Episode 681 Scott Adams: Frickin’ Alligators and Snakes in Border Moats, Leg Shooting, Kamala

Date: 2019-10-02 | Duration: 55:07

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK goes on sale 11/5. Pre-order: https://bit.ly/2NRammu Does Kamala have new/better advisors now? Kamala’s major problems…are ALL fixable Snakes and alligators in a border moat? Oh my! Shooting people in the legs to slow them down? Oh my! The Office of Nuclear Energy @GovNuclear, good follow Interesting note…they follow Mark Schneider Whiteboard: revegetating the Sahara to prevent hurricanes Nature journal paper on climate change…RETRACTED Mathematician Nicholas Lewis challenged the math NO climate scientists caught the error? President Trump congratulating China on their 70th anniversary Secretary of State Pompeo on a call to foreign leader? So what? “Rebranding impeachment as a coup”…is that fair?

Rough Transcript

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

Transcript

[0:03]

mmm [Music] hey everybody come on in here come on in here and enjoy the unparalleled pleasure of the simultaneous sip yes it’s gonna happen right here and you’re part of it think of all the billions of people in the world who are not enjoying this Oh empathy is an order let us feel sorry for those who are not enjoying the simultaneous sip as you wise and punctual people will enjoy momentarily and you don’t need much all you need is a couple of mother of glasses time to tell us that the taker thermos last canteen Grail goblet and vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite beverage I like coffee and join me now for the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better you’re gonna have an amazing day today thanks to the simultaneous sip go oh

[1:18]

yeah so let’s talk about a few things so calmly Harris suddenly sent her first interesting tweet to which I said huh looks like maybe something happened with her staff and sure enough she shook up her staff so simultaneous with shaking up her staff Cobble Harris has her first that I could remember anyway interesting tweet now by interesting I mean it made us talk about it that’s the entire test if you’re talking about it she’s winning now now I’ve explained this until I am you know blue in the face as they say I explained it with Trump he’s taking all the attention it doesn’t matter what he’s saying I explained it with AOC when you thought she was the flash of the pan but it turns out she’s running the whole show I told you that getting attention is 50% of persuasion if you don’t understand

[2:20]

of persuasion if you don’t understand that point there’s almost nothing else you’re going to understand I’m not talking to most of you I’m talking to these several people who will come to my Twitter feed today and say what what do you say it’s a good tweet why you saying it’s a good tweet and then I’ll say back to them because you’re talking about it and then the next person will come and say Scott why are you saying it’s between it’s not a good tweet is such a boring tweet it bores me so much and then I’ll say but you’re talking about it and then the next person will come and guess what they’ll say you probably had to be but it’ll look something like this why you say it’s a good tweet it’s not a good tweet or such a bad tweet I always say bad tweets I can’t why do you say that Scott and then I’ll say for the third time because you’re talking about it and no matter how many times I say that there will still be a fourth person who will say well you know how it goes for some reason that message doesn’t connect I don’t know why it doesn’t

[3:20]

connect I don’t know why it doesn’t connect with everybody most of you are on board with that but there’s some minority of people who simply can’t hear that getting attention is pretty much always good in the political realm I mean you’d have to you’d have to be saying things so bad well let me give you an example representative to Labe I don’t never know if I’m pronouncing your name right so I apologize if I got that wrong too late Fox News is reporting that she has now tweeted a total of four separate race hoaxes all of which you know were were discovered to be hoaxes later and and she hasn’t corrected at him she’s never tweeted all I got that wrong I guess I guess that was a race hoax now who are we talking about too late she’s still in the news no matter what she does can you think of something that would be worse

[4:21]

think of something that would be worse than tweeting four separate race hoaxes getting the world all worked up with stuff and then apparently yesterday she was touring some a police facility that had they were showing off their facial recognition and I swear I’m not making this up she said on you know in public to people who could record her and and witness it she said maybe you should only hire black people to do the facial recognition because white people can’t tell black people apart she actually said that that actually came out of her mouth now did it hurt her probably not probably not apparently there’s nothing she can say there won’t make her just more famous and somehow that works now if that exists if that example doesn’t make my case I don’t know what we’ll keep in mind that if you were a Democrat or an anti-trump ur

