Episode 416 Scott Adams: Border Funding and Emergencies. Fun!
Date: 2019-02-15 | Duration: 38:01
Topics
President Trump will sign the inadequately funded border bill, AND… …he will declare a national emergency for balance needed He started with a “big ask” which was shot down Then he allowed congress to ignore the experts and fail The public was primed to accept national emergency IF… …congress was unable or unwilling to do their job Can the next President declare a national emergency… …for climate change? Climate change solutions are hopeful, but don’t currently exist Mark Schneider’s interesting question and proposal Why can’t we build nuclear power plants right now? 4th generation nuclear reactors are rated VERY safe McCabe says after Comey was fired, Article 25 was considered Was there ANY proof or suspicion to support that? Or was it simply a way to remove a duly elected President? Wasn’t that treason? The media should NOT be let off the hook They created an environment that fed and promoted TDS Amazon pulls out of the NYC headquarters project Amazon says projects like that need local support
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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
## Transcript
[0:11]
hey everybody what a fun day stuff happening all over the place today it's so Noy that I needed to do a special supplementary uh Periscope to catch you up with the news so you will understand it in context all right so what we know know is that uh the committee that was working on this border funding bill came up with some kind of a terrible committee built bill that didn't give enough money for border security according to the experts and according to the Republicans and president Trump has simultaneously announced that he's going to sign that bill and also declare an emergency boom which is wonderful for you know those of us who watch this stuff it's it's terribly entertaining now I happen to think it's the right move tentatively all right now
[1:13]
the right move tentatively all right now A lot of people are complaining about the details of the bill but we're still in a fog of War situation and the fog of War meaning that we don't really know what's in that bill we've heard things people have read it people have made comments but I think that what's going to happen is that our understanding of the details of it is going to evolve in the next few days um I don't I don't have a beverage with me I just thought I'd pop on here so there will be not be a simultaneous sip this time I will'll save that for tomorrow morning um but here are some questions I have and let's see how these evolve over time number one there's this uh suggestion that the bill says that if a uh kid comes with an adult that you cannot send the adult back now I think that goes to the whole separating babies from parents and putting children in cages so I think the reason that the
[2:16]
cages so I think the reason that the Republicans were willing to put up with something that clearly would would cause a hole in security because let's say cartel members you know use a kid to pretend to be an adult to get into the country but I have a couple of thoughts about that first of all it might be uh it might be a reasonable tradeoff because the kids and cages thing was so bad that frankly we would put up with a little extra crime we would put up with a little extra death to stop that it became such a big emotional issue and I'm not saying that it shouldn't be it's pretty it's pretty important um but it might be politically right to get rid of the kids and cages or to do whatever you can to minimize that so that you've at least shown some willingness to be productive on that point so the first thing I ask is does that rule get directly to the not
[3:17]
that rule get directly to the not putting kids in cages if it does it's not as terrible as your first impression okay uh I'm saying kids in cages cuz that's the way it's reported I know you don't want to call it cages um the next thing I wonder is apparently the the bill restricts what can be built and where and it restricts it to the point of well it's pretty bad restriction so uh one of the restrictions is something about the Texas border and something about local Mayors and local politicians being part of the process we need to wait a little bit I would say wait a little bit to see what that really really means because I don't know and here's a big question if there's an emergency declaration but there's also a new law and let's say the new law says that you can't use the money in this law to build the wall does that mean that an
[4:18]
the wall does that mean that an emergency declaration which creates its own
own budget would also not be able to build in that same place in other words does the the bill say that under no conditions including an emergency can anybody ever build a wall there probably not it probably is restricted to the bills money it's you know its own money and so maybe the emergency declaration is just to build the wall in the other places or or we might have realized that it was so hard to build a wall there anyway that maybe we didn't need the wall there or at least it wouldn't help because it's such a big area if you don't cover it all
all you haven't done anything and because of the land use um you know the land rights issues it might be Poss it might be the case that even the experts say well you know you can't put a wall everywhere and it's going to be so hard to put it here it might be that that's a lower priority
[5:18]
it might be that that's a lower priority than you think so again we're going to wait wait to see on the surface it sounds terrible that the bill would let in people just because they brought a kid uh and people could abuse that um but it might reduce the kids in cages which is politically important I mean really important it's one of the top issues and we don't know how much of a a barrier could have been built on the Texas border given all the limitations so so let's wait and find out what the experts say but let me give you some context here what the president did if you look at the Arc of things is that he he started with a big ask and you know know you didn't get it got got slapped down pretty hard by the other team so what he did was he allowed them to build this working committee that would fail in public now there were two things that were going to happen either they would succeed in the way he wanted them to succeed or he could do the emergency
