Episode 782 Scott Adams: Iran and Impeachment Because Most of our Real Problems are Being Solved

Date: 2020-01-09 | Duration: 47:03

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Why I’m a President Trump supporter Paul Krugman’s computer Ted Cruz calls some Dems apologists for Iran Imminent attack, Congressional briefing Rand Paul says he didn’t see proof Ukrainian plane that went down in Iran President Trump slurring during his Iran statement

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:10]

hey everybody come on in here Wow is it my imagination or do you get better-looking every day I think you do it's because you're smarter you're more fit you're just sort of a better person than you used to be it's going in the right direction good work on that but if you'd like to make your day even better then it already is I've got a suggestion for you and it's something called the simultaneous it but it doesn't take much all it takes is a cup or a mug or glass of tanker chelators time in a canteen and chug our flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine here the day the thing that makes everything better the simultaneous go uh-huh that's good that's good so looking good all right well there's not too much new to talk

[1:12]

well there's not too much new to talk about this is one of those weird news days that follows a big big news events where you just run out of news I'm sure there are important things happening but they don't seem important because the other news is so big so we'll run through a few things and first of all one of the one of the questions that people always ask me is how can you be a trump supporter or Scot they often try to shame me by saying stuff like Scot you're smart how can you be a trump supporter which of course is just another way to insult me and I always have the same story but the story doesn't always sound as clear and we'll say rational as it does this week so here's my story and it goes like this there's no such thing as the ideal

[2:14]

there's no such thing as the ideal president each president brings a different package of skills to the office and if that package of skills happens to be a good match with the situation good match with the times could match with the specific challenges well then it looks like you got a good president but it's really only a good president who's perfectly matched with the current challenges and what I've said about Trump is that he's a he's a he's like a hundred year flood he's the candidate the only get in the rarest situations you could ever have a president Trump and the rarest situation is that he also had the skill to become president on top of whatever else other skills he brings so what I've said is that there's this there are certain set of problems that become ossified just sort of stuck and and if you've got a certain set of problems that have been stuck and they've been stuck for years

[3:15]

stuck and they've been stuck for years or decades or something maybe you can't fix the stuck problems with the same president who was pretty good at let's say getting you an of economic decline or maybe the same president who was a good wartime president or the same president who was really good at I don't know social services or bringing you know less division to the country you could think of a lot of things you want your president to do and they'd all be good at certain subsets of that but every now and then and maybe it's every hundred years you really need somebody like Trump who simply just changes all the variables yeah he's the ultimate box of Shaker ask yourself if anyone else would have done what Trump did with Iran I'll think so right is it can you imagine any of our standard presidents being presented with it with a range of

[4:15]

presented with it with a range of options about what to do with Iran and picking kill their top guy who else would have picked that option nobody literally no one would have ever picked that option he's the only guy that's the point of a trump presidency nobody says he's not gonna break any dishes nobody says he's not gonna make people angry nobody says he's not gonna scare some people nobody says it's cost afraid it's gonna be exciting every time you add Trump to a situation and that excitement can translate to I'm afraid I've got risk I've got PTSD so he's definitely a changer and every now and then you need somebody who can make that you can make the choices simply make the choices that no one else could make and he's certainly that guy now I would go so far

[5:16]

certainly that guy now I would go so far as to say just to complete this that the president who follows this president doesn't need to be anything like him and maybe that's good so somebody was saying about Kanye for 2024 it might be that this president breaks free some of the big problems I mean let's just imagine imagine if you will that we get a some kind of a either some trade deals with China but mostly we decouple that's good I suppose we reach some kind of better or less less-lethal understanding with North Korea and Iran maybe the only thing that changes is whether we're at each other's necks but that's big you know if there's some kind of stable situation there and they're not by our enemies that's pretty good so you could imagine in time that the president after this one would would be best if they had the different set of

