Episode 565 Scott Adams: Limpet Mines, Hatch Act, TDS Recovery

Date: 2019-06-14 | Duration: 47:07

Topics

Recovered liberal TDS victim, Joshua Lisec, describes his journey Kellyanne Conway, Hatch Act applies or BS? NO freedom of speech? Iranian tanker problems and trusting Secretary of State statements Does President Trump agree? President Trump and the question of Info from a foreign source Prediction: We did NOT know Russia hacked the DNC Will be public info by end of President Trump’s Presidency
Sarah Sanders and her replacement

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Rough Transcript

This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

Transcript

[0:02]

I can pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom hey everybody come on in here it’s time for coffee with Scott Adams and you know you can’t do that without two things you need Scott Adams present and you need coffee but you don’t even have to have coffee you could have some kind of beverage that is your favorite it could come in a cup or a mug or a tanker - Stein or Chell so we’re Steinar a chalice something else the vessel the thermos the flask or you could have your coffee in a mug that says this can you read it see if you can read this I don’t want to ruin it for you by doing the reveal but it looks like I might have to it says capitalism delivers what socialism promises so I got this in the mail today somebody somebody is making coffee mugs they say capitalism delivers what

[1:03]

they say capitalism delivers what socialism promises I imagine if you do a google search on that with that phrase and coffee mug it will pop right up but I got mine make sure you get yours and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine producing amazingness of the simultaneous Impa so if all goes well today I’m gonna have a guest I tried to have yesterday but I had technical difficulties my guest has been he’s recovered from TDs and I wanted to talk to someone who had gone through the process of having Trump derangement syndrome and somehow recovering because it’s a rare thing but before we get to that I’ll give a few minutes to make sure that everybody’s here I want to talk about so I always like to tell you what’s weird about

[2:04]

like to tell you what’s weird about being me because I have the strangest life because I’m a little bit famous but most of the time I’m not meaning that 99% of my life is just ordinary life like anybody else but 1% of the time weird things happen to me because I’m a little bit famous and one of them is that when I read the news it’s not unusual for me to be in the news so today’s one of those days so Google kicked up an article by Jonah Goldberg in National Review and he’s talking about Trump giving people nicknames and he quotes me and I want to read that quote because damn it did I lose it I want to read that quote because it talks about me so he’s talking about Trump giving people nasty nicknames and then he said in response cartoonist and prominent Trump’s planners got Adams

[3:06]

prominent Trump’s planners got Adams tweeted quote I don’t know if Pelosi is crazy as Trump suggests but she did just start a public insult or with the busses with the best public insult er in the solar system alright so that’s what I said so remember what I said so you can compare that to Jonah’s criticism of what I said so I’m gonna say it again so this time just remember what I said so you can compare it I said that I don’t know if Pelosi is crazy as Trump suggests but she did just started public insult or with the best public insult her in the solar system so all right then Jonah says Adams is wrong on two counts so what follows are the two mistakes I made number one Trump’s insults aren’t all that clever did I say they were clever one needn’t be a modern-day HL Mencken or Oscar Wilde to come up with lyin Ted Allen Frankenstein little Michael Bloomberg blah blah blah their second grader insults now where did I say that

[4:09]

grader insults now where did I say that Trump’s that Trump’s nicknames are a clever I talked about them being persuasive and effective is that the same not really cuz clever suggests it’s hilarious and it is hilarious in its own way but it’s hilarious because it’s persuasive because you shouldn’t be doing it you was a little bit naughty and that sort of thing but it’s but I never made the claim that it’s clever in any kind of an HL Mencken Oscar Wilde way alright so the first criticism is of something that didn’t happen right what’s the second one second the notion that Trump’s Barb’s are equally effective across ideological or partisan I’ll miss reads the political landscape what yeah at what point have I ever said that Trump’s Barb’s are equally effective across on both sides of the political aisle I’ve literally never even had that thought in fact the first time I ever thought about that difference was when I read a