[6:19]
could do the emergency declaration but what was important is he allowed the public to watch the Congress fail I mean just fail hard right in front of us normally we're not watching right the a lot of the stuff that the Congress does either they pass something and people are okay with it or you don't hear about it it's not important or something big and complicated you don't understand but it's very rare that you understand the topic enough you know border security is not complicated compared to other issues we understand it enough and then we watch them working on it and then we saw what they produced and we just go what the this is awful this is like a sausage nobody wants to eat so he's he's priming the public by allowing the right process you know the one everybody agrees Congress negotiating letting that run out right in front of the public while we're watching they're failing right in front of us very important and it it sets the
[7:23]
of us very important and it it sets the table the other thing that was happening is while they were negotiating and failing the public was becoming educated about the real risk at the border and part of that education is to understand that we really do need border structures in some places even if all it does is drive people toward the legal openings where we can beef that up too and that it's a process of sort of beefing up everything and funneling people toward the places that it's easier for us to catch people who are up to no good so people now kind of understand that in a way they didn't understand it when people were saying wall no wall wall no wall right which meant nothing you know all wall never made sense no wall never made sense so the public was sort of up in this nonsense area arguing just nonsense with each other wall no wall and then since then we've all
[8:25]
wall and then since then we've all become educated people do Now understand that those tall slat steel structures do do something important that they do make people change their plans that the friction works so so now you got two things done the president let Congress do its process and fail in front of the public at the same time the public was being educated and here's the important part the Congress apparently ignored and that might be too strong a word but did not take the full recommendation of the experts the experts so what is it that every climate science um person wants the government to do listen to The Experts listen to The Experts right so it's very hard for the Democrats to say this is the one time you shouldn't listen to The Experts that
[9:26]
you shouldn't listen to The Experts that that that's a hard thing for them to argue so I don't think you get to see that so the president has set up things perfectly he let them do their process he let them fail in front of the public while he educated the public on what the situation was and now he has a free pass he has a free pass for the emergency and sure people are going to argue that's not an emergency that's just an important thing that we don't know how to do in another way just like the other 35 emergencies that have been in place for years and nobody even noticed all right it's a tough argument if you're just obsessing on the word or emergency is it an emergency let's do some what I call word thinking where people will argue about the definition of a word which doesn't matter because we could change the word from emergency to important thing that we can't get done another way and then what would they do
[10:28]
another way and then what would they do that you wouldn't even have to to rewrite any laws how about how about Congress passes a law that says let's change the name of that action from emergency to doing the thing that we couldn't do the other way but we better get done because it's important or there's probably a better way to do that um so the president has by far the strongest hand and I imagine if there's some rough edges in this bill they will either get clarified away or we'll find some workarounds let me give you um a real world example let's say a cartel member takes a child into the country and we catch them and now we've got a child and an adult and we can't tell if they're related um I suppose you could tell if you did a DNA test at the border I'm not sure if we're equipped to do that but the point is if we know that this person with the
[11:30]
is if we know that this person with the child is a cartel member or some other kind of criminal I'm pretty sure they can be arrested under this law or any other law I don't think this bill says oh yeah well you murdered 10 people but we don't want to separate you from the kid so carry on go away so I wouldn't worry that we knowingly let anybody in I don't think that's going to happen then the second situation is that we don't know if this is a c member or a real parent in which case didn't they get in anyway you know wasn't wasn't the old process that we weren't going to separate children from kids and we and the law doesn't allow us just to push them back on the other side of the wall I I don't I I don't know exactly what's different all right I'm I'm hearing people say that this is new but to to my ears it sounds like the current situation so I'm probably wrong so don't
[12:30]
situation so I'm probably wrong so don't take anything I say on this my um my point is that we're in the fog of War so pretty much every hot take you hear about what the law does or does not do probably is going to change and evolve and get clarified over the next several days so hold your hold your fire until the clarification start coming in all right um now some people have said hey if the president says this is an emergency and I think Chris Hayes has already tweeted something like this wouldn't that allow some other president to say climate change is an emergency uhoh if the you know if this tool is available for everybody does the next president say all right here's an emergency for you climate change get rid of all your fossil fuels in 12 years or whatever um and I don't know the answer to that may maybe I mean it might maybe
[13:31]
