Episode 583 Scott Adams: Iran, North Korea, and Other Places Safer Than Portland, Plus TDS

Date: 2019-07-01 | Duration: 37:11

Topics

President Trump’s MAJOR historic walk into North Korea Critical Dem Candidates diminish the significance Elizabeth Warren is an academic, Kamala Harris is a lawyer Critics of President Trump appear to be beaten down…by the FACTS “The means do NOT justify the ends” and our national character Technology and better thinking…to improve NK and Iran Masked, armed domestic terrorists allowed to mass and hurt people
Antifa hospitalized Andy Ngo and at least one other person Don Jr. catches heat for questioning same thing as Don Lemon

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

## Transcript

[0:03]

bum-bum-bum bum-bum-bum hey everybody it's a special coffee with Scott Adams travel edition yes I'm on the road that's why things look a little different in here this morning but you know what's never different what's never different is the unparalleled pleasure with a simultaneous simple coming to you in a dainty cup today not my big masculine mug that I'd like to use but whatever kind of a vessel you have be it a challenge to Stein or a tankard could it be a cup or a glass or a mug the thermos or possibly a flask fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee join me now for this simultaneous sip and the dopamine yet that will get you through the rest of the day can you believe that of all the things in the world a hotel would get wrong the the first time they delivered my coffee this morning it came in a cup that had a hole in it have you

[1:06]

in a cup that had a hole in it have you ever gotten a a coffee mug in a hotel that a hole in it I didn't even know that was the thing I kept poured coffee in it they kept running into the saucer so it took me two more tries and I got a better cup and now I'm good to go good to go so if you checked out the stock market lately real what's going crazy I can barely handle the speed right that's my impression of me looking at my stocks right because it's all good today let's enjoy it while we can apparently has something to do with China and the tariffs and being good to China and blah blah blah all right let's talk about the president went to North Korea I still can't get over how cool that was now normally you don't use the the word a cool when it comes to government you don't think of politicians and think cool maybe you

[2:07]

politicians and think cool maybe you just don't think that but the fact that Trump even thought of this idea of just stopping by the DMZ to say hi just the fact that even considered that much less the Pat the fact that he pulled it off much less the fact that it will be one of the it will be one of the all-time most famous photographs ever and apparently apparently did something good for the country in the world so that part is great but the comments from his critics are the funny part because there's not much to say that would be sensible and a criticism but of course it's a political season people are running for president so they have to prove to criticize them but but they don't have much to go on so I'm gonna read you two criticisms one from Kamala Harris one from Elizabeth Warren and

[3:09]

Harris one from Elizabeth Warren and look how weak these are they're just sort of words put together all right so here's Harris first she says this president should take the North Korean nuclear threat and its crimes against humanity seriously you don't think Trump is taking nuclear war seriously what what kind of a comment is that is there anybody in the entire world who doesn't take the risk of nuclear war seriously I mean that's that's some weird mind-reading right there right so she starts off with something ridiculous the he should the president should take the North Korean nuclear threat and his crimes against humanity seriously then she says this is not a photo op our security and our values are at stake okay has she noticed that the personal relationship with Kim jong-un is actually the primary variable that's

[4:09]

actually the primary variable that's moving things in a productive direction the very thing that is the only thing that's worked literally the only thing that's worked with North Korea is the thing that she's criticizing it's the only thing that's work everything else we've ever tried hasn't worked he does something that clearly is productive we don't know where it's not going to end up but clearly we're not in fighting fighting mode anymore now we're in how can we be friends mode completely different let's see what Lizabeth Oren says she says our president shouldn't be squandering American influence on photo ops notice they're all going to use the photo op thing so they're gonna try to diminish one of the greatest statesmen like plays of all time in the history of the world this is one of the coolest and

[5:10]

the world this is one of the coolest and effective political plays of all time befriending Kim jong-un and then turning that into something productive she says it's squandering American influence on photo ops and exchanging love letters with a ruthless dictator instead oh okay okay it's not just criticism Warren apparently has a prescription for how to do this better all right so now she said that Trump's just took a photo op but the next part of her tweet should be the part where she's got some concrete ideas ready to do this better I can't wait for this and she says instead we should be dealing with North Korea through principled diplomacy that promotes u.s. security defense our allies and upholds human rights um what does any of that mean I believe that's just a bunch of words I believe that her solution to defending