[5:23]

were a Democrat or an anti-trump ur watching Trump’s entire act you would have been screaming the whole time there’s no way this is gonna work sure he’s getting a lot of attention but look at the things he’s saying come on just sorry cats in the act again the things he’s saying will disqualify him no they got him all the attention he became president most important person in the world that’s how it works so getting back to Camelot if we’re talking about it it’s working and the tweet was she was tweeting that the president should be kicked off a tweet Twitter for his outrageous tweets and then she I think there was two of them and the second one she she tweeted to Jack Dorsey saying Jack what are you gonna do about this kick him off of Twitter now let me ask you this do you think that calmly aris believes that there’s any chance that

[6:24]

believes that there’s any chance that Trump would be kicked off of Twitter can we agree that she doesn’t think that’s actually gonna happen cuz that’s important you have to know that she doesn’t believe now I’m not reading minds but you’d have to have an IQ of about six to think that anything will to the president in terms of getting kicked off of Twitter you know that’s not going to happen no chance so given that it can’t happen why would somebody suggest it twice well probably because she got better advisors so whoever advised her and I it looks like maybe there’s a better advisor in the mix here because she did shake up her staff yesterday whoever advised her certainly was not thinking hey if you send a couple of tweets Twitter might take the president off a tweet Twitter no nobody thought that nobody thought that they thought that it would be a provocative tweet that would allow her to get back into

[7:24]

that would allow her to get back into the news cycle where she has disappeared did it work yeah totally worked it was a headline all yesterday that’s all we talked about not as well we talked about other things but of all the other Democrats that were running how much attention did they get yesterday less less attention so keep an eye on Camilla I’ve been saying for a while and this will be the point that you will that will be ignored unless it becomes important sometime in the future so one of those things you can’t hear when I when it’s first said you can hear it in the past when you go back and say oh he said that here’s what I said the top three polling Democrats are unelectable and I think a lot of professionals and people in the base know that for different reasons they’re unelectable if if you were to turn the polls around and put you know something like Delaney and Yang and stuff on the top you would end up with a more

[8:26]

top you would end up with a more electable group it’s just the weird Atia of the system allowed the least electable people to be the top three now as the professionals start to exert their control over the system and I think that happens especially as a as the crowd thins out a little bit the professionals will have more influence over everything I believe that they will start looking for somebody who could win and what’s unique about Kamala Harris they’re her problems while enormous are easily solvable she has the most solvable problems let me give you an example when she talks she she gets jumpy like her shoulders go up and it doesn’t even look it doesn’t look leadership like how hard would it be to learn to calm your body while you talk and to maybe not hold your hands together like this in front of you like you’re nervous how hard would it be to learn that one minute 60 seconds

[9:28]

learn that one minute 60 seconds you just have to be aware of it and then if she started to do it she’s oh don’t do that she’d probably fix her posture stand up straight and just put her arms and hands in whatever position look more literally how hard 60 seconds I had to correct probably a third of her problems which is her body language how hard would it be for her to learn to not laugh at her own jokes well it’s a lifelong habit so you don’t break it immediately but how hard would it be to learn to start doing it 60 seconds somebody says to her you know people are talking about this it makes you look less like a leader more like a follower don’t giggle like a schoolgirl at your own jokes the first time you hear that I tell you it’s so chilling that you would remember it if somebody you trusted said look you’re nervous laugh at yourself

[10:29]

look you’re nervous laugh at yourself just looks makes you look like you could never be President just stop doing that how hard would it be to stop not really hard because once it became a priority and you’re running for president you just put a little attention on it and it would stop right away so she can fix her body language she can fix her nervous laugh that’s sixty percent of her problem right there who else can fix their biggest problems in in 120 seconds that’s unique right then the last thing is how to be interesting and now to have you know good policies and stuff that people care about that part has a lot to do with their professional staff so if she is if she’s moved out of the way whoever was boring us to death with their advice and if she moved in somebody who can get some attention which wouldn’t be the hardest thing in the world I have to do is hire a better advisor or get somebody out of the way

[11:29]

advisor or get somebody out of the way who was maybe blocking the good advisor she already had looks like that just happened so of the biggest problems to solve looks like looks like she has a very solvable problems and the first thing you would imagine that would happen to solve those problems would be a shake-up in the staff and that happened yesterday now the odds the odds of her pulling up from 3% to leadership are low right I think we would all agree you know when you get down to like 3% the odds of coming back I don’t know has that ever happened it’d be hard but the next thing that’s gonna happen is some consolidation and by that I mean somebody in the top three is going to drop out and when the first person in the top three drops out will there only be three left at that point in other words will the Tut will the one of the