[5:10]

that difference was when I read a criticism of my thoughts about it so there’s there are two two criticisms about things that literally just never happened nor are they in evidence in this but here’s the funny part the thing that you wouldn’t know this is the second generation Goldberg to insult my my work now first of all I know I know Jonah a little bit and so I’m just having some fun so don’t take any of this too seriously Jonah’s father by weird coincidence was top executive a top executive at the cartoon syndication company their first syndicated Dilber a United media so I actually know Jonah because I met him many years before he was famous for writing about politics I’d met him because I knew his father and worked with him in my early cartoon career now what’s interesting is his father once

[6:11]

what’s interesting is his father once told me that he could draw Dilbert better than I could because it didn’t take that much talent to do it and which is a strange thing to say for somebody you’re working with but he meant it he wasn’t joking he said that it didn’t take much talents to do what I did and if he thought of doing a comic about business first well he’d be doing it instead of me uh-huh so I’ve actually never been insulted by two generations of Goldberg’s and I just had to pension it all right but again I like Jonah I’m not I’m just having some fun but the criticism scene seems a little little off-base all right we got a bunch of stuff to talk about let’s check the time and I’m gonna go in and see if Joshua is on here let us see there is I’m gonna bring out my guest Joshua LASIK I’ll ask you about if I pronounced that correctly Joshua I hope you’re

[7:14]

that correctly Joshua I hope you’re ready Joshua do you hear me I can hear you you could tell me how to pronounce your last name properly why sec liesecke okay Joshua LASIK now you responded to my request for to talk to somebody who once had Trump derangement syndrome but maybe I helped talk you out of it or maybe you command came out of it yourself does that accurately describe you that does yes and how bad did you have it oh and tell me what is your political leaning do you naturally lean left to right would you label yourself yeah I would say I’m center-left a reasonable liberal yes we do exist all right so you had terrible thoughts about Trump could you could you summarize what terribleness you thought were the problems in particular yes and I can’t even give some context about a year

[8:14]

even give some context about a year prior to the 2016 election I had been with a listener of sam Harris’s podcast and of course that you know a left-wing ecosystem kind of the the intellectuals of the left we’re predicting that this guy was going to be opening concentration camps and deporting you know the millions of illegal immigrants and starting World War 3 and sexist racist bigoted homophobic ELISA nated no I would have to say is it kind of looking back is what was happening but at the time I was fully convinced while these smart people are saying these terrible things are going to happen they seem to have be pretty confident so why would I why would I believe otherwise right so would you say that it was the group thinking that influenced you more than say your own critical thoughts about the facts definitely yes like a like a lot of people I mean you know as a busy person I don’t necessarily have you know hours on end to do all the

[9:15]

you know hours on end to do all the research and the deep-diving myself and so I would look at these kind of you know commentators podcasters so-called journalists who I do the things I respected right so it’s a it’s a perfectly reasonable shortcut because we can’t we can’t think through every topic to the bottom you have to rely on people to you know sort of give you the give you the cliff notes there all right so what was it that changed what how did you how did you come out of it give us the the brief journey there yes reflecting on it I have to point I think there’s three specific things that happened that were like you know cracks in the other movie screen that I was watching right the two movies on one screen so there were some cracks on my screen right crack actually was how sam harris personally you know after the 2016 election for unrelated reasons was kind of dragged through the reputation mud by establishment left wing

[10:16]

mud by establishment left wing commentators intellectuals and media and i personally knew this guy Sam Harris is no bigot or a llama phobe or anything like that I saw the same people that were saying Trump is evil they were saying Sam Harris is evil yeah that’s really interesting all right so so once you saw that the same treatment could be applied to somebody you did know about and you felt confident then that made you doubt this is the same treatment they were giving to Trump who you didn’t know as much about but now you’re saying mmm if they were wrong before all right go ahead what was your second yes so that was the first crack is there they’re turning on on Sam Harris especially like Vox and that whole disaster so that would be the first one the second one actually is a far left friend my posted on Facebook an article in Rolling Stone this is I think it may be a little over a year going to be a year a half ago before my son was born I’m thinking in terms of the timeframe so