[6:16]

be best if they had the different set of skills for whatever the new problems are so that's just the point and I think that the taking out of Sullivan E is the central best example of why every hundred years you need a Trump you need to chop every hundred years to just break the stuff that was frozen you know you got that pipe you can't can't get it open sometimes you just gotta take the you know the the torch and just cut the pipes off so he's that guy and so far seems to be working out on some of the big issues all right so it looks like have you heard there's this there's this thing called an impeachment trial it's not a real impeachment and it's not a real trial and it really has no importance to anything whatsoever but it's the top headline how did it come to be that our top headline is something that's not even real and by not real I

[7:18]

that's not even real and by not real I mean it's not much of a trial if you already know how it ends it's not much of a process if everybody knows what the end state is and you don't need any of the in-between states to get to the end state there's no mystery in this one unless something new happens and if something new happens well that would be news but unless something new happens it's the impeachment that isn't an impeachment for the trial that isn't a trial and the witnesses that won't be called for the decision we already understand what it's going to be the there's almost nothing there it's like it's like a bowl of soup except you put the spoon in and there's no there's no soup you've got the bowl you get the spoon it's lunchtime you've got everything but the soup and and and we're all just like taking big spoonfuls of nothing it's like I got another bite full of nothing how much more nothing is in my bowl

[8:19]

more nothing is in my bowl well according to CNN is full ah that's a lot of nothing why do what why am I not getting filled up I keep eating with nothing do you eat soup or you drink it and it's a big question all right so impeachment is so boring I don't have anything to say about it except those boring tomorrow if I talk about impeachment I'll probably talk about how boring it is okay somebody reminded me about the story about Paul all right so paul krugman famous no winner of the Nobel in economics and also a big anti-trump er who's famous for some bad predictions one of his bad predictions is that Trump would tank the economy upon election that didn't happen so there are a lot of Trump supporters who are not big fans of Paul Krugman so that's the context you have to know

[9:19]

that's the context you have to know before I tell you the rest of the story so if you haven't heard Paul Krugman tweeted and this is the part that's got everybody scratching their head why would he tweet this that I that there had been some hack with his computer and that someone else had been using his IP address to make it look like it was him and downloading child porn I'm only gonna use that phrase once because I get D monetized enough so he tweets that they that they've discovered this on his computer and they're looking into it and and of course as one the Internet said why did you tweet that is that isn't that exactly the sort of thing you shouldn't tweet because if we never heard about it it didn't happen and wouldn't it be better if we never heard about it so I would like to surprise you all and

[10:23]

so I would like to surprise you all and by the way he did an update later where he said he thought it was not a hack but rather it was some kind of a scam where maybe somebody said they hacked him or something like that so he withdrew his original tweet and thought it was maybe some kind of a scam contact the gallic house we don't know the details doesn't matter here's my point allow me now to do what you don't expect I'm going to defend Paul Krugman's all right when he's right he's right when he's wrong he's wrong I'll try to call him out equally I have nothing against Paul Krugman he's a brilliant guy we've got a few predictions wrong he's on the other side but I'm sure he doesn't what was worse for the country none of us do all right so we're all we're all Americans let me defend Paul Krugman here some people said why would you bring up the fact that your computer had been associated with the worst crime you could possibly imagine when we didn't even have to think about it or know about it and here's your answer the

[11:26]

about it and here's your answer the answer is because Paul Krugman is smart at least in this sense he's smart I would have done maybe the same thing here's why he was presented with two impossible choices remember he works for a newspaper organization the New York Times and they were looking into it for him probably I don't know if it was on a work computer or something but the New York Times was involved and the police were involved and he's a famous person here's the question what were the odds that this story wasn't going to get down with some other way well maybe as possible the story would never have come out and in that case we would just never hear about it maybe what it might it might leak how would you like to have to catch up to a story after it leaked by somebody else suppose the story came out that there had been an investigation of this material which I'm not going to say

[12:26]

material which I'm not going to say again on his computer and then after the story comes out Paul Krugman would be forced to defendant oh no no it was all it was a hack it was a hack it was a scam would you believe it what would be your your credibility of that story well if you heard his defense some time after you heard the accusation you probably say 2 to 1 3 to 1 the accusation is correct just automatically just your brain would go there because we're sort of primed to believe that anyone who's accused of anything it doesn't matter what the crime is you're sort of poised to believe 3 2 1 4 2 1 it's probably true not necessarily still innocent proven guilty but three to 141 probably true now now look at it the way he did it it was so crazy to come out and be