[12:31]

words will the Tut will the one of the top three drop out only when it’s down to three well will one of them drop out while they’re still stragglers and 3% ORS in the race that’s important I think Biden might drop out before the the group when it was too much if Biden drops out early and I think you’d have to say that’s a good 50/50 chance wouldn’t you wouldn’t you say there’s a good 50/50 chance that Biden will find some respectable reason up I had a health problem something like that there’ll be some reason that will look natural why he has to drop out because you you figure at this point the professionals aren’t urging him to do it or at least not supporting him enough to to get to the finish line so when Biden goes where does his support go does it go to radical Bernie in radical Warren or does it go to the

[13:33]

in radical Warren or does it go to the next person after the two radicals who at least has some chance of finding something like a reasonable middle that’s the play so that’s the play that I’d be looking for I’m not going to say I predict it I’m gonna stick with my prediction from over a year ago in which I said common law would be the nominee but that lose to trump in the general I’m going to stick with that only because it’s interesting you know I I did lay out the reasons the reasons haven’t changed the only thing that did change is that we learned she’s the worst campaign or we’ve ever seen but it’s fixable the things which make her the worst candidate I’ve ever seen are actually really easily fixed so watch out for that let’s see oh and of course people are saying how can come aleris you ask a social media giant to silence

[14:35]

you ask a social media giant to silence the First Amendment that’s exactly why the tweet works because people are falling for it they’re just totally falling for it like it’s like it’s a serious suggestion you know what else is not a serious suggestion there’s a book out now that claims the Trump quote wanted to dig a water-filled trench at the border stocked with snakes and alligators and now there’s no mention to whether about whether these snakes and alligators would have frickin lasers attached to their heads because there’s no point in building a border moat with just snakes and alligators if you’re not going to take it to the next level and put some frickin lasers on the alligators heads snakes are a little harder because they’re smaller but at the very least put some frickin lasers on the alligators heads so they can just look at people and try them and then there’s also also in this book

[15:37]

and then there’s also also in this book they say that Trump suggested migrants be shot in the legs to slow them down I’m not laughing about shooting migrants let me be clear laughing at the ridiculousness of the report there’s nothing funny about shooting people at the border and we shouldn’t make fun of it but it’s also not going to happen the way the way is described now do I think that Trump has ever said anything that other people could interpret as asking about shooting people in the leg and asking about building a moat with snakes and alligators I think he probably did ask those questions how seriously should that have been taken probably not too seriously it doesn’t sound a lot different than if three of you were sitting in a room having some beers and just talking about stuff the way he talks apparently in professional settings is

[16:37]

apparently in professional settings is not a lot different than an ordinary person talks all the time it’s just that he does it in a in the White House now do I think there’s anything we should worry about in this reporting in this one book that took it took us it took us until now to hear this obviously anybody else who heard this didn’t think it was serious enough you know to even even mention so if it took this long for it to come out in the book one thing you could be fairly confident about is that it’s out of context in other words all the people who didn’t complain about it probably because they heard it in context and just laughed or thought it’s just you know it’s just him talking he’s just stirring up the room it’s not real right now the shooting in the leg thing I have to think was because of something specific I don’t believe there’s any chance that you thought you

[17:38]

there’s any chance that you thought you know just as a general policy if you see somebody crossing the border you’ll say it’s a young family with their children in their arms you know doing their best to make a new life leaving a dangerous situation maybe we should just start shooting them but not killing him just shooting him in the lake he never said that I think we could agree that nothing like that actually happened now did he say that there might be some special case where shooting somebody leg was better than whatever the alternative was maybe you may have thrown something out there just to see how people react but I don’t think you can take any of that as seriously and I think you just have to look at you know where actual policies end up to know that this was it’s just another fake news story but a funny one if you believe that the president seriously wanted to build a moat with snakes and alligators I think that’s on you if you

[18:41]

alligators I think that’s on you if you think the president literally wanted to start shooting immigrants in the leg as some kind of you know general policy or something I think that’s on you I think that’s on you cuz that’s not really a credible report here’s something interesting you didn’t know about there’s an office of nuclear energy in the government did you even know that I didn’t I knew there was a Department of Energy and I knew that they were doing some pro nuclear stuff Rick Perry’s group but I didn’t know there was an office of nuclear energy I found out yesterday when Mark Snyder who’s our famous nuclear energy advocate mark Snyder said that they started following him which is great because he’s he’s one of the most effective advocates for nuclear energy so they should follow him so I followed him to just to see what they were about