[11:19]

thinking in terms of the timeframe so the article the headline it was something that was just sounded terrible that we expected to happen is a headline with something to the effect of Trump rolls back child labor laws oh no this evil terrible person sweatshops you can just see the sweatshops in your head right and everyone’s showing it’s thousands of shares all this man’s evil hashtag impeach now right right right I go when I read the article the article is about how the Trump administration is instituting a new labor rule which allows blue-collar employers to hire sixteen seventeen year old high school graduates to work at their companies as apprentices I’d say I completely agree with that the headline was so far removed from that it was a hyper exaggeration that was a second crack in the night I said to my wife I said how

[12:20]

the night I said to my wife I said how many other Trump rolls back child labor laws headlines have we seen daddy women we had read the story we just couldn’t read so it was the third thing yes the third thing with you and so this was a little like in a little over a year ago before the hoax funnel so this is a little over a year ago the hoax tunnel it looked kind of like a wind tunnel you had this drawing on your whiteboard and you listed the various media hoaxes or exaggerations or a lies about president Truong don’t start with the big list up with this little one and work your way through it looked like a wind tunnel right so like work your way through the hoax tunnel and you realize you know maybe there are legitimate reasons to to you know vote for someone else in my case I’m kind of on the Andrew yang bandwagon for 2020 but reasons you know to like president Trump’s results in an administration and there’s

[13:20]

there’s you know reasons to maybe not approve but these are not any of those reasons all right so what’s unusual about your journey is that it involves reason and you know actually learning which is so rare and you know I think it helped a lot but you said you were your sort of moderate left-leaning your your appreciation for Andrew yang this sort of speaks to that I mean yang is a yang is half a Republican I you know I don’t know what he is I don’t know how he could get elected because he’s he’s only half one side and half the other but all right that that is very interesting now did you get any pushback from your friends who presumably remain Trump haters well whenever I bring up something like the anybody shared a headline or out here about what Trump did today and I’ll say well I looked into that story actually I

[14:20]

well I looked into that story actually I read past the headline in the article and actually it was ABC and then just as you predicted in the in the what would it be there the vfp hoax funnel where they just say well maybe that’s being some truth but this other thing and so it’s just like hopping from one thing to another and maybe they’ll get to the point where it’s something that like okay I actually agree I’m not a fan of President did Joshua did you see the video clips of the times that President Trump used the same mocking expression as he was blamed for mocking the reporter who had that they had to cap with his arm have you seen the compilation clips the show he does that all the time with other people now times how I think it was on your timeline right yeah so the the the news funnel completely protects people who are the Trump haters from seeing the exculpatory video they just never see it and so you can kind of understand why why uh you know why people are fooled

[15:21]

why uh you know why people are fooled now you had you had the ability to start with the Sam Harris who I would say is actually not really political in a way wouldn’t you say yeah yeah and I think that the type people he was having on his his podcast had some sort of either political affiliation or their economists their commentators or technologists and for their own reasons they had fears about about possibly being an existential risk like Eric Weinstein I think that was a Weinstein phrase existential risk yeah I even when I disagree with Sam Harris I appreciate that he’s trying to get there through some kind of process of reason and facts and discovery and you know learning etc like he’s trying to get get to places through rational processes unfortunately he lives in an irrational world so that’s gonna have a limited effect on on people’s minds alright so Joshua thank you so much and I’m sorry about my miscue yesterday my

[16:22]

I’m sorry about my miscue yesterday my tactical error that delayed this till today but this is fascinating so anything else you want to add yeah I just saw a comment in here I want to respond to somebody asked is he an artist or an engineer and you would you probably expect just like yeah Andrew yang I am both so I I’m an aunt newer I own I own my own business I’m a real estate investor as well but my my main business is as a ghostwriter so its creativity its writing so I own I own a creative business in addition to another enterprise so a little bit of both and want to give your company a plug what’s the name of your business oh sure sure yes it’s it’s entrepreneurs wordsmith entrepreneurs smith.com is my business I’ve ghost written 42 full-length books since 2011 so we’re celebrating eight years this month all right what kind of books do you go straight a certain genre or anything most of them tend to be a business books entre nourish at books by by thought leaders or aspiring thought

