it all right what else we got going on I think that's mostly the news the sonic weapon well I'm still strongly in the position that the so-called sonic weapon that allegedly affected the people in the in the embassy is that's not going to be a

[36:20]

the embassy is that's not going to be a weapon whenever we figure out what it was it won't be a weapon all right I think that's all I've got for now anybody have any questions there's a new deal oh yeah there's a new deal with Mexico so instead of releasing people into the United States we release them into Mexico so
you know I've also wondered I can't figure out why the legal plus mostly legal why can't we charge a small fee to all legal entrance from south of the border do we do that already is there already some kind of a fee for just moving across the border I mean couldn't we just put a toll but you put a toll booth on the border where people are

[37:20]

booth on the border where people are coming through legally wouldn't the toll booth pay for the wall if you wait long enough a lot of people comes through those roads all right how can I convince my wife that chemtrails are fake well chemtrails are tough because you can't prove a negative so it doesn't matter how many airplanes or jets you show are not gassing the public the people who believe in chemtrails can say yeah well the ones you checked but there are those other secret top secret government planes spraying you with chemtrails the chemtrail idea and the first time I met somebody who actually believed it I think my brain went into some kind of shock because the first time you see it's one thing to see it online yeah because you see every crazy thing in the world on Twitter but it's really shocking to see somebody in person say

[38:22]

shocking to see somebody in person say chemtrails are real because I'd look at it on the go ah I can't give you a reason that's not real but that's not real there's there's such a small chance that the government is gassing us with chemtrails and that somehow yeah we're not noticing except for the conspiracy theorists that would be truly amazing
Joe Rogan debunked it well I don't know how you can debunk it exactly because people could just say well you don't you only check the planes that did not have chemtrails it's the other planes uh yeah we talked about the drones all right Scout do you predict the government will shut down yes I do I do predict the

[39:25]

shut down yes I do I do predict the government will shut down and I will talk to you later