[19:42]

him to just to see what they were about and man that was a good follow I’ll tell you what they are they’re at a tag of nuclear govt nuclear at gov nuclear on Twitter and worth following if you follow you know if you’re interested in climate or energy or nuclear energy or any of that it’s a good follow they have they don’t have many followers yet so they tweeted see they tweeted this are you ready there are three advanced reactor systems meaning three different new technologies for nuclear power could be coming as soon as 2030 and are expected to be safe cheap etc so there’s there’s an international consortium my consortium consortium that we are part of we be in the United States and the office of nuclear energy is talking about it and their generation for Gen 4 stuff that won’t won’t melt down and and

[20:45]

stuff that won’t won’t melt down and and we know how to make them less expensive it’s easy to make nuclear less expensive if you don’t know that you’re not paying attention a lot of people say nuclear is too expensive well the old way is the old way is really expensive the way we know how to do it in the future is the way you make anything less expensive you standardize it you build them in factories you you agree on you know one design so everybody knows how to make that one design and you test it until you’re one design is pretty solid and then you reproduce it so it’s mass production it’s factory built it’s making them smaller in some cases you get some economies that way because you can ship stuff on on trucks etc build a minute factory ship it on a truck assemble it so because economics is such a mature science I guess if you want to call it a science it’s not quite not a science but it’s a maturer field we know

[21:48]

science but it’s a maturer field we know exactly how to make a nuclear power plant less expensive we just make it smaller standardized test it you know make sure that anybody who knows how to work at one sort of automatically knows how to work at another business the same technology so the government is well on its way working with other countries to have it designs working by 2030 and then once you have them how quickly can you roll them out ah you’re thinking the old way if I told you in 2030 we’ll have these really good safe small economical nuclear plants you’re probably gonna say to me if you’re a if you’re a climate alarmist I’m not sure I love that term but let’s say you believe that the climate is a big problem you might say to yourself too late Scott it’s too late it takes so long to approve and build a nuclear plant that if we don’t start building these safe ones in 2030 it’s already too late well no it isn’t

[22:50]

already too late well no it isn’t because you’re thinking of the old way the old way of getting something approved and built was way too slow and too expensive they had two things not working for it by 2030 if we’re serious about this and if we still care about the planet and let’s say worst-case scenario sea level is risen similar to the predictions could happen yeah it might happen on its own not for human warming but maybe it just happens then people are more panicked so it’s the panic I’m talking about not the truth of climate science in 2030 we’re likely to have a little warmer planet and people are gonna say whoa let’s do this I didn’t know you could make these small and cheap and safe as soon as the public understands that small cheap and safe has been accomplished and looks very doable there there some engineering testing iterating challenges but they’re all within the realm of just engineering you know we don’t have to you you don’t need you don’t need I you Stein to

[23:51]

need you don’t need I you Stein to invent something new you just need to engineer it and test it and iterate until it’s working just the way you want for the most part in all likelihood we could roll them out pretty quickly once they’re safe because that’s the trouble right nobody wants one near them if it’s gonna potentially even in their mind to be unsafe now you should know that the current generation that we could build today is already the safest power that we have the things that have had problems in the past were earlier generations which were less say for reasons we understand really well so the the current and newest generation of nuclear has never had a major event all right events meaning somebody dying or that sort of thing here’s my idea for getting rid of hurricanes and making the world a better place this is my whiteboard that you can barely see but

[24:52]

whiteboard that you can barely see but if you could you can see that this is a very bad map of Africa with the top part of of Africa being the Sahara so that’s all desert up there suppose you put together three technologies that we understand we know how to build nuclear so you put a nuclear power plant right on the on the coast or close enough to the coast that you can get the water from it and then you put a desalinization plant right next to it to take advantage of the energy because d Selin ization is an energy intensive thing that gives you an ability to irrigate but irrigating a desert is enough you would also need nutrient-dense soil turns out we know how to do that too if you put a bunch of free-roaming livestock on the border between vegetation and desert those livestock will wander over into the desert part now and then and poop and their their activities of eatin plants and poop and

[25:54]

activities of eatin plants and poop and seeds and the poop being the you know the fertilizer fairly quickly and faster than you would imagine would be the case meaning over just a few years they actually moved the border of the vegetation into the desert so you can actually expand you can expand a vegetation into a desert just by having livestock wandering around on the border so if you combine those three things you could target the Sahara one of the hottest places on earth for a specific and targeted cooling why does that matter oh I’m not even gonna how many of you know why that matters why would it matter so much to do it there versus somewhere else does anybody know the answer that the answer is because that’s where hurricanes start hurricanes are born because of the difference in temperature between and suddenly they’ll have to fact-check beyond that’s what I’m pretty sure this is approximately true that the ocean is