[17:24]

by thought leaders or aspiring thought leaders who are maybe experts in a specific niche or or industry and they want to go mainstream and so they see a book being something that can open the door to a greater awareness of their personal brand and credit excellent Oh excellent and if somebody wanted to reach you on Twitter tell them your twitter twitter and handle sure at joshua liesecke why SiC is spelled lis see it me up at Joshua a sec great thanks Joshua we’re gonna go on with the show and I appreciate you very much thanks great it all right boy all right that was interesting and fun all right let’s talk about some other things in the news Kellyanne Conway is in trouble for alleged multiple violations of the Hatch Act and President Trump says he’s not going to fire her because there’s some government entity that says she’s in violation of these things do you know what seems to be the new theme you know I talk about this all the time but the more I talk about it the more clearly

[18:25]

more I talk about it the more clearly you can see it it’s one of those things that the first time you hear this idea that I’m gonna introduce or reintroduce you don’t quite believe it but you have to see a lot of it and then you say yeah I’m seeing too much of this for this to be a coincidence and here’s the thing there’s not any news anymore that’s the thing the end of news we’re not having real news because we’re doing such a good job the whole country really about dealing with our hardest problems and when things when problems are being reduced it doesn’t really make a news story you want big problems and crises and things like that so have you noticed that the news has turned from big gnarly problems to maybe 75% of the news would fall into the category of this that feels like it might be illegal is that illegal I can’t even tell if that’s illegal what are the lawyers say well

[19:28]

illegal what are the lawyers say well some of the lawyers say it’s illegal but some of these lawyers say it’s not illegal I can’t even tell if a crime has been committed am I wrong the entire like 75 percent of the entire news is stuff you can’t even tell is really illegal because I’m looking at so I don’t again I’m not a lawyer so this hatch act says something about Kelly and Conway being a a paid part of the administration is not allowed to say negative things about the the other team so she can’t say bad things about the other side while she’s being paid to which I said to myself are you kidding me well that’s a law there’s a law denying Kellyanne Conway freedom of speech did you know that did you know there’s a law that says the Kellyanne Conway and people in that kind of job don’t have freedom of speech what now here’s the thing like I said I’m not a

[20:28]

here’s the thing like I said I’m not a lawyer and if I had a lawyer here you could be quite certain that that lawyer would say yes there are good reasons for this law you know people on both sides liked it here’s the reason if we didn’t have this this is what would go wrong but honestly it’s not obvious to me what that is I I suppose it’s because people in certain positions would have too much power maybe they would have much too much influence perhaps people would take them too seriously you know those would be pretty good arguments but are those arguments better than freedom of speech are you kidding me are you telling me that a human being can stand in public in the frickin United States and say any any I want to swear now because it makes me mad but to tell me that a human being in the United States a legal citizen can’t stand in public and say any fricking thing they want to say I’m not cool with that

[21:28]

want to say I’m not cool with that you’re gonna need a really good reason now I understand if it’s slanderous etc but we have specific rules about that and that’s not about the free speech so much it’s about slandering and you know injuring somebody but well so anyway the Kellyanne Conway thing is just another lawyer versus lawyer thing that we won’t fully understand and we’re not really sure that something is illegal you know so just like obstructing injustice you know the president is accused of collusion which we don’t really even know if it’s a crime or not it doesn’t feel like it and maybe he did something with his campaign contributions because of stormy Daniels and it feels like it’s kind of sort of illegal but we can’t really tell and maybe he obstructed justice or obstructed injustice but what he was obstructing was something that wasn’t really even a crime well wasn’t a crime and and was he really obstructing or was he just doing his job it seems