[13:27]

it it was so crazy to come out and be the first person to tell the public that this story is even happening that your first impression is oh well it is sketchy it's a little sketchy and you know you get a little suspicious when you hear the topic in general if you prepare any male adult with this topic which I'm not going to mention again you automatically think well there's maybe something to it but the fact that he went first went public and you knew it was an embarrassing thing to bring up at all biases me to think that there is you know four to one ten to one whatever that is not true that they had nothing to do with him but rather that he was telling a real story about something that happened to him so he had two terrible choices one he could go public himself which was terrible or he could not go public himself and take the risk that somehow he got out another way way worse way worse

[14:29]

way worse way worse so you basically had a choice of you know his leg was trapped in the bear bear trap and he could chew off his own leg to get away or he could stay in the bear trap and die maybe if nobody found him he chewed off his leg to get away I can't fault him for that he had two horrible choices just horrible choices I think he took the one that had the best risk management balance so I defend Paul Krugman for going public with it it was kind of ballsy and I think he correctly read the risk management of it what do I always tell you about economists I always tell you economists are good at looking at the comparison if you do not look at the comparison you say what the heck are you doing Paul Krugman why would you say this in public and make us all think this about you when we never had to think it and the answer

[15:30]

think it and the answer as he compared it to the alternative which was worse economists gotta love them Ted Cruz accused some of the Democrats of being apologists for Iran I hate that word I hate it when people call me an apologist for anything and I hate it when Ted Cruz uses it against the other side I just I think that's it's a good it's a good let's say persuasion word because it probably has some impact on people so persuasion wise it does have an impact it's one of those words that really bothers the people who hear it I know when I hear it it bothers me it's not like other insults because it's not true when somebody insults me about something that I feel is a little bit true it kind of never bothers me you know what I mean but I don't have to tell you how many times I've been called

[16:31]

tell you how many times I've been called old ugly boomer you know i I've been called a lot of things but when somebody says hey you're ugly I think to myself Wow well that's not totally untrue energy that doesn't bother me but when somebody calls me an apologist when I know that I'm doing a pretty rigorous job of trying to look at both sides calling out the negatives and the positives it really bothers me because it's not true so likewise when I get called a racist or anything that's just not true that bothers me more than something that I say well okay that's just your opinion I can see why you'd say that so I hate that word we should ban it the other thing that the other thing that Ted Cruz is talking about he got challenged on this claim that Obama gave a hundred and fifty billion or or one point a billion to Iran are you as

[17:31]

one point a billion to Iran are you as confused as I am I had to go google this because I didn't know what the hell was going on so here's what's confusing me there are two things I hear in the news all the time not from authoritative sources but people on Twitter etc and they say something like this Obama gave Iran a hundred and fifty billion dollars also separately Obama gave them one point eight billion dollars and I say to myself wait a minute which is the number is it 1.8 billion which doesn't sound like that much you know in the big scheme of things or is it 150 billion which totally sounds like a lot how many of you know did we give her an 1.8 billion or did we give them 150 billion or did we give nobody anything because it was their own money and we just allowed them we stopped stealing it basically two different

[18:33]

stealing it basically two different things all right thank you Oh some of you are actually way more informed than I am good well this is actually good I'm actually impressed I'm impressed with how well informed all of you are so most of you are giving the correct answer which is it was two separate things although they're similar in the sense that it both had to do with money to Iran they used to be blocked but now it isn't so the 1.8 million was the actual physical cash that we directly gave them the 150 billion was more conceptual meaning that around the country around the world there was a hundred and fifty billion it wasn't all us the United States blocking it it wasn't all clear if it was all free and clear or some of it was related to debt and once the economists look at that 150 it starts shrinking so it's not uh well