[26:57]

is approximately true that the ocean is relatively cool the death at the desert is relatively hot and there’s a certain time of season when that difference is enough to make the wind turn into a storm configuration if you could cool just a few degrees off of the you know the coastal Sahara part there are smart people who believe and again I’d have to be fact-checked on all this I’m not I’m not the climate scientist but I believe you could actually weaken hurricanes now weakening hurricanes is not an answer to climate change because hurricanes and storms are just one thing that people are worried about you know they’re worried about this super storm etc but we could somewhat directly go after it we could find that hottest spot and just take a couple of - a couple of degrees off it over time so that now we’re 40 years in the future when there would be

[27:58]

years in the future when there would be super hurricanes assuming climate change you know goes away the scientists say now what if climate change is a big ol hoax a lot of you believe that right those say you believe climate change is a big ol hoax isn’t it still a good idea to get rid of that desert and turn it into something useful of course this is that it’s never gonna be a bad idea to have desalinization and fresh water and cheap energy and you know a place you can plant more stuff so I just put that out there as a possibility speaking of climate change there was a study published in a prestigious prestigious journal called Nature that was retracted and it was a study that said that the oceans were warming even even more than we thought so it was going to be even worse than we thought and that paper got retracted but here’s

[29:00]

and that paper got retracted but here’s the interesting part it was retracted because somebody named Lewis a mathematician and who was a critic of the climate change consensus he looked at the paper and after it was published so remember he was not an initial reviewer he saw it after it was published and he posted a critique and then the scientists looked at his critique and said oh darn it you’re right and they withdrew the paper now let me let me let me tell you how they described the discrepancy so the short they say quote shortly after publication arising from comments from Nicholas Lewis so he would be the climate skeptic we realized that our reported uncertainties were underestimated owing to our treatment of certain systemic errors as random errors so the problem was that they treated systemic errors as

[30:01]

was that they treated systemic errors as random errors I don’t know what any of that means but here’s the here’s the punchline of the story a hundred percent of climate scientists didn’t catch this mistake the only person who caught it was not a climate scientist let me say it again a hundred percent of all the climate scientists in the world didn’t catch the obvious mistake the only person who caught it was somebody who’s not a climate scientists he’s a mathematician now he knows about climate science because he follows it he’s a mathematician now let me ask you this how unusual is it that all of the experts would be fooled and the one person who’s not an expert would catch it and remember now all the experts have agreed that the guy who caught it was right that that was there it would just had an

[31:02]

that that was there it would just had an errand how unusual is that unfortunately that’s not unusual so let me ask you this how unusual is it that an outsider a mathematician could have enough information to debunk a study that has been published in a prestigious manual or a prestigious publication it’s kind of unusual right because the error that he caught was I think in just the math and the statistics of it so in other words it was a rare situation in which the outsider had everything he needed because it’s just math and statistics and they gave I guess the raw data was there so he could just look at and say no I’m a mathematician you got this wrong that’s not that usual let’s let’s compare that to somebody who said we went to all the measuring stations around the world and we came up with

[32:02]

around the world and we came up with this estimate of what the warming is let’s say you read that read that paper could you and I or anybody else know if they did the measurements correctly well not really because that you’d have to sort of do what they did and travel there and see if there’s anything interesting or wrong with the with the measuring state stations most things I would imagine are not easy to check if you were if you’re just an observer of the paper if all you have is the paper what are the odds that you could debunk it even if it’s wrong probably not because all you have is what’s not in the paper you’re not gonna go reproduce the stuff I mean if you’re just a reviewer you’re not going to try to reproduce it other people might try to reproduce it later so here’s what experience gets you the inexperienced dozens and I talked about

[33:03]

inexperienced dozens and I talked about this little in one of my chapters in loser think which is my great book that’s almost out too you can buy it on pre-order right now it’s called loser think and it’s available wherever books are sold audio book will be available too at the same time November 5th is when it comes out but you could preorder it now it’d be a good time to do that and I talked about this effect where if you’re experienced it is it would not seem unusual for the consensus of reviewers to be so wrong so often that the public would have an incorrect view about climate change that wouldn’t even be that weird if you’re experienced because if you’re experienced you’ve seen this situation a whole bunch of times if you’re 22 and it’s the first one of the issue you’ve seen you’re like oh there was a publication and then it it got there it