[22:29]

or was he just doing his job it seems like all of the news is just this this I can’t tell if it’s illegal if you and I break a law don’t you usually know it that’s the different things the different thing about our our existence is when we break a law we usually know it all right we have to talk about Iran I have an evolving opinion on the Iranian the accusations that Iran was behind the the attacks on the the tankers and the and the Gulf there and at first here was my initial thought so when Pompeyo made his statement I said to myself hey Pompeyo was saying that Iran is behind this but what does President Trump say because let me be as as completely clear about this as I can I I don’t have any bad feelings or

[23:29]

I I don’t have any bad feelings or anything really I don’t know Mike Pompeo so I don’t have some strong opinion about his job performance or anything else it looks pretty strong from my position it looks like Mike Pompeo is is an amazing amazing servant public servant and but he has the kind of job that you should not trust meaning that no matter who’s in that job whether it’s Pompeo or democrat or another republican it wouldn’t matter you can’t really trust what they tell you about what another country did now we all know that President Trump is accused of 10,000 factual errors by his by his opponents and although most some of those are exaggerated fact-checking and they weren’t really that wrong or they weren’t wrong at all still we would agree that President Trump can use some hyperbole so you had a situation here where where Pompeo is in a

[24:30]

where where Pompeo is in a that you shouldn’t trust what he says just automatically and yeah and so you say you shouldn’t trust that and then the president is known for his hyperbole so you have to be careful is it negotiating does he believe it does he just want Iran to hear it you have to be careful but here’s here’s what caught my eye the first statement I believe that President Trump had made about it was to quote Pompeo so I think his first statement it was just a tweet in which he quoted Pompeo to say it is the assessment of the US government that Iran is responsible for today’s attack in the Gulf of Oman now if you heard that President Trump did not say directly I think Iran did this or that Iran did this but rather he simply tweeted a quote by an underling what does that tell you about president Trump’s confidence that it was Iran because if he were confident he would say Iran did it so the first thing I

[25:32]

say Iran did it so the first thing I flagged was hey why is the president softening this by not saying it directly but he’s letting his underling say it’s the assessment that feels like it not quite sure and it feels like the president is leaving himself a little wiggle room so he can say well my people thought it was true if you know we changed her mind or something later and he’d have a little bit of wiggle room there but apparently he went on Fox & Friends this morning and said indirect language this is the president and I’m quoting Iran did do it sorry now he said directly and you know it because you saw the boat so I think by now most of you seen the video of what appears to be an Iranian a small naval boat that pulls up next to the damaged tanker and and somebody reaches up and removes what is obviously one of these limpet mines that’s stuck to it they had not exploded so so one of the mines on the other side of the ship had exploded but this

[26:34]

of the ship had exploded but this particular one had had not exploded and the Iranians on the boat allegedly were removing it so now the president has seen this video and so he’s willing to make the direct statement Iran did do it and you know it because you saw the boat all right now you know it because you saw the boat in other words that’s the primary evidence is you’d know it because you saw the boat now it’s also true that these limpet mines have been used before and they’re they’re associated with Iran but here’s the other thing that Pompeo said Pompeo said that there were no other entities in the area they had the expertise you know the the ability to do this kind of attack now you watched if you watch the video you saw how much expertise it takes to execute the attack are you ready I’m going to demonstrate all of the expertise it takes to do this attack you want to see it again that’s

[27:38]

attack you want to see it again that’s an entire Iranian naval attack grab a limpet mind pull up next to the tanker attach it to the tanker sail away now nobody’s saying that the people who put the limpet mine on the tanker invented it right it seems to me that anybody in the Middle East who is a bad person who had connections to arms dealers etc is it really that hard to get your hands on a limpet mine and is it hard to have a boat I can pull up next to a tanker and attach it because apparently that’s all you have to do I think they might have to you know set it for a timer so apparently there are two ways these limpet mines explode one is with the timer one is with some kind of distance trigger but in any case I don’t believe that limpet mines were designed so that you need to be a nuclear scientist to operate it it’s probably got a button

