Episode 676 Scott Adams: Ukraine, Persuasion Power of “Grifter”, How All This is Bad For Children

Date: 2019-09-27 | Duration: 32:18

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK goes on sale 11/5. Pre-order: https://bit.ly/2NRammu The Adam Schiff “parody” The word “grifter” and the influence/persuasion game Chinese pharmaceuticals dominate America’s medications Mini-scandal of the day, President Trump’s comment about spies Adverse childhood experiences and the Democrats Conversations between leaders of countries President Trump’s technique of “setting the table”

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

## Transcript

[0:11]

oh yes I know what you're expecting to get today you're expecting to have the simultaneous set but today I'm gonna do something better than the simultaneous sip ah just kidding there's nothing better than the simultaneous lip oh I had you there okay you know how to participate I know you do doesn't take much all it takes is a cup or a mug or a glass this time the chalice the tankard a thermos of plastic intégrale a goblet a vessel of any kind of filler with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better the simultaneous imp go oh do you like
somebody says you got me well well well I don't know if the news has ever been

[1:13]

I don't know if the news has ever been more interesting there's just just interesting news the kind that isn't terrible it's sort of faked terrible news you know what about the Republic yeah probably not you know we don't really have a lot of problems or news our news is really just was whatever's interesting these days one interesting thing is the the Adam Schiff parody if you didn't say this is hilarious so Adam Schiff who apparently has no comedic timing of whatsoever or a comedic sense decided that he would do a parody exaggerated version of the president's phone call with the Ukrainian president and so he simply added things to his parody that weren't actually present in the call now here's the problem as I

[2:14]

the problem as I often told you one third of the public approximately that's my professional estimate about one third of the public can't tell the difference between the joke and not a joke actually literally in my experience over decades of producing humor and watching the feedback roughly a third of the public doesn't have a sense of humor and can't recognize humor in the wild so what shift did assuming he doesn't get he doesn't get fired for it or something fired meaning doesn't win re-election but probably turned out to be a really good move I mean not good for the country not good for the president not good for you but good for Adam chef because he puts that out there a whole bunch of parody like lies and they goes whoops whoops I sure wish I hadn't done

[3:15]

whoops whoops I sure wish I hadn't done that parody that everybody heard and that one third of the people who heard have thought it was actually true whoops whoops so as mistakes go it was a little bit too clever persuasion wise so Schiff gets the win for persuasion you can make your own decisions about the ethics of what he did but it worked I hate to say that it worked let's talk about the word grifter is it my imagination or did the word grifter suddenly go from an obscure word you rarely would ever hear except on some old-time movie or something to something that somebody accuses even other citizens of you've seen me be accused of being a grifter you've seen everybody being accused of being a

[4:15]

everybody being accused of being a grifter and I thought the first thousand times I saw it I thought to myself here's a new word it's just replacing whatever the last word was that was an insult for the president but the more I thought about it the more I started to wonder if there isn't someone especially talented in persuasion who may have entered the game and I didn't notice for a little too long do you remember some of you remember back in 2016 when Hillary Clinton went from having no persuasion game whatsoever she couldn't do a tweet her message was weak and then suddenly around May boom it went super strong it was about the same time that Bernie dropped out Bernie had the best persuasion game until until he dropped out he had the best commercial for example and he was outperforming

[5:16]

example and he was outperforming everybody's expectation his but when he dropped out the suddenly Hillary's persuasion went weapons-grade and she started using this word dark and I said at the time that is a professionals word that's not a politician word that is somebody who knows persuasion at a really deep level who is who's saying if you say dark it's a new word introduced to politics you don't hear that word a lot and it's open it allows people to read into it whatever is their worst fears it's a super strong word that everybody started using at the same time the Democrats I acute not accused but I speculated at the time that there was somebody that I nicknamed Godzilla because I wasn't a hundred percent Schumer and I said I think the Godzilla of persuasion has entered the game this is 2016 and who I was referring to was

[6:18]

is 2016 and who I was referring to was Robert Shi aldini if I'm pronouncing u''s I always say his name wrong when I when I was doing my audiobook I tried to pronounce his name and my audio producer kept making me say it over and over again because I was saying it wrong so however I just pronounced it probably wrong but I speculated that he had answered the game because that word was so strong and it reminded me of his his teachings that I thought man I think it might be him the Godzilla of persuasion the most effective author about influence of all time and he was asked by reporters and others if if he had been helping the campaign the Hillary Clinton campaign and his answer was no comment who says no comment when asked if they're advising a campaign well make your own

[7:22]

advising a campaign well make your own conclusions I would think if you're not advising the campaign and somebody asks you if you are there's only one answer no no there's only one answer if you are advising a campaign there are two answers yes and no comment now again it's not a hundred percent but other people who who apparently are familiar with Robert eldini in person have confirmed in their opinion they say that it was him so let's say it was is he back and so I asked you where did the grifter word come from Bernie's back in the race does Bernie have a little bit of help this time again does Bernie have Godzilla on his team or or I think I think you know