[19:33]

it starts shrinking so it's not uh well 150 is the highest net other people say the estimate is not 150 it's more like a hundred and then other experts say well yeah even if it's more like a hundred it probably won't all get unblocked because it's a series of different reasons and situations so maybe some of the hundreds of billion will get unblocked Iran put the estimate at 35 so that hundred and fifty billion turned into 35 billion when Iran talks about it but when people use hyperbole they picked the biggest number 150 what's the real number was it between 35 and 150 billion does anybody even know all right but these big numbers let me put this in in context the GDP of Iran is 450 billion or let that's the 2017 number so somewhere in that area under five hundred billion so if the amount

[20:34]

five hundred billion so if the amount that we gave them was just the cash that would just be 0.04 of their GDP wouldn't be much if it was thirty-five billion as the Iranian say it would be seven percent of their annual in GDP now you're talking some serious money and if it was 150 billion it's like a third of their entire GDP and that's serious serious serious money now what Ted Cruz was challenged with is that that money went directly to to bad uses such as funding their proxies etc now he was challenged by whoever it was we interview him challenged him and said basically you know this is my own words but basically how do you know that money that specific money went to the proxies and all the bad uses like how do you know that - which Ted Cruz said and I love me some Ted Cruz sometimes because

[21:36]

love me some Ted Cruz sometimes because whether you agree with Ted Cruz or not whether you think you should be President or not he's a really smart guy all right I think we could all agree on that right he's one of the smarter guys and in the Senate and his answer was that money is fungible how many of you know what that means without looking it up tell me how many of you know what he meant when he said money is fungible it's an economics term and you don't hear it a lot I use it I use it when I want to show off but I only use it when I know I'm going to have to explain it because most people don't know what the word means somebody said Friedman said it yeah so let me explain what fungible means fungible means that could be used for anything meaning that oil and cash are both fungible meaning that if you have some cash you can spend it for anything if you have some oil the oil can be sold to

[22:38]

you have some oil the oil can be sold to anybody you know everybody buys oil so a barrel of oil and a pile of money are called fungible because they could use for all kinds of different purposes not just one purpose so that was Ted Cruz's answer that money is fungible but it was a clever answer because the reporter probably didn't know what it meant what are the odds that a journalist understood this economic term that is fungible because it made the question go away which is kind of brilliant because it was a smart answer people probably had to look it up when they did look it up they said oh well okay that's a good point that that money is fungible but here's what they won't catch in the argument is that it wasn't an argument because it was actually an argument against what Ted Cruz was saying not for what he was saying in other words Ted Cruz debunked his own argument and still made it look like the opposite of that

[23:40]

made it look like the opposite of that because people don't wanna believe if you know that fungible means money can be spent for anything that was the reporters point the reporters point is this money went to Iran it went in their central a bucket of money their budget and then separately always separately and and this is this is an important economic sturm completely separately there was a new decision what do we want to spend our money on not just that money but all of it what's our budget so in a real sense that money did not go directly to malign activities but it is true they had a little extra money now the the so this is so it is only true that Iran is a certain size they have a certain budget and if you add a little to it they've got a little extra money it's not so true that that money went right to Hezbollah or something but in an indirect way I guess it did now this is one of those arguments that people try to shade and

[24:43]

arguments that people try to shade and and they try to win with persuasion if you try to win with facts it's just we we release some of their own money it went into their budget and then they made some decisions about what to do with it we don't like some of their decisions could they have done everything that they did anyway without that money that we gave them and the answer is yeah yeah they could have they could have done everything they did without that money they just would have had to cut the budget somewhere else or found out another way to make money alright nobody cared about that now how about this briefing on the on how imminent the attack was if we had not taken down Solomon II the Pompeo and Trump had said that it was obvious that we had Intel that there was an imminent attacks coming so it's a good thing we took him out because it saved us from those imminent attacks on American people and assets but of course we the

[25:44]

people and assets but of course we the public cannot see the secret secret top secret Skippy like information so we are relying on the people who have the very special people who can see it some of the very special people who can see that information include much to the unhappiness of the administration Rand Paul and Senator Lee Rand Paul comes out of the secret secret Skippy location and says I didn't see any evidence of an imminent imminent attack I was there I was in the secret gif room I I don't know if it was asked if it was wherever was they did the briefing I'm just throwing this gif in there because it's a funny word so he kept sounding the meeting saying nope there was nothing good that meeting was said there was an imminent attack it was just generalities and stuff I've read in the newspaper who do you believe who do you believe do you believe Mike