[6:12]

believe that her solution to defending the United States against nuclear Armageddon is she can put some words together that's it she put words together there's not one part of that that tells us what to do or how to do it or why it would be different it's just words let me tell you where a Warren is completely hopeless she's an academic if I said to you the President of the United States is a successful businessperson billionaire who will have four years experience as one of the most wedding presidents of the United States so that's one resume so billionaire successful across multiple fields of business very experienced also four years of being the President of the United States the most successful one okay that's his resume Warren is an

[7:16]

okay that's his resume Warren is an academic and the lawyer and the senator who never managed anything are those even in the same category an academic a lawyer I mean I realize that lawyers often become politicians and they do well but I'm talking about the matchup if you run anybody who's this a successful business person against anybody who's a lawyer I don't even have to tell you is rotting do I successful business person vs. lawyer who does the public want to be their president not so much the lawyer right in order to get a lawyer as president do you know who that they have to run against another lawyer you know the way to the only way that you get a lawyer as president is to run against another lawyer or somebody

[8:19]

against another lawyer or somebody pretty weak all right um so that matchup is not good I don't think that Trump versus Warren is a matchup that the Democrats will decide they want I think they're gonna want to put Harris against Trump because at least Harris was a badass when she was a prosecutor so if you're gonna be a lawyer probably helps to be a prosecutor because your own team will vote for you anyway because you're on their team the other team won't think you're too soft so Republicans are gonna look at a prosecutor and say well she's a lefty socialist but she was tough on crime can't you can't take that away from her she was tough on crime so I think she looks like a better match up and the the academic thing that Harris has is sort of a kiss of death the last thing you

[9:21]

of a kiss of death the last thing you want is an academic as president now I realize she's also a senator and a lawyer and those things count too but the academic part just comes through in her tweet in the way that makes her look like she's an engineer of words Trump is an engineer of minds right so what Trump engineers is your thoughts he directly reaches into your brain and makes you think about the world differently that's what he does that's what a salesperson does and if you hate the president that's what a con man does so depending on your spin of it it's all influence but he engineers how people think Warren engineers of words just sentences she's she's an academic she's she's on sort of this intellectual plane that doesn't help anybody alright enough about that here's somebody on Twitter with TDs and have you noticed that the people with TDS tend to have it in very similar ways

[10:25]

TDS tend to have it in very similar ways that is to say very much like an alcoholic if you've ever been around alcoholics have you noticed there's a sameness to have they act I want to see in the comments how many of you have noticed this if you've been around more than one actual alcoholic not just somebody who has too many drinks once in a while but actual alcoholics they have a sort of a syndrome a personality if you will that you can tell what they're gonna say before they say it all right so alcoholics have a very similar personality that the alcohol causes apparently but the people with TDs have this weirdly similar way of thinking that doesn't seem to be because they read it from other people see if you noticed this watch how often somebody with TDS will come down on the same point independent of ever having heard anybody else with TDS a it they they hit sort of a similar mode which is how you can tell

[11:25]

a similar mode which is how you can tell or well let me not make a medical diagnosis here I'm not qualified for that but my observation is that it looks like a medical and I mean this seriously completely complete seriousness now it looks like a medical mental condition and one of the tells for that is that they have similar symptoms without having seen the other person's symptoms they don't seem to be just influenced by each other so here's an example on Twitter somebody said talking about the president betrayal of the most vital national interest is about as much as it would be possible to have gotten so he's saying that the president is betrayed vital national interests to which I say ah which ones what are you talking about and then there's an article in that the New York Times and so here's the the

[12:28]

New York Times and so here's the the headline for New York Times article by Greg Weiner I guess were wider the image of a president Trump as a political Robin Hood whose illicit behavior is justified because it serves a greater good is doubly flawed so there's some retreat by the anti-trump errs they seem to be beaten down by the facts so the facts our economy good North Korea trending positive probably do ok with China trade talks all the big stuff is trending the president's way even the border immigration situation because it worsened so much even the people who said he was being a hard-ass about having strong border security are probably saying to themselves well he was right about this if you if you make it attractive to come here more people will come the problem will get worse I guess that's true so the president is so solid on the the stuff

[13:30]

president is so solid on the the stuff you can measure that the TDs people have retreated to a safe space where they'll say bad things about his character or about you know they'll say he's you know lied or is whatever and they're gonna use the character attack to say that the ends don't justify the means in other words they're gonna say stuff such as he's talking to dictators so if it's working you know it should be measured on the on the level of whether it works so watch the TDS people retreat to character attacks and saying that the ends do not justify the means that the way he does it is inappropriate even if it works think about that people are saying that the way he does it is unacceptable even when it works they've sort of accepted