[28:40]

operate it it’s probably got a button and a timer so when Pompeo says we don’t know anybody else who has the sophistication to pull this off I say to myself you have not demonstrated any sophistication in fact the facts and evidence are exactly the opposite of sophistication somebody in a small boat pulled up to a big bow and went like this with their limp it mind now maybe it’s a little bit hard to get a limpet mine but in the Middle East I feel like that wouldn’t be too hard so here are some here are some questions that are still out there uh oh and first number one if you’re trying to determine what’s the truth of this my cat here is attacking me so you can’t see her below the be lovely camera so now that we have the video oops cat coming through [Music] cats she sees me doing this she gets

[29:41]

cats she sees me doing this she gets very jealous of the whole operation alright look at the audience boo all right carry on so now that we have the video of this alleged Iranian ship pulling up to the tanker here’s the thing that you need to look for Iran has denied involvement originally but when Iran denied involvement they were denying it based on no specific evidence being presented now there is specific evidence of what appears to be cleanly clearly an Iranian vessel which suspiciously did not have a flag and suspiciously all of the sailors did not have uniforms on and even more suspiciously here’s my favorite part did you did you see the video of the boat the small boat that is allegedly Iranian and the people taking the limpet mind off mine off did you notice they were they were probably like 15 sailors just

[30:43]

they were probably like 15 sailors just standing right next to the mind now I’m no explosive expert I don’t know much about the military I don’t know much about limpet mines but I’ll tell you one thing if I were the person who was not directly responsible for reaching up and taking the limpet mine off the tanker I wouldn’t be standing right next to him because you gotta think that that thing just might go off I would sort of get to the back of the Iranian alleged boat just in case it went off I might even go below deck just so the explosion didn’t get me so what was going on there now here’s another piece of evidence apparently some of the facts are conflated in my mind but basically the Iranian Navy did rescue some of the people from the tanker it was I don’t

[31:44]

people from the tanker it was I don’t know if it was this one but we know that the Iranians were involved in a rescue mission they took some of the sailors off when that mine was noticed so put this together what are the two explanations not just one but what are the two different movies that perfectly explain this alleged Iranian boat taking the limpet mine off well movie number one they put it there in the first place and they wanted to remove the evidence because they didn’t want it to be obvious that a limpet mine had been used because that would tie it to a ran and so when it didn’t go off the Iranian said oh darn one of our limpet mines didn’t go off we better go retrieve it because that would be obvious evidence that it came from us so that’s movie one here’s movie to the Iranians rescued some of the sailors we know that if the Iranians were willing to rescue sailors would they not also be willing to remove

[32:46]

would they not also be willing to remove the mine that was still stuck to the side of their boat their ship doesn’t it make complete sense both of those movies in one movie they had to remove the evidence that showed they were guilty of the other mind that did go off in the second movie they said holy crap let’s rescue these people their boats on fire and I look there’s still a mine stuck to the boat we’d better get that off of there because we know how to do this they can’t reach it but we can pull our boat up and we can reach it whereas they can’t they can’t from the top they can’t reach down and get the mine off so here’s what’s missing you need to look for a direct statement from Iran as to what that ship was and what it was doing if Iran says that wasn’t ours well then you have to deal with that if they say yes that was ours and we were trying to help well you have to answer that and

[33:47]

to help well you have to answer that and if they say it was ours and and we were just helping we have to explain why it wasn’t flying a flag and why the sailors were not in uniform so we got a lot of questions here right I would say the fact that they were oh and then next what good does it do you do not have a flag and not have uniforms if the ship that you’re on is so unambiguously an Iranian vessel how does that make sense did the Iranians think that that tooling around in a well-known Iranian vessel they would be invisible because they didn’t have their uniforms on and a flag this is this is a pretty serious military vessel I mean it wasn’t a giant one but it’s unambiguously a military vessel and unambiguously belongs to Iran apparently I don’t know how many other ones there are anyway so I would say at this point yesterday I said it was a coin flip I said based on what we knew