[26:46]

who do you believe do you believe Mike Pompeo who said oh yeah definite information about imminent attack or when he showed all of the information and others did to Rand Paul Rand Paul said nope no information there I'm looking at it I'm listening to you and I'm seeing no information who do you believe well the quick answer is Rand Paul okay if you ever say let me say this Rand Paul is rapidly becoming a national treasure you need you need dissenters of that caliber here's the highest quality dissenter that we might have in this country although you know I'm not gonna muddy this up by saying that there's some on the left who are good dissenters as well I won't name names but but Rand Paul is a high-quality dissenter and what that

[27:47]

high-quality dissenter and what that means is that even when I disagree with him he looks like he's honest even when I disagree with him he's got a reason and it's solid for why he's on the other side that's high-quality dissent I loved even when I disagree with him and now somebody's saying Rubio believed it etc all right let me get back to my analogy you're gonna be sick of this one two people are in a room closed room one of them says look at that elephant the other one in a small room looks around and says there's nothing in this room it's just us there's no elephant which one is right it's the one who doesn't see the elephant not a hundred percent of the time but it's a pretty reliable rule hallucinations are positive they're not subtraction the person who doesn't see

[28:48]

subtraction the person who doesn't see the elephant is not subtracting an elephant from their environment and not seeing it but it is very common for somebody to add an elephant and see something that isn't there seeing something that isn't there is common not seeing something that is there when you're looking right at it I mean Rand was in the room heard the same stuffs all the same stuff as everybody else didn't see it who do you believe let's say there are 90 people who see it and one doesn't who do you believe if it's Rand Paul I'm gonna go with Rand Paul and at least meaning that at least he has a good argument that is not there now there could be some subjectivity because these things always are now here's where I disagree with Rand Paul so again I just love the hell out of the fact that he's so good at this being a dissenter a patriotic deception let's say and I would say an ethical dissenter to here's why ps-aguié them it doesn't

[29:51]

to here's why ps-aguié them it doesn't matter a bit whether that evidence was solid or not it has no impact or anything the fact that so many had 20 solid years of doing that kind of thing is all the evidence I need that he might do it again do you need more here's your situation solemnly solemnly as a 20-year record of doing this sort of thing and he was doing this sort of thing recently this week and the rate of this sort of thing was increasing do you need more evidence do you need evidence of this specific future thing he was gonna do I sure as hell don't need any of that why would you need that you don't need that so of course we had all the justification we needed to take him out and the president made the right call I think him you know maybe they tried to bolster their case a little too hard by saying that you know it was imminent threat maybe they felt they needed to say that for the public's benefit both for my benefit you did not

[30:53]

benefit both for my benefit you did not for my benefit his track record told you everything you needed to know about the likelihood of future attacks and it was hi I said that's the whole story the likelihood of future attacks was high without any information about future attacks saw you did it how surprised are you that the initial reports that the Ukraine airline that went down after taking off from Tehran during the missile attack or shortly after I guess how surprised are you that Ukraine has withdrawn its initial opinion that it was mechanical failure surprised nobody I don't think we have to wonder if that got taken down by an Iranian action because I happened over Turan so it wasn't us it wasn't the Russians it was in the airspace near Turan Tehran Tehran I can never pronounce Tehran so sooner

[31:56]

I can never pronounce Tehran so sooner or later we're gonna find out that probably some missile defense went wrong which is horrible all right at the end of yesterday's we'll get to this later that what do you think of Trump's slurring of his speech during his statement about Iran was that yesterday time has just changed for me it was yesterday seem so long ago was it yesterday and it feels like yesterday was so long I guess it was so when Trump did a statement about Iran and he slurred some words several words actually he slurred and it was it was very noticeable you couldn't you couldn't not notice it and I didn't see much reporting about it on the news there's probably a little bit but you saw in a social media people were were