to that may maybe I mean it might maybe it's a risk but let me suggest something um I tweeted around a a tweet thread from um Mark Snider on Twitter so you can see it in my uh Twitter feed and the topic let me just call it up here and the topic is uh nuclear and the idea is let me just read some of it for you here and the idea was that um people don't quite realize that uh where is it yeah Mark [Music] Schneider and he's proposing a useful counter to the green New Deal which he is called hash green nuclear deal see where this is going if if climate change is an emergency we only have one way to solve it there are lots of lots of hopeful
[14:34]
it there are lots of lots of hopeful things we could do that don't really work in the real world but nuclear works right now if it's an emergency if it's an emergency nuclear has got to be your top thing now a lot of people don't understand the ins announcing nuclear and so what uh Mark Schneider added to this conversation is brilliant so he's experienced in this area he's worked with nuclear subs Etc and um he and I have talked offline well online but non publicly and I've asked this question which is I don't understand why we can't build new nuclear um reactors when the Navy does it all the time don't they doesn't the doesn't the Navy build nuclear reactors and put them on submarines and aren't they building them all the time and I I wondered like why can the military do it but the civilians can't like what what am I missing and
[15:34]
can't like what what am I missing and part of the answer is that there are these things called um fourth generation um nuclear reactors and the fourth generation means that we've reached the point where we know how to build the reactor without
risk without risk so in other words the new reactors even if everybody did everything wrong it still wouldn't melt down and they would be smaller right now um now Mark's tweet was uh inspired by the conversation I had with Naval and if you haven't seen that you really really need to see that I I I swear it could be the best thing you you watch all year it just might be that good for a lot of people are saying that and and I think that um so you can find that pinned to my Twitter feed it's conversation with nval and one of the things that nval said among his many smart things he said was that what holds back nuclear
[16:35]
was that what holds back nuclear technology is that you can't iterate in other words you can't you can't just build one see how it goes and say ah this one didn't work let's let's try another one the way you do with every other product every other product that works starts as a bad product that just iterates and you you keep fixing it and tweaking it until it's good but because nuclear is so scary and so expensive and everything you don't have a way to iterate you just got to say ah let's put 10 billion into this and it better work first try so nuclear doesn't have the iterative ability now what Mark Schneider added with his Twitter feed is suppose suppose you're building these smaller types of generation 4 uh nuclear reactors so first of all your risk is very low and secondly if I interpret this right one of the things he suggested was that we already have at least three nuclear plants in remote
[17:35]
least three nuclear plants in remote areas so we already have locations that are essentially approved for nukes and we could just put other reactors right next to them you know put a couple of Gen 4 reactors and then you could iterate in places that are already approved for it and you you just put one next door because they're in remote areas now I don't know how practical that specific part is but the part I like about this is the smaller Generation 4 stuff apparently they're also optimized for um different different load uh load uh what do you call requirements during the day so they can ramp up and down which you need to do if you have a submarine and you don't some of the older generation ones don't do that apparently not as well so so these these are some sensationally productive thoughts about how to proceed so it it starts with this
[18:37]
how to proceed so it it starts with this that you you acknowledge that climate change is at least a risk even if you don't believe you know the exact predictions even if you think well even if you think that um that there's no risk it's still a really good idea to build nuclear energy and to become you know proficient in that before Fusion gets here if it ever does and so uh you mind convincing I'm not sure what that means all right um people have also talked about Thorium I don't know the difference in terms of the tradeoff between Gen 4 and thorium that's for someone else to decide but the bigger issues is there is a way to start small without the risk of uh without the normal risks of nuclear there are locations that would be relatively easy to use without a lot of problems and then you could uh iterate
[19:38]
problems and then you could uh iterate them from there until we have a solution if it's a national emergency hey if it's a national emergency let's declare it a national emergency and do the one thing we can do so the the most hilarious thing that could come out of this National Emergency for border security is for for the other the is for the climate folks to start screaming hey give us a National
Emergency for climate and then here's the fun part have President Trump agree and say I agree let's let's have military level uh rules and regulations because apparently they have a different standard for military development let's put it somewhere where it's not going to hurt anybody let's do it fast let's build a system where we can iterate these things and learn and go at the same time like you do with every other
[20:39]
same time like you do with every other product with this low Generation Um somebody says look into fifth and sixth generation reactors well I'm sure we would want to use whatever's the best I won't pretend to know what that is but the point is uh we might get to this board border security emergency situation might trigger more calls for emergencies for the the climate and the one and only way to make that happen happens to be one that is very cable once you've educated the public on on why the fourth generation Etc don't have the risks that people thought suddenly suddenly all right we let's talk about mcab um so you've heard the news that mcab has a book out and there's a 60 Minutes interview we've only seen brief Clips but apparently he's making news because