[14:30]

when it works they've sort of accepted that the part that it works because if you're saying the ends don't justify the means you have uncritically accepted that you're gonna get the mean yeah the means don't justify the ends if somebody says the means so justify the ends they have uncritically accepted that he's going to achieve the ends the ends being what good economy peace those are the ends so they've accepted his effectiveness and they're talking about whether we as moral creatures can accept all of that effectiveness if the price of it is that our feelings may be hurt and that it's doing something to our national character that in some indirect way that we can't quite put together that there's indirect badness of his character is going to destroy us in the long run even though sure sure it's

[15:32]

the long run even though sure sure it's nice that we have a strong economy and peace all over the world that's great but is it worth all these bad character things that will be will be subjected to to be that looks like TDS that looks like you've completely run and stuff so watch how often you see character attacks there that that except his effectiveness what was the thing that I told you the president I said this is this is my most wrong prediction I ever made okay so I'm going to accept now this is my most wrong prediction I said that after the first year of Trump's presidency people would be saying some version of he's effective but I don't like it do you remember that and then by the and I also said that people would be embarrassed to be against him

[16:35]

embarrassed to be against him sure enough sure enough I I was after the game I was way too early so I was wrong about that but we are seeing all of the media say he's effective but we don't like it it's the most common thing they're saying is he's effective but we don't like it anyway so I was early on that here's another prediction I made that I'm gonna have some fun with I think remember before the first election 2016 I said that Trump would win in a landslide so my prediction was not just win but I said Trump would win in a landslide now he didn't win in a landslide in fact he lost the popular vote and although many people who are Pro Trump said that the electoral college was a landslide others said well it's not that landslide II it's it's bordering on approaching looking sort of

[17:36]

bordering on approaching looking sort of like it could approach landslide II but it didn't quite get there but what do you think the second election is gonna look like I I have a feeling that we might see that landslide after all because things are really shaping up like the Democrats don't have a frickin chance does anybody think they have a chance as we sit here today one of the funniest things that the president has done and there are a lot of funny things he's done yeah there are a lot of funny things as president has done intentionally but one of the things he's done semi intentionally is remember everybody said let's not normalize this behavior this behavior was everything he does the way he tweets the way he runs the country by through Twitter and by the way yeah well I'll talk about that a minute but you know he insults people he gives them nicknames he fights back no matter what

[18:36]

nicknames he fights back no matter what etc and everybody said the same thing all the the critics they said we can't normalize this behavior dear God we can't normalize this and what happened it got normalized it got normalized right if wouldn't you be disappointed if the president didn't tweet a good nickname for Carla Harris let's say he ends up running against her wouldn't you be disappointed if he didn't have a nickname for of course you would of course you would because it's normalized now so the president has literally normalized all of that stuff that people said don't normalize this and what's the downside let me let me let me check uh-huh let me check my bank account okay check my bank account huh all that stuff got normalized and yet my bank account did not go down about my stocks check my stocks huh he'd

[19:38]

stocks check my stocks huh he'd normalized all of that bad behavior and my stocks are up let's check out North Korea huh North Korea looks like he's heading in a good direction and yet he normalized all of those insults can we agree now that normalizing that stuff didn't make any difference except maybe helped didn't make any difference all right in fact I've actually you probably seen it now have you seen some pundits actually say that they've actually said some version of well he's been running international relations through Twitter and it's kind of working have you heard that people who are experts are going on television and they're saying that President Trump is running the presidency through Twitter and totally making it work right you're seeing this right I'm not the only one who's seen this

[20:38]

who's seen this people are going on TV experts and saying yeah okay he's running the country through Twitter it just felt like a bad idea we were pretty sure that was a bad idea but based on today's perspective it was a good idea seems to be working and somebody's asking if I'm growing my hair out no that's just lack America but thanks for asking all right so I announced on Twitter that I'm gonna start muting I won't be blocking but I'm gonna mute everybody who makes a comment about camel heiress no matter how clever they think it is and her dating Willie Brown and how that helped her get a job when she was earlier earlier in a career so I'm just gonna mute to all of you so just know that that's the last time I'll ever hear from you if you make those comments on