[32:58]

saw in a social media people were were brutal and often in the comments if you said anything positive about the outcome the comments would be but he's slurring his words he's obviously losing what's what's wrong with you how can you not see it to which I responded he was literally up all night preventing World War 3 and he's in his seventies if you're in your seventies and you're up all night literally I imagine I can't imagine you slapped I mean could you go to sleep if you were the president and you would maybe just created World War 3 I don't think you go to sleep not that night you know maybe later but not that night so you show me a guy in his mid 70s who can stay up all night worrying about personally starting World War 3 personally like you personally hey looks like you started World War 3 if you can get to sleep that night well

[34:00]

you can get to sleep that night well there's something wrong with you you probably a sociopath I mean you would have to be a sociopath to get to sleep that night and so if he slurs his words during a rally I'm gonna worry because if you know he's gonna plan for a rally he know he's done in a million times he's not nervous about it you know he got a good night's sleep but in this case you know he did not have a good night's sleep and he acted exactly like a guy well let me put this way I joked on Twitter that if you're up all night worrying about starting World War three it would make you the energy equivalent of Jeb Bush by the next day and you notice the during his speech he was very subdued and low-energy he looked exhausted and he should have been you should have been exhausted I'd be a wouldn't you be more worried if he if he had been well-rested let me just think about that imagine he had looked

[35:00]

about that imagine he had looked completely well-rested after an evening in which World War 3 was on the line wouldn't that be a little more worrisome I don't want a well-rested president when World War 3 is on the line I don't think World War 3 was ever on the line but the stakes are I all right
have you noticed there's there's probably no better example at least so far of how our republic has shifted so we used to be a republic that's you know I say this a lot we were formed as a republic but a social media has kind of taken over the role of what the government used to do now of course Trump alone apparently made the decision about taking out and Solomon eh but that's one of those you know secret things that the public couldn't participate in anyway and should but the decision after that about how to respond

[36:02]

decision after that about how to respond whether to go to war with Iran etc is it my imagination or was the decision made by social media think about it was the decision made by social media and I'm gonna even narrow that more was the decision to go to war with Iran or how we deal with them etc made by our politicians directly or was it made by Twitter and the Twitter users I would argue that Twitter made it impossible to go to war I don't think the president wanted to go to war anyway but in terms of who's running in the country it felt a lot like it was Twitter now you could say the news organizations are a big part of it and they are but even the news organizations in my opinion follow Twitter they follow the dominant voices on Twitter of dominant opinions it seems to me therefore the big decisions

[37:02]

to me therefore the big decisions Twitter has is evolving into sort of a national brain in other words there's a there's almost like a mind of forming which is the collection of all the Twitter users and I'm not counting Facebook and Instagram because they're different kinds of platforms the political stuff really gets concentrated on Twitter so it's the political mind anyway of of the country and
to his credit and I say this is a positive is very tapped in to what social media is saying and very tapped him towards Fox News and the other news are saying but I would argue that the news follows social media now they they break the stories but how they talk about the stories often gets informed by how people are responding to the stories on social media if they want more of this or less of that they get the response so just look for that look for

[38:07]

response so just look for that look for that that the the twitter has formed a a national brain which is the sum of all its parts and that it's running the show and that our government has to be responsive to it can still make decisions that the social media doesn't care about or can't know about because it's secret but the the amount of decisions that our elected officials are making let's say independently is shrinking whereas the influence of Twitter as a as a whole as a brain if you will is increasing yeah twitter is global but in terms of what I'm talking about it tends to operate more nationally at the end of I just have to bring up this topic again because it's blowing my mind so if you watch my periscope for a few days ago I was talking about how in my opinion I was predicting that the future was wearing a ring and the ring would

[39:08]

was wearing a ring and the ring would have a little little speaker in it that you could talk to your digital assistants everything you could control your environment and that everything was going to go toward a ring the very next day apparently a CSCS Amazon announced this ring that works with their digital system and has a button and has a little little microphone in it and what are the odds of that I mean that was that's been blowing my mind all day
I just want to point that out that was sort of the simulation winking at me let me summarize this whole situation with a read this way I believe that more and more people are going to be saying what I said very early on this the Salomon a was the real power in Iraq and that the Ayatollah was sort of unable to overrule