[34:47]

coin flip I said based on what we knew there was a 50-50 proposition that Iran was behind it based on what we know today that percentage goes way up at least 75% there was ran’ but if Iran makes no comment about this ship if they simply don’t mention it they’re guilty what do we agree on that right would you agree that if Iran never mentions the video of the ship they don’t mention it to say that they were helping they don’t mention it to say that it wasn’t there as they just don’t mention it Tenace them and and that would be confirmation I would say that takes it 200% so wait give them about few days probably 48 hours maybe a week if they don’t mention it you know for sure if they do mention it I’d sort of listen to what they said because we would be surprised you never know but 75% chance it was Iran and that what they were trying to do was create some they were trying to shake the box

[35:49]

some they were trying to shake the box this is what President Trump does all the time with negotiations the variables were not set up in a way that was good for Iran they didn’t have any good ideas so they said well if we don’t have any good ideas let’s just shake this box get some different variables going so having some minor damage on some tankers there that were and it’s obvious that these attacks whoever did these attacks did not want the cargo to reach the water think about that whoever did the attacks did them in a very specific way they would minimize loss of life and would not sink the ships it would just decide them from doing business that’s a very interesting thing for a for anybody to do and it certainly speaks to the false flag possibility because if it was if it were a false flag it would be somebody who didn’t want to kill innocent people and didn’t want to pollute the water they just wanted to make it look like an attack but you would also say quite

[36:50]

attack but you would also say quite reasonably that’s exactly what Iran would want to do because Iran also didn’t want to kill people from some innocent country that had nothing to do with them and Iran also didn’t want to pollute the water right around their country so in both cases you had whether it was them or not them you had a reason to not do a more serious attack which also suggests that our response to it should be muted meaning that we probably have to respond in some way I suppose maybe we’ll just tighten sanctions or whatever but it’s clearly not a military provocation of the type that was designed to be big enough to cause a bigger fight it seems so intentionally limited in scale that that that should tell you something all right as I was watching changing the topic watching the coverage of the President statement about what he would do if he got information from a foreign country or a foreign leader and and he was asked

[37:53]

or a foreign leader and and he was asked you know would you listen to the information or would you give it to the FBI and the president said directly he said I’d probably do both he said he listened to it and he’d give it to the FBI I think all day long his critics were arguing that he wouldn’t give it to the FBI it seems to me that he I’m going to delete this critic here it seems to me that everybody kept saying my god this president he wouldn’t tell the FBI if he got information from another country but his answer was probably he would but he would also listen to her first I have not heard anybody have you heard any critic actually criticized what he actually said I haven’t heard it yet have you have you heard any critic accurately criticized what the president

[38:56]

accurately criticized what the president said and then make a criticism that suggests they actually heard what he said none I was somebody bought some wind tokens and is waiting to be a billionaire thank you so it’s fascinating because you know I said from the start that you do both in other words you listen to the information and if it’s problematic you tell the FBI why wouldn’t you so that’s more of a news I’m gonna make a prediction here I don’t believe I’ve ever made this prediction and it’s a dangerous one because it goes quite against expectations and it goes like this I believe at some point before the end of the president’s administration whenever that happens whether it’s you know one term or two pretty sure it’s gonna be too but sometime before the end of his administration you’re going to learn

[39:57]

administration you’re going to learn this as a prediction just a prediction that Russia was not necessarily behind the hack of the DNC now you might not learn that it was an inside job that’s a separate question but more and more it seems to me that when you hear officials talk about it they talk about it’s highly indicated or they’re pretty sure or they have a high degree of confidence that Russia did it and I gotta say I’m not convinced because here’s here’s the thing that I can’t get past yeah somebody is mentioning the 17 agencies we remember that the statement that that Russia definitely did it is that the bottom of a lie funnel the lie funnel started at the top and said there are 17 agencies who all agree that Russia did it that was the beginning of the lie later there