[21:39]
but apparently he's making news because he says that uh that after Comey was fired mcab who was the acting director of the FBI actually had conversations with other people in in the government about removing Trump under the theory that he there's there was a high likelihood he had been compromised by Russians now what evidence was he looking at I think he would admit that it was not an evidencebased decision in other words there were there were things that worried him in in terms of the you know there clues of things that worried him but there was nothing like a proof or even a strong evidence now some of you are saying my God it's treason he was trying to get rid of this President by using the 25th Amendment based on nothing because there wasn't any evidence of mental incapacity
[22:40]
wasn't any evidence of mental incapacity or anything like that right but here's the interesting
question here's the interesting question what if he really believed it was the right thing to do for the country what if he really believed believed that Russia had Trump in his pocket and that if he didn't act fast Trump would use his power to get rid of all the people who might stop him and then suddenly Putin owns the United States what if he thought that was a real risk maybe maybe he wasn't convinced it was definitely true but what if he thought it was a good 20% chance is that possible is there a 20% chance that maab believed would is is there a chance that MC believed there was a 20% chance that Trump was actually a Putin you know
[23:44]
Trump was actually a Putin you know plant I think there's reason to believe he might and not because of evidence here's why mcabe in addition to his job was also a citizen he's also somebody who watched the news he's also probably somebody who voted what happened when Trump got elected when Trump got elected half of the country went nuts they actually went nuts with TDS and they were searching for the reason to explain the thing they all knew couldn't happen they knew it couldn't happen it was impossible for Trump to win and so it's the perfect setup for cognitive dissonance so when Trump won they had to redefine their world to make it make sense again so that they were smart all along that's that's what cognitive dissonance is it's where you have to
[24:45]
dissonance is it's where you have to reinterpret your world really literally imagining things until the things you imagine make you seem like you were uh consistent and smart all along cuz people don't like to just admit man I was I was the dumbest guy alive I missed this by a mile people have trouble doing that so I would say that the media the anti-trump media could be the villain here because it would not surprise me if the anti-trump media got people so worked up that when their their expectations were violated by reality that people all over the country when temporarily nuts and by nuts I mean cognitive dissonance they saw things that didn't exist they imagined fears that weren't real they they assumed they they could read the minds of people they thought they saw in the evidence all kinds of
[25:45]
they saw in the evidence all kinds of things that were that really didn't add up to anything they were just coincidences so I want to put that out there as the um as the alternative hypothesis hypothesis number one is that mcab was just a a political hack he wanted he wanted Democrats to be in charge for whatever reason either high-minded reasons or to keep his job or whatever and the he and other like-minded people seriously considered treason actual treason so that's Theory one is that he and a number of other people literally and and specifically with no no Hyperbole and no uh no exaggeration considered talked about and got serious about actual treason now what are the odds that
[26:45]
treason now what are the odds that that's true pretty good pretty good right I don't know if it's true but the odds of it being true are pretty good compare that to the alternative which is mcab was simply exactly like every other Clinton supporter and he was just crazy meaning temporarily crazy meaning having cognitive dissonance from a trigger which is very clear the the trigger is right in front of you which is nobody thought it could happen and when it did they had to explain it somehow and so the way they explained it was they talked themselves into this couldn't have happened unless Russia did it and they wouldn't have done it unless they had unless they thought they could control Trump so probably they're already halfway there all right I would say both of these theories are pretty pretty good
[27:47]
these theories are pretty pretty good and maybe it's some you know weird merger of the two you know could be a little of both but I don't think here's here's my general point I don't think the media should be let off the hook no matter what you think should happen to macab Independent of that the media has to take the hit for this also because I think they created an environment where even if you replaced mcab with somebody else the odds of that somebody else taking a very similar path and actually talking about hey I'm so afraid of this guy and there's no other way he could have won according to my worldview it must be a Russian problem and you know I'm not going to let a 20% chance that Putin took over the United States go unchallenged I got to do something about that that's my job all right I think you could have replaced mcabe with another
[28:48]
could have replaced mcabe with another Democrat just any other uh Clinton supporter and I think you might have gotten a similar outcome so that tells me that you always have to you know responsibility always goes with the individual right so the the way society and the legal system works is it wouldn't matter if the media were the real villain it's still McCabe's responsibility right he's the one who made the decisions so you can't remove responsibility from him and I'm not suggesting that you should but if you're looking for let's say at a scientific level as opposed to a social level as opposed to a legal level where responsibility is always with the person from a scientific level you can just look at all the causes and effects cuz you're not judging anything you're just saying cause and effect cause and effect here's one here's one and I don't think we get to this situation with macabe without the media brainwashing people to think that uh Trump was just the worst crazy crazy