[34:03]

publication and then it it got there it was criticized and it was pulled down you’d probably say to yourself science is working really well because that’s how it works you know nobody expects science to be right on the first try every time nobody expects every paper to be true you know that that’s how it works you’re transparent people criticize you you fix it so if you’re 22 you’d read this story and say everything’s working fine it was just one paper all right just one time and they caught the error they fixed it it doesn’t really change the big picture everything’s working fine if you’re experienced this is the hundredth time you’ve seen something like this or whatever you’ve seen it over and over again if you’ve worked for a big company you’ve seen these blind spots and you’ve seen lots of situations where the majority are all wrong if you’ve never seen situations in which the majority were blinded to their wrongness even for years you would assume it’s unusual and

[35:06]

years you would assume it’s unusual and you would assume well it’s not happening in this case what are the chances that so many people could be wrong well if you’re experienced you would say totally feasible doesn’t mean that’s what’s happening and I want to be very clear here I’m not telling you that all the climate scientists are wrong I’m telling you that if they’re wrong on the big picture you know that the level of risk if they’re wrong I would conclude based on my longer life and vaster experience and different large organizations etc I would say huh can’t say I didn’t see your comin now I’m not saying it’s true that I’m not saying that climate change is all alarmist and no science I’m not saying that how would I know I’m not a scientist I will say that if someday we find out it was not valid I would say yeah that’s consistent with my experience that wouldn’t be surprising at all even though and let me say this

[36:07]

at all even though and let me say this as clear as possible the scientific community is pretty unified sure there’s 5% or whatever it is that is on the other team but they’re pretty sure and still it would not surprise me if they were blind to some you know certain types of errors all right and I don’t believe that science would that the scientific process is robust enough to catch it within any time frame I will say the science the scientific process probably is robust enough that it would catch any major errors with climate science eventually but the problem is you don’t know when eventually starts right could it be a year could it be five years could it be ten years could it be twenty years before some major error is found in in the scientific consensus easily yeah easily you could

[37:08]

consensus easily yeah easily you could go 20 years and then find out oh man we got all this wrong that wouldn’t even be surprising but I’m not I’m not saying that’s the case I’m saying it wouldn’t be surprising all right Trump offered congratulations on Chinese Communist Party anniversary their 70th anniversary and people criticize the president they would say are you kidding me how can you criticize or how can you compliment President Xi for this regime of 70 years that’s done all these bad things and so mr. president you’re doing it all wrong why can’t you learn to deal with leaders the right way to which I say who taught you how to negotiate you critics here’s how you negotiate which I know you show them

[38:09]

you negotiate which I know you show them complete respect at the leadership level which eliminates any reasons they have to to work against you all right it eliminates any ego brand reason to work against you so by showing the leader maximum respect the president takes off the table any problems that would cause by not doing that now he can talk to them now at the same time that only works if you’re if you’re tough as nails on the actual deal negotiating which apparently we are otherwise we would have by now we would have a deal if we were not being pretty pretty tough so the perfect negotiating stance is complete respect for the person you’re dealing with even if you don’t feel it on the inside you might not feel it on the inside but it’s a good strategy to

[39:10]

the inside but it’s a good strategy to show respect you get the best communication that way the best level of trust etc and then you go hard-as-nails on then negotiating now as I’ve said there’s no chance that we’re gonna have a trade deal where we are heading toward a soft decoupling and I don’t see the slightest chance that’s going to change I take that as a prediction it used to be a preference but now it’s a prediction I think it’s the first time I predicted it so my prediction is a soft decoupling soft meaning we’re not going to have some kind of law that says everybody get an China stop doing business with China rather it will be something like simply not doing any more business with China because all we have to do is stop the trend that’s all we have to do we just we just say alright if you’re already there it’s gonna be hard to leave we get that but your next factory your next factory kind of needs to be a little closer to home

[40:11]

of needs to be a little closer to home doesn’t have to be it doesn’t have to be America that’d be great if you’re like Apple Computer and you’re built your plants in Texas I’d be great but it doesn’t have to be just shouldn’t be in China so decoupling is coming yeah because and I say that because China is never going to act on fentanyl they’re never going to give up on squashing Hong Kong they’re probably not going to stop the Holocaust against the Weger community and they’re never going to stop stealing IP and they’re never going to be trustworthy on any kind of in you know technology deal or really anything so we should just stop pretending that that that could ever be a deal all right um here’s the other news fake news fake only because I thought it already happened so it’s not fake news in the in a in the sense that is false it’s fake