[21:39]

from you if you make those comments on my Twitter feed now I'm not a prude I don't care about it it doesn't offend me in any way it's just so small ball and that's the wrong term it's so minor league that it offends me yeah pleasing you know please improve your game that's all I'm asking and if you don't - that's fine I'll mute you I just don't want to ever hear it again because talking about somebody's sex life 20 years ago people it's 2019 she's she's competing to run against President Trump are you freaking kidding me that this has any meaning in 2016 it doesn't has no meaning it's not funny it's not clever once you heard it you know once you've heard the clever you know nickname for her that James Woods gave her doesn't have any but there's no power to it it's not persuasive just let

[22:42]

power to it it's not persuasive just let it go please all right so Iran apparently is reaching whatever it's agreed cap was on what processing nuclear fuel and apparently this would get them closer to nuclear breaking capability and at the same time we see North Korea and there's a report that's been debunked by the administration but you never know where at least they're floating the idea of letting North Korea remain a nuclear power with some kind of accommodation now given that we're friendly with North Korea now I would say that's on the table I would not think it's first choice for anybody because anything could happened Kim could be replaced by somebody else it was less friendly it

[23:43]

somebody else it was less friendly it could get in the wrong hands you know there are a million reasons why North Korea and nuclear weapons is a bad idea but what I'm going to suggest is that I wonder if technology and better thinking could solve both Iran and North Korea so here's what I'm going for both Iran and North Korea have legitimate reasons for having nuclear power and nuclear technology but we don't want them to have weapons and we can imagine a scenario in which they agreed not to have them and so what I wonder could you ever have a model where a country has nuclear energy but just the processing of the spent fuel is controlled by let's say Switzerland you know I'll just use Switzerland as an example country of somebody who's independent who could literally have if you imagine let's say an embassy I'll just throw in a wild idea that I'm not

[24:45]

just throw in a wild idea that I'm not not claiming is the best idea let's say you put a swiss embassy right next to the nuclear power plant whether it's Iran or North Korea and the Embassy is where all of the the nuclear fuel goes so it literally goes on to the the property of Switzerland inside Iran or inside North Korea and it becomes sovereign property of releases on the sovereign country because the embassy is sovereign territory and it's just controlled by a third party who doesn't have an interest one way or the other they just don't want nuclear war so is that practical because you can say to yourself well if this country wanted to go nuclear they can always just attack the Salemba sea because it would be a whole army against a little embassy but you would see a common you know it wouldn't happen overnight you'd kind of see it coming and if such a thing happened well that might be the

[25:47]

a thing happened well that might be the time that you have to attack that country for trying to get that nuclear fuel so I think that would give you a pretty good cushion a pretty good cushion for you know reacting in time if a country tried to get this fuel for bad reasons so I'm just gonna throw that out there I'm just from another suggestion that's more technological and let me admit that I don't understand this well enough I'll just put it out there but my understanding is that if you co-located a generation three nuclear power plant next to a generation four nuclear power plant put them in the same location the generation 3 would produce some spent fuel which you wouldn't want to be sitting around because if it could be used for nukes but the generation 4 site could use that spent fuel for its own

[26:47]

could use that spent fuel for its own spent fuel or for its own fuel so you could take it through generation 3 which you'd be billed right away and is safe enough and you so you could you know get get going with power and productively use this material and then put a generation 4 which might take a little more development etc to get it where you want it to be but you could build that up so that the spent fuel becomes its fuel and then it processes it down to almost nothing left so there's a technological solution as long with me with maybe an embassy type solution so so if you could imagine that the nuclear power plant is actually sitting on regular Iranian territory but the fuel is always immediately moved to these with Swiss Embassy as an example so I'll just put that out there there might be some way to allow peaceful nuclear power in in a tremendously positive way you

[27:49]

in in a tremendously positive way you know really good for the country and everybody wins it's possible alright let's see what else we've got to talk about here let's talk about Portland so you're all aware that anti-shah got violent in Portland and beat up and Ino and at least one other person got beaten severely beaten with metal pipes on the head and and some pretty bad stuff now I'm very much against boycotts I I generally resist boycotts about products because that stuff just gets out of control right if you start boycotting products everybody's boycotting everybody until there's there's no economy left but I will say that I wouldn't go too and under Portland's president's current situation but the reason I wouldn't go is for safety so I'm not suggesting that

[28:51]

is for safety so I'm not suggesting that you boycott Portland for political reasons because I think boycotts for political reasons just ends up you know that ends up being a bad idea but simply not going someplace because you don't because you consider it unsafe is perfectly reasonable thing to do so there are plenty of countries in the world that I also wouldn't visit but I don't say I'm boycotting them right like I wouldn't go to Syria but I'm not boycotting Syria it's just too dangerous so I'm gonna say clearly and publicly that I will not travel to Portland as long as they allow masked terrorists domestic terrorists as long as they allow masked terrorists to gather in large groups and attack people apparently with immunity because the masks allow them to escape fairly easily