[40:58]

was the beginning of the lie later there were individual entities the said oh okay well wasn’t us you know we didn’t say this but others did and then it was well okay it’s not it’s not all these people but really there was there was a small working group in which we pulled people from the various groups then you find out that it was you know Sony hand-picked those people and then it was hand-picked you know that it’s really just the hand picker so it wasn’t from everybody agrees - well it wasn’t everybody but it was some important people okay it wasn’t all the agencies per se it was individuals within the agencies okay they weren’t just randomly selected individuals they were hand-picked which really means it was just one person Russia did it so here’s what’s wrong with the story it started out with a big truth absolutely no doubt about it 17 agencies you know 17 agencies agree and by the time it shrunk down its all the way down to we have a high degree of confidence because a few people said so and by the way this could

[42:00]

people said so and by the way this could be faked that’s the part nobody tells you nobody tells you how easy it would be to fake that it looked like Russia so I’m gonna put that prediction out there that before the end of the Trump administration ends before his terms are over then we will learn that we did not know it was Russia and that and that they’ve been we’ve been signaling it by using language such as high degree of confidence when you watch the news does the news ever say we have a high degree of confidence that Russia hacked the DNC have you ever heard any pundit use that language which is actually the official language the official language is that it we have a high degree of confidence that’s pretty different than we’re sure they did it that’s pretty different because we’ve had highs high degrees of confidence on things that are wrong

[43:00]

confidence on things that are wrong before all right Sarah Sanders has decided to leave the administration that must be the hardest job in the world I see on Twitter a number of people are recommending me for the job I would be I would be the most awesome I would be the most awesome replacement for Sarah Sanders but I couldn’t take the pay cut so I’m not in not in it for the job but I gotta tell you I would be awesome with that job but you don’t want it all right that’s all I got to talk about today anybody have any questions anything you’d like to see yes and congratulations to Sarah Sanders I think I think history will be kind to her for having the hardest job in the world and doing it with grace and talent and and making know making everybody look good so I think she was she was amazing so

[44:06]

so I think she was she was amazing so there’s some photos of Jim Acosta in a bookstore signing some of his books and and nobody was around and people were making fun of him because nobody was in line nobody recognized him he was just you know lonely there signing his book I have to tell you something I’ve done a lot of book signings and first of all it is a thing to just drop into a big bookstore and just sign some books so so it’s it’s very common for a famous author to walk into a bookstore and just say hey I’m the author of that book you have on that table do you mind if I sign some for your store because I’m around and all that does is that sort of kick-starts your book in one of the stores and you can get a little bit of momentum going at least in one store so that’s probably what a costumers doing he probably just went to see if his own book was being presented well and then said hey I’m Jim Acosta let me let me sign it but the other possibility is that he showed up for a book signing and nobody showed up and I say that because

[45:08]

nobody showed up and I say that because I have done major book signings where literally nobody showed up so I’ve done book signings where people were lined up literally outside in and all the way around the block I’ve done book signings where you couldn’t see the end of the line they just you know disappeared into the distance but I’ve also done a number of book signings where literally nobody came and it was just me sitting at a little table and by the way this happened at the at the height of my Dilbert Fame when when Dilbert was just the hottest comic going and I would go to a bookstore and I would sometimes just sit at a table and the staff would just be embarrassed and they’d be trying to make conversations like well I I think people are gonna come in any minute yeah maybe it’s the weather I think it’s the weather probably probably maybe not everybody read the publicity but they’ll be coming in any minute now and an hour later when nobody’s come in then the staff starts asking for autographs and that’s when it gets really embarrassing like that the assistant assistant manager will come over with three books say oh you know I’m glad that you’re not busy would you

[46:10]

I’m glad that you’re not busy would you like to sign my books and really it’s it’s basically because they literally feel embarrassed for you they you spend your day sitting at a table talking to no one so point is don’t do not take that as an indication to how much people like Jim Acosta’s book because it’s not that unusual to show up to a book signing even when you’re famous and even if you’re a best-selling author and nobody shows up it happens all right that’s all I got to talk about and somebody says Kellyanne was supposed to replace Sarah I don’t know I don’t know seems like Kellyanne would have had that job already if that’s the job she wanted all right all right that’s all for now I will talk to you later