[41:13]

a in the sense that is false it’s fake news in the sense that why is this news and the news is the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted he was on the call between Trump and the Ukrainian president to which I said I thought we already knew that are you telling me that the president would call the president of Ukraine and he wouldn’t have Mike Pompeo on the call in what world is Mark Mike Pompeo would not on that call didn’t you assume he was on the call yeah and I’m washing the comments people are going who cares that was his job why are we even talking about it you know what else Mike Pompeo did and I swear I’m not making this up Mike Pompeo and I I hate to be the one to break this news to you but Mike Pompeo once put on a crisp looking suit with a necktie and went to work I swear I’m not making that up

[42:15]

work I swear I’m not making that up Mike Pompeo and you could probably get him to admit it he once put on a good-looking suit put on a necktie and went to work one day that’s the same story Mike Pompeo went to work that’s it it’s ridiculous all right I saw CNN in one of their headlines - a story they said Trump is branding impeachment as a coup I love the way that they worded it that he’s branding it he’s rebranding impeachment as a coup now is that fair there’s a fair to call it impeachment a coup well general you know impeachment as a general concept is certainly not a coup it’s it’s almost the opposite of a coup it would be under normal circumstances the impeachment process would be part of what keeps the Republic healthy it would be more like a cure than a disease under normal circumstances what we’re saying is not

[43:17]

circumstances what we’re saying is not normal circumstances what we’re seeing is people who started with impeachment and then figured out the reasons after the fact that’s pretty well-established at this point so is it fair in terms of being close enough to true when Trump is saying that impeachment is a coup I say yes I say yes now I think you’ve watched me long enough to know that I will disagree when something doesn’t make sense I mean I hope you’ve seen me enough to know I don’t just reflexively agree with everything the administration does but they do a lot of stuff right and I do tend to focus on the things they do right because that’s where the interesting stuff is that’s where you learn something when they do something right and Trump branding impeachment as a coup is right it is right because it fits the facts it’s a completely fair description of the intentions of the

[44:18]

description of the intentions of the people involved the intentions are to undo an election and not for a legitimate reasons what would you call it I think calling it a coup is actually factually ethically morally completely fair completely appropriate now I can see why they don’t like it but I think it’s fair now and then of course the the people who are going to complain about Trump branding it a coup no doubt are gonna say oh you’re starting a civil war or you starting a race war I talked about this yesterday do you know what I don’t see if I walk outside I’m not gonna see a race war if I talk to my neighbors and I couldn’t see any race war I don’t think there’s gonna be a race horror because first of all nobody wants one and that that’s all you really need if nobody wants one that’s probably sufficient you

[45:21]

wants one that’s probably sufficient you don’t need more than that literally nobody wants one period nobody wants one it’s not gonna happen all right let’s see what else we got going on here well I think that was most of it I had all the high points you got any questions Bernie in the hospital two stents put in is that true did Bernie get hospitalized because that would end him I don’t know that that’s true can somebody confirm that Bernie stents I’m just gonna search it while you’re here I don’t think that’s true ooh cancelled events until further notice oh it is true so ABC is this current yeah October 2nd Bernie Sanders

[46:24]

current yeah October 2nd Bernie Sanders age 78 to canceled events until further notice after being hospitalized a medical evaluation you found to have blockage in one artery and two stents were inserted he’s conversing in in good spirits and he’s done he’s done so let me let me wish Bernie Sanders well this is no time to be political but you know you can’t help it because he’s running for president you know everything’s political if you’re running for president she can’t really you know take that out of it but let me just say Bernie Sanders has been a national treasure even if you hate everything he’s ever said because I think you could respect people for their passion and for fighting for things he certainly changed the conversation he’s changed the entire Democratic Party he’s moved things which he thought were crazy into the well

[47:26]

he thought were crazy into the well let’s talk about it realm he’s been a good fighter a good he said infinite energy he’s inspired people I think he’s a patriot I think he’s a patriot even if you disagree with everything he’s ever said or done I think he’s a patriot and so I wish him well but at age 78 if you are hospitalized during a campaign with a fairly serious heart condition even though the treatment of it seems fairly trivial I think you’re done as a candidate is that too harsh tell me in the comments do you think that’s the end of it because if you had a choice of Warren or Sanders and one of them didn’t look like he could make it to the finish line yes he’s 78 and now he’s got a medical problem it would be okay to be 78 with no medical problem well I don’t know how okay that would be but I mean it wouldn’t be okay with me but apparently