[29:51]

masks allow them to escape fairly easily as long as that's legal and allowed in Portland I'm not going near the place because I would be recognized so presumably anti-shah wants to hit everybody who says anything positive about this president wants to beat them with clubs I'm not going anywhere near Portland and I would suggest that if you have any political leanings toward the president you should not go to Portland either and you should talk about it because Portland needs to know that they just lost half of their and honestly if you if you were planning a trip to Portland I wouldn't go so yeah people are talking about concealed carry and all that but why would you cause more trouble for yourself than you need all right so my understanding is that the mayor of Portland is also also the Chief of Police is that true list

[30:53]

Police is that true list that sounds terrible Oh let's talk about yeah so Ali Alexander had been questioning camel heiresses let's say ethnic credentials you know because Ali's african-american but he was saying that Kamala Harris is not technically african-american because her father was Jamaican etc your mother was Indian or whichever it is it doesn't matter of course I am completely uninterested in this question because if you have not noticed I am I'm not I'm not a legitimate commentator on that topic so personally I don't care what Elias I don't care what gobble is I'm not the one who gets to judge what we call him they can they can figure that out on their own but what's funny is that Don

[31:54]

their own but what's funny is that Don jr. got some heat for retweeting Ali Alexander's question and and just asking if it was accurate now he deleted it because it caused a little more trouble than it was worth but he was asked about it he was asked about it and apparently the response that he gave back was a link to CNN's Don Lemon saying exactly the same thing apparently Don Lemon was also questioning Komal Harris's I know ethnic credentials or what label you put on her and he was saying the same thing the belly Alexander said exactly the same thing so rather than dungeons so Don jr. rather than commenting on it he just sends him a link to CNN saying exactly the same thing which you I love the fact that Don

[32:56]

thing which you I love the fact that Don jr. has the same sense of humor as his father and the same sense of humor as the supporters for the most part they are the funniest family by far and there's the two funniest people in a funny family so I I can imagine wouldn't you love to go to like just listen in on a dinner conversation with the Trump family and the kids just like listen again you know if they knew you weren't there so they could talk freely it will probably be the funniest freakin thing you've ever you've ever attended yeah and Ali was successful in simply getting everybody to talk about it now if you're not following Ali Alexander you really should because you're watching you get to watch something something being built from the ground up so he's a young guy but he's a young guy who has made really good mentoring

[33:57]

who has made really good mentoring connections shall we say and so watching him develop his his game is really fun because this is a perfect example of his effectiveness as now that's now going to the next level so he's he's understanding that what you talk about is the point the point is not your logic your what label you put on things it's none of that it's it's making you focus where he wants you to focus and what Ali did quite effectively is he made everybody talk about this topic and it didn't really matter what they thought of it he got them to talk about it so he he essentially controlled the news cycle at least a corner of the news cycle by himself I mean think about that the Ali Alexander probably sitting at home with his phone can you spell his

[34:58]

home with his phone can you spell his first name al I yeah I just imagined Ali sitting at home he's like just him and his phone nobody else in the world this is just how I imagined it I don't know where he actually was but sitting in his home and and he thinks okay watch this boom boo-boom boo-boom fires off a tweet one guy one phone probably his phone one tweet and he controlled probably a quarter of the news cycle for a week that's pretty good so let's give a shout out to effectiveness and and that's a talent stack by the way I always talked about talent stacks where you combine different skills that maybe you're not the best in the world at any one thing but if you put together a good stack of them you've got something you're

[35:58]

them you've got something you're watching you're watching le do that right in the front of you it's fun to watch all right um bitcoin is going crazy let's let's see what we got here everybody's asking about in the comments I just want to see if it's still way up it was this morning nope bitcoins back down so it went up and now it's down a little bit down twelve percent or so but it's jumping all around today the when the value is also gyrating wildly and we're gonna I'll be talking about some things in the coming week maybe in a few more days they'll that you'll be interested in if you own the when alright the number of people are adding the interface by one hub button to their websites and I'll talk about those so those of you who did it hold tight and I will be mentioning your website's and

[37:01]

will be mentioning your website's and anybody else wants to have it I'll mention to you as well alright that's all I got to do to talk about today and I will talk to you all later