[8:24]

team or or I think I think you know chill DeeDee has reached a certain age I don't know if he's still would have an interest in directly participating but would one of his protegees somebody with similar talents be advising now some of you gonna say yes got that words been around forever so I'm only talking about the frequency of it and how it's being applied at the moment it's being applied more vigorously and somewhat thoroughly by Democrats it feels like a professional work and not a politician's work professional persuader not a politician and I didn't catch on for a while how powerful this word is until somebody on social media accused me of said that the word was sort of getting under my skin that it was bothering me and I thought well you know you're right it actually does get under my skin it's a good word here's what's good about it let me let me call it down for you what's good

[9:24]

me call it down for you what's good about grifter is you don't know exactly what it means and you don't hear it a lot in politics so introducing a new ish word or one worth it were the people now from another context but moving it into politics is a real good start that's what happened with dark it wasn't really a political word but then it became one and then you could read all of your fears into it grifter is like that if you label somebody a grifter everybody who sees that label says ah they're doing something to get away with something to make money so really they're but how well I can imagine a thousand ways that somebody could have wrote be running some scheme to make money so because it's nonspecific it's also not falsifiable that's the magic if the if the label was so specific that you could check to see

[10:24]

so specific that you could check to see if it were true let's say you say somebody who was murder well you could check did they murder did they not look at the evidence and maybe you could falsify it nope no evidence of a murder so that wouldn't work but if you call somebody a grifter that means something different to everybody now others have said it's not that good a word because not everybody knows what it means so I did a little poll on Twitter and last I checked about a quarter of the people answering we're not quite sure what it meant and I'm not even sure if that matters because if three quarters do know what it means that's fine the others might look it up or they might think it means something bad also reading their fears into it so it's this word that's like a like a battery that's getting charged with everybody's fears but they're different ones you know everybody who uses that grifter label was thinking ah he's making money this way or maybe it's this way it's

[11:24]

this way or maybe it's this way it's really beautiful so I'm going to start using the word a lot when talking about my my my nemesis's what's the plural of nemesis Nemus I my nemesis's then I'm going to start using it and deactivate that word I've got a question about China and their pharmaceuticals apparently we get like almost all of our pharmaceutical base chemicals from China the stuff that the stuff that we use to make our pharmaceutical products pretty much all comes from China that's a pretty big risk why is it that the United States can't designate some industries as security risks and just bring them home couldn't we say yeah China will keep dealing with you but just pots and pans and pencils but you

[12:27]

just pots and pans and pencils but you can't have high tech we won't even let you touch it you know you we're not even going to stand in your country with a new technology and you can have pharmaceuticals because they're too important and God knows what you're doing over there with your pharmaceuticals there should be some industries that we just sort of start picking off highest priority and then working our way down you know the technology stuff that would especially that would have a any kind of a military a possibility or any kind of spying or IP theft or any of that those would be highest priority but right behind him has to be pharmaceuticals and it seems like this country could simply say look we'll we'll give somebody some gigantic loans government back loans to start a factory here to make those chemical precursors for pharmacy chuckles should be a mattress national priority to bring this stuff home one of

[13:27]

priority to bring this stuff home one of the many scandals of the day because there aren't any real scandals so there were all these mini scandals mini scandal of the day is that Trump was recorded in some kind of very private ish gathering saying that the whistleblower is almost like a spy and you know what we did with spies in the old days and people said to me on Twitter explain mascot explain them no let me do this right Dale Dale tell us what people said to me on Twitter well Scott explain that explain that mr. Trump's blaming mr. Trump ologist how do you explain Trump saying then maybe that whistleblower is kind of close to a spy and we used to you know do up to spies that's what he implied how do you explain that Trump explainer Scott and scene here's how I explained it has

[14:27]

scene here's how I explained it has Trump shot anybody on Fifth Avenue yet and are you expecting that to happen have you noticed that the president sometimes uses a thing called hyperbole have you ever noticed the President to talk tough for effect sometimes for humorous effect sometimes just to remind people that he's the toughest one in the room have you ever seen that first time you've ever turned on the TV first day on Twitter it's what he does all the time if you're if you're interpreting it as a literal you haven't been paying attention for the last three or so years all right apparently House Democrats will be holding a quote discussion Friday unquote adverse childhood experiences and the Trump administration's policies

[15:29]

and the Trump administration's policies and proposals so the Democrats are holding some kind a discussion on how Trump is destroying our children with all of his policies and proposals that are making them crazy so the children are losing their minds because of Trump's proposals and here again the Democrats are doing something clever it's actually pretty clever now it's it's humorously stupid in the sense that just you know on the surface it's kind of laughable but it's clever because it's gonna make people think my god this monster is destroying the children and you don't have to convince most people that something's true remember politic politics is a game of millimeters you know everything that you do is not trying to move the ball all the way across the finish line you're