[48:27]

wouldn’t be okay with me but apparently your supporters didn’t care well I don’t know how you could have a major cardio situation at age 78 obviously you’ll have to pull back on your schedule for a while it cetera so we wish him well but that should end his campaign in a sense now I was expecting Biden to come up with this kind of an excuse first it’s not an excuse in Bernie’s case I’m sure you didn’t want this to happen but I would serve Biden to have some kind of a health event whether real or imagined because if once you reach a certain age you’re pretty much in and out of the doctor’s office once every two weeks are you amused we reach a certain age and you get pretty acquainted with your doctor so I feel sorry for Bernie well it apparently the operation was completely successful so there’s nothing to feel sorry about in terms of his health looks like medical community did his job

[49:29]

looks like medical community did his job so good job for the medical community and we wish him well he’s a communist who wants us all in chains chains I say well I think that might be a slight exaggeration now you don’t get a sympathy vote for president there’s no such thing as the sympathy vote for president now the impeach the impeachment thing there was some poll they showed that a number of people were against impeachment just because they knew it would be bad for Democrats the Democrats were against it because they knew it would be bad for Democrats so impeachment is not a sympathy situation is more anger situation and a strategic political situation and here comes Carla I don’t think Carla Harris would be the natural recipient of Bernie’s voters I think they go to

[50:30]

Bernie’s voters I think they go to Warren if Warren takes our so here’s the sequence of events Bernie will drop in the polls presumably his support will go to Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren will become the uncontested front-runner if you’re Biden what is your one claim for being in the race that you’re the one who can win what’s it look like if Biden thinks he can’t win the nomination once Warren has a commanding lead and once Warren absorbs Bernie’s people I think that’s gonna happen I don’t think they’re gonna go to Biden especially if your candidate had a age-related health problem are you gonna move your vote to the other guy who’s that age if that’s this seems like a stretch so the logical thing that’s gonna happen because the Bernie support will go down Warren’s support will go up sufficient that she’s the front-runner and then the

[51:31]

that she’s the front-runner and then the entire reason for Biden disappears Biden’s reason for running will disappear if he’s not the front-runner he only makes sense as an unquestioned frontrunner at the moment he’s not he’s completely irrelevant in second place in second place he has no relevance to anything and he’s gonna know it and anybody who might give him money or support him is gonna know it as well so the likely sequence of events Warren goes to number one Biden no longer has a reason to be in the race Bernie becomes irrelevant in the race whether he stays in or not he might he might drop out if Warren goes to the top and then you’re gonna start looking around for who’s next level down and you’ll see a bump for yang and Budaj edge and maybe Harris maybe Harris and maybe others so it looks like that’s the way it’s lining up let me tell you if I get my Comley

[52:33]

let me tell you if I get my Comley prediction right you’d have to admit now I’m not saying I’m not gonna say it will be right but I’m sticking with the prediction because all of the reasons for the prediction are still in place I just have one additional fact that she’s a bad campaigner but it looks fixable so that’s what we got going on right now it’s all fun and remember snakes and alligators and moats they’re no good without freaking lasers on their heads that’s a reference to dr. evil and well most of you do that reference the dr. evil with the frickin lasers somebody says hillary’s goes light in I say zero chance of Hillary the reason I say zero chance of Hillary is because number one she would not take a second beating and I don’t think she could handle the risk of losing a second time number two nothing would motivate Trump

[53:37]

number two nothing would motivate Trump supporters more than Hillary in the race no it would be the best thing ever two or three or whatever when I’m up to Hillary does not strike me as a spontaneous personality meaning that if she were planning to run or even if she had a secret desire to run we would have seen it she would have already had a meeting with X somebody would have said I you know I just talked to her it would be something like fundraising you would see signs of it she’s not going to just go from 0 to 100 miles per hour without all the stuff in between Hillary does not strike me as an unprepared candidate she I don’t think she would run unprepared that’s part of the reason people liked her right I mean she was serious detail-oriented person so I just don’t see her spontaneously getting in

[54:38]

don’t see her spontaneously getting in it would be so out of an of brand all right that’s enough for now somebody says you’re under estimating Budaj edge maybe I think Budaj edge and who else is down there Cory Booker you know that you can see somebody who’s in sixth place or whatever rising up to third I can see that happening all right not for now bye for now