[40:10]

Ayatollah was sort of unable to overrule Salomon a too-sami on the security services and the entire military and had the loyalty of the troops and and I my guess is if it's like every other situation where you've got two powerful people they both wish that they had been the one in power I've got a feeling that Khomeini does not have the same hardline instincts as the guy we just took off the field and if I had to guess I'm gonna guess that he's going to be more flexible now there's reporting I don't know how reliable it is that Iran has already told their proxies to stand down now it might be their only standing down for now so you don't know that that's permanent of course or even that they can control them on hundred-percent but everything is looking positive everything that's currently happening looks very very positive in terms of

[41:11]

looks very very positive in terms of Iran and the United States being able to work something out but it also has to be said that if Iran had no intention of being positive whatsoever this would be the perfect time to fake it until they can you know just get the current tensions behind us so you can't tell yet if they're faking it or it's real but everything they're doing is consistent with something positive at least being possible so I'm not gonna rule it out and here's the other overriding consideration company is 80 years old I don't think age can be ignored because when you're 80 you're thinking about your you last play you're thinking about your legacy does come any want to die or even be in his final year of life with a situation where he's at war and he's destroyed his own country probably not does he want to be at peace both in his country and and with himself

[42:15]

both in his country and and with himself in his final years probably cell war is more of a young man's game and the young man was just taken off the field the general I have a feeling that age alone may have mellowed this guy and I think that the death of Solomon a which I believe he did not mourn remember it's it's a big tell that that they consider us even after we took out the number one or number two guy in their country and all they did is send some bombs into the some missiles into the desert that's it and then they said we're even does it sound does it sound like an Iranian trait to give up does it sound like an Iranian trait to say oh you killed our most important guy yeah we threw some missiles into the desert or even does that sound like something they

[43:17]

even does that sound like something they would do if they really really cared about this guy that we killed doesn't it sounds sounds it's not mind-reading it's speculation it's very different mind reading says you know what they're thinking speculation means you know you're just doing the odds well they're probably thinking this or they might be thinking this and here's the evidence why I think that speculation is fine mind reading where you're sure you know what they're thinking is just crazy so it's the certainty that's the problem not not the speculation speculation is always like so my speculation is is this might be heading in a positive direction because Iran is not acting in any way like they give a that this guy's dead you know that the size of the crowds doesn't mean anything really doesn't it's the way the leadership responds that matters all right so I think we're having the positive way did Khomeini

[44:19]

having the positive way did Khomeini soften when he got older well we also don't know who is running running things when the last Ayatollah was in charge so I got lots of questions about that and and by the way I remember in speculation you're only playing the odds so if you say to yourself there was a another old person who stayed hardcore until the end well that could be true we're only talking about the odds then most Wars tend to be started by uh and actually here's that's a good question wouldn't let me ask this question all right here's a good question for historians are there any historians watching answer this questions name and 80-plus year-old leader who has started a war that wasn't already started right there are probably plenty of wars that were underway what about japan's yamamoto how old was he

[45:19]

he so are there examples in history of 80 year olds as starting wars world war one who was it who was started in the war in World of one I'm not sure that there was one person who started war Brezhnev in Afghanistan was Brezhnev 80 yeah there not many 80 year olds I thought you said history wasn't predictive it is not history is not predictive but they can teach us things so certainly we can learn let's say saw history that's more like science if you did a study and you found that you know all the butterflies did this or that it might tell you something about future butterflies if you do a study about all the people have certain age and they only do things only

[46:21]

certain age and they only do things only happen at a certain age that's not so much about history that's more about people so what I've always said is that people are people but history doesn't repeat necessarily I mean it could by accident but not necessarily Ho Chi Minh he didn't really start the war did he so that's just a question for the historians and for now I will I see people saying world war one but can they be said that there was one person who started World War one I don't know all right it's a question for the historians get back to me on that and I'll talk to you later