[29:50]
Trump was just the worst crazy crazy irrational guy and there's no way he could win all right without that I don't think mcab does did what he did and I think with it anybody you replaced mcabe with who is also a a Clinton supporter probably has those same conversations well what could we do how do how do we minimize our risk all right um he was FBI and showed
bias because when you say he showed bias you've made an assumption that he didn't believe what he believe in what he was doing well no you don't really assume that because you could be biased and then believe your own your own bias um here's what I'm saying is that if he thought it was true he he didn't act in a way that you wouldn't want him to act if he actually
[30:51]
wouldn't want him to act if he actually thought it was true you know that there was something with this Russia thing um but how do you know he's biased well I'm not saying he wasn't because my whole my whole work up there was to suggest that he was but I think the furthest you can go is to say he could have been biased because otherwise you're sort of reading his mind and Etc but yeah I mean I think I would agree with you I would agree with you that the likelihood that calling him biased is accurate is very high right almost certainly
um he belongs in prison some of you say yeah you know it's a tough one because I feel different about the prison question based on whether or not he believed it because there there's two versions of bad mcabe all right if you allow if you
[31:54]
bad mcabe all right if you allow if you allow that let's say you've ruled out that he was a good guy let's say you've ruled out you've ruled that out and you're just saying what kind of a bad guy was he there are two versions one is he made bad decisions based on being biased and be and being brainwashed by the media and that caused him to uh to you know not do his duty the way we see it and the other way is that he was just um consciously didn't like the president and was looking for ways to get rid of them but those two are still I think those are still equally in play until the there's more information that would tell us which one is the one I don't rule out either one all right so I'm not ruling out either those possibilities I'm just saying there are two possibilities it was more than just macabe says someone in all caps yes uh it was a bunch of people who felt the same I'm not sure where a deep state conspiracy
[32:55]
conspiracy starts and where just people people thinking alike uh ends did that even make sense what how can you tell the difference between um a conspiracy and a deep Spate deep state conspiracy and a bunch of people who just feel the same doesn't it look the same what if a bunch of people really just felt the same Scott stop he doesn't sound repentant now stop what what exactly am I supposed to stop and why should his lack of feeling repentant have anything to do with what I just said if anything it supports the theory that he didn't think he was doing something wrong that's what non-rep people look like now also Psychopaths but uh if if you let me put it this way if you're feeling certainty about what mcab was
[33:56]
feeling certainty about what mcab was thinking you do not have a credible opinion if you say to yourself well I don't like how this looks and it looks like this and it's probably this but I could see how it might be a little bit more he was just just wrong all right if you're saying that then I say well that's a credible opinion even if you said even if you said I think it's a 90% chance he was just being a political animal and trying to get rid of trump but it's a 90% chance there's a 10% chance he was just had TDS like everybody else and thought he was doing the right thing I would say that's a credible opinion but if you say to me stop even talking about that 10% one you're you just are not part of the serious conversation cuz we don't know all right I'm going to get rid of this user who who yells at me and caps um ridiculous things all the time so you're gone now
[35:00]
all right do I believe in absolutes I don't believe in that
um no forgiveness all right Russell you're getting blocked for the no forgiveness comment um I don't want to live in the world where forgiveness is ruled out now if he did mean to just do a coup then I wouldn't forgive that either but it's a little too early to talk about no forgiveness when we don't know all the facts um he thought he was doing the right thing it's possible you know keep in mind that he's saying this in public so he wrote a book and he's telling his
[36:00]
he wrote a book and he's telling his story in public with no embarrassment apparently so if that doesn't indicate that he thinks he was doing the right thing I don't know what would that's the best evidence I could think of uh but again we don't know what he's thinking we just know that there are two hypotheses that are still alive one that he had TDS and one that he was just a weasel who want to overthrow the government for his own reasons it sure smells like a coup it does there's it smells like a coup I
agree [Music] um all right you're blocking people for their opinions why else would I block people yes I'm blocking people for opinions that that's why you block people there there are there are legitimate credible useful opinions and
[37:02]
legitimate credible useful opinions and then there are people who just scream their opinions despite the evidence and they're not productive
uh any predictions for the North Korea I'll talk up that that separately oh yeah then Amazon pulled into the New York City deal that was interesting I hear people blaming AOC for that but I don't know I don't know how much of that was really because of uh AOC so I'm going to wait to hear about that but I loved I loved the um did you see the wording that Amazon used the way they worded their pullout and in their public statement was really good because they said that this sort of project doesn't work unless you can work closely with the local politicians and they didn't have enough support and I thought pretty good reason that's that's well stated all right that's all I got for now I talk to you later