[16:29]

the way across the finish line you're just trying to move in a little bit with everything you do so the impeachment process is moving the ball a little bit because they know they're not going to get an actual impeachment the Ukraine call moving the ball a little bit millimeter and this this discussion about the adverse childhood experiences of Trump policies and proposals it's not a big deal but helps move the ball a little millimeter so persuasion wise good play I mean it's despicable but it's effective so if I'm being if I'm trying to be objective about persuasion it's you know Trump isn't the only good persuader in the game I just talked about Godzilla for example but the Democrats collectively are hitting a lot of you know solid doubles and triples in in persuasion and this is another one

[17:29]

in persuasion and this is another one it's pretty solid even though it's stupid but persuasion wise it's not bad it makes you think of a new frame Trump is damaging the children now what's the magic trick the magic trick is that they're redirecting you to to their frame which is what Trump is doing is injuring the children what's really happening what's really happening is that the press and the way Trump is covered is injuring the children the Democrats and their partners in the press are literally injuring the children because of the way they talk about Trump but they have cleverly decided that the frame is that it's Trump's fault not the way they cover him it's obviously the way they cover him and of course they were vulnerable when it became clear that with this Greta sunberg situation it became a little bit obvious that it was sort of the Democrats that are scaring children to death because if you tell

[18:31]

children to death because if you tell the children well most of you saw my article in which I was trying to reprogram children to worry less while still being productive should the climate change situation require their best efforts and ours as well we want them to be productive but not scared so I wrote an article to try to do that so it's very clever of the Democrats to try to reframe that into the dumbest frame but it still works not bad not a bad play I wrote a blog post that I just posted before I got on here so a lot of you haven't seen it yet I'm noticing it just got retweeted by jason Chaffetz Greg Gutfeld apparently it it's gonna go viral now you can tell in the first the first 10 minutes or so I could usually tell if something's going viral viral in my case is you know a few thousand retweets something like that and here's

[19:31]

retweets something like that and here's the argument that I made in the blog post if you haven't seen it that this president and I was have has set the table when he goes to talk to any leader and here's the question that has not been asked and I believe I'm the first I ask it if the president let's put it this way if there had never been any such thing as a joe biden or a hunter biden let's say they had never been born and didn't exist would it still make sense for president trump to withhold funds from Ukraine beat until the phone call and the answer is yes yes it would because what this president knows and apparently other politicians are just catching on he knows how to negotiate and part of that is why he calls setting the table so that's actually his own phrase he says you do you set the table before you walk in so you need to set all the variables in your favour before you even talk to the other leader the other thing is that leaders the leaders

[20:36]

other thing is that leaders the leaders are always negotiating there's no such thing as a conversation between world leaders that's not a negotiation it might be that they're just getting friendly and pacing each other that's part of negotiating maybe they're getting the feel of each other maybe they're putting in the others mind what the priorities are they're framing things all conversations between leaders are persuasion you want your leader to be the most effective persuader in the room so you want your leader to go in fully armed with the table set whenever that's possible what Trump does continuously is he sets the table in the following ways now that it's more than one way he sets the table but this is the way that's important to the story which is that he makes sure you before he talks to a leader he makes sure that leader knows who's in charge so he may have canceled day he may have cancelled the deal he may have withheld funds he may have

[21:38]

he may have withheld funds he may have taken a little power from Congress temporarily the temporary part is important because if he tried to grab power from Congress forever then you have a dictator and you have to remove him but if Congress has approved some funds who's in charge Congress right do you want your president to go into a meeting with a foreign leader and the foreign leader thinks I don't who I'm talking to this guy I only care about Congress because Congress is giving me the money this is this guy's just a clown I'm talking to Trump puts a hold on the money before he goes and talks to a foreign leader who's in charge that Trump trumpets that's the way you set the table you make sure before you talk to the foreign leader even if you're not going to ask for anything during that conversation you set the table I'm the guy who controls your funds I'm the guy you need to deal with I'm the guy you

[22:38]

you need to deal with I'm the guy you need to make happy that's how you said you're president now we give presidents wide latitude to negotiate because you want one boss you don't want to send your president in like like the car salesmen it's like well I'd have to check with my boss I can't make any commitments but better check with Congress meanwhile you know Congress is kneecapping and Wally's overseas you don't want that president nobody wants that president you want the president to represent that he's the one or she's the one you need to talk to you gotta talk to him like you're the boss Trump goes into every meeting like a boss so here's the thing if the if the Biden family had never existed and there was never any conflict question whatsoever the president should show Ukraine and show everybody else that he's setting the table and he's going in as the boss now

[23:40]

table and he's going in as the boss now like I said you don't want your boss to take power from Congress or from any other branch of government and keep it by showing that he has power over it even temporarily it's pretty good it's pretty good for you the other question that the media is completely ignores because the magic trick of making you look the wrong way is I was trying to think what would be a higher priority for the president in today's time what would be a higher priority than protecting the Republic and protecting our elections against foreign interference now if we had a war in progress like a hot war will that be a higher priority if we had a hurricane a disaster that would be a higher priority if we had you know our economy was crashing well that would be a higher priority right there are lots of things that could have been a higher priority

[24:41]

that could have been a higher priority but at the moment most of that stuff is working pretty well no major Wars economies well etc I would argue that perhaps the highest priority that the president had around that time was making sure there was no was polling to win by a large money win by a large margin the presidency of the United States the polls say Biden will be in the next president I know your opinion will be different but you can't discount the fact that the polls say at the same time is public knowledge the Sun is receiving what seems to be a large amount of money for us so much of a resume not so much did we get a seriously did

[25:41]

not so much did we get a seriously did we get another periscope glitch try a try signing off and signing back in yeah that's getting distorted wow I would love to think that's all a coincidence
but you probably heard my point the the point being that you can't have a situation where the guy polling at topic for being the next president his son is taking money from a foreign country an entity connected with you know the oligarchs of the foreign country you just can't have that that's a high high high high high priority now some people said well why don't you let the FBI handle it or whoever handles I don't even know who would handle such thing but let's say the FBI for discussion so why didn't the president just assign it to the FBI or whoever so that it doesn't look like foreign interference well here's a reason

[26:42]

here's a reason be exactly the same thing if the president tells the FBI to talk to the Ukraine it's still the same thing right it's not that different so if you've ever had experience with any large organizations you know it's a complete waste of time to assign your underlings to talk to the underlings of the other big bureaucracy because they won't be able to make decisions they won't really know if they're pleasing their leader because the leaders haven't talked it is normal business for the leaders to talk and then you assign your your underlings to work effectively together but until the leaders have talked and the underlings know they've talked can't get much done you know FBI to Ukrainian intelligence services or whoever they're talking to it just wouldn't get much done so the president said to his phone call with zalenski president of Ukraine was quote

[27:44]

zalenski president of Ukraine was quote a perfect call that's also my opinions it was a perfect call it was persuasion perfect he withheld funds as he showed demonstrated who's in charge as he should and brought up the highest priority in the country which is that are the guy polling highest to be President as a son who's taking a lot of money from Ukraine and we're not sure he's giving value for that how high a priority is that pretty darn high so the president goes in sets the table perfectly brings up one of the top priorities in the country successfully gets the president the leader of the other country to not only like the country and like like the president gets along well with him that's good that's good technique and gets him to agree to look into our top priority the integrity

[28:44]

look into our top priority the integrity of the election and making sure that the next president whether it's Biden or anybody else is not being influenced by foreign government there's no blackmail potential there now what would be a more perfect phone call than that that really was a perfect phone call he got exactly what he wanted he did the Publix work it's my top priority yeah isn't it a high price you know it's hard to say what's the top priority because there's so many important things but is one of the top priorities to protect the election does anybody disagree with that so I had to put it in writing and blog for him because when I say it on these periscopes I noted that it got sort of amplified a little bit but it's just more portable when he put it blog for him and people could read it and forward it around so I did that as a public service we'll see if that framing

[29:45]

service we'll see if that framing catches on subordinate sounds better than underlings yeah it does but you know you want to learn a technique for public speaking here's a technique for public speaking I actually used to teach this line would do presentations for big corporate groups if you if you can use the interesting word instead of the boring word you should use the interesting one and I use the example of what would be a better word for your writing or for you or public speaking pull or yank yank right it's just a better word yeah yank has just more action to it it's it's more interesting it's got a K sound it's kind of why there are unusual letters you know what it means it's just a better work likewise when I say underlings I know subordinate is another word for it it might be the more technical one which one's more interesting underling

[30:48]

which one's more interesting underling or subordinate Wanderley right it's just way more interesting and you know what I mean so peon is more intentionally an insult and underling you're not quite sure if it's an insult or it's just a description of the organization so that's what makes it a little more interesting you're like underling this added an insult I'm not sure if that's an insult or is that just a word so that's what makes it have a little bit extra yeah a little extra in it alright so make sure today as you're talking to The Grifters who oppose you that you label them first label those grifters as grifters today I'll be talking to a lawyer on the topic of business defamation those of you who

[31:51]

of business defamation those of you who were wondering what's happening with my little situation online I will tell you having a conversation on business defamation today and I'll give you updates as we go and don't let the grifters get you down okay I'll talk to you later