Episode 803 Scott Adams: Dale the Anti-Trumper Argue Against Alan Dershowitz, ME Success

Date: 2020-01-30 | Duration: 50:18

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Misinterpreting Alan Dershowitz, the Dems play of the day Adam Schiff, Stephen Collinson, Stephen Colbert and Dale DOJ Prosecutors won’t insist on jail for innocent General Flynn Meanwhile…6 major NY drug dealers, released without bail President Trump’s path to middle east peace Mark Schneider’s insight on the scary image of nuclear waste

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:09]

bumbum bumbum hey everybody come on in here hey it's time for coffee with Scott Adams it's gonna be a very special one you know why it's gonna be special because it always is that's right Kyle welcome to your first day on periscope and somebody just called out your name what a day for you quite special but if you'd like to make it as special as it could be I'm talking extra special you gonna need something Kyle I hope you're prepared because you're gonna need something in it could be several different things it could be a cup or a mug or a glass a tank or chalice or Stein a canteen juggler 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 ahead of the day the thing that makes everything better the simultaneous simple go ah feel the simultaneity coursing through your veins

[1:12]

simultaneity coursing through your veins it's a good good feeling well we have to talk about champ each mint the amp the impeachment a theater that's been going on and I gotta say I don't think this could be more entertaining you would think you know you used to see a lot of people saying oh it's boring and it's certainly boring because the length of it and the repetition of the arguments but there's really a lot of entertaining stuff happening if you pull out the Nuggets so let's pull out some Nuggets all right here's my favorite part of the testimonies yesterday so apparently the way the Constitution is written and at least interpreted justice Chief Justice Roberts presides over the the Senate impeachment proceedings but apparently he's not allowed to do anything important so he's just he's just there to bang the gavel and say he was next

[2:13]

to bang the gavel and say he was next recognize people now what opportunity did that get if the clever people in the Senate because at some point yesterday was the the phase where any senator could submit a question and then Justice Roberts would read the question out loud and then one of the two or both the lawyers for both sides would respond depending on who the question was for apparently Kamala Harris who who has more game than maybe I suspected because she did something really smart disgusting but really smart and I'm gonna I'm gonna make an assumption here all right now this is speculation cuz I can't read her mind right but what I'm going to assume is the Harris knew exactly what she was doing because she embedded a grotesque lie in the body of

[3:13]

embedded a grotesque lie in the body of her question and she made the Chief Justice of the United States read her lie in front of the entire world in the Senate and he couldn't call it out as a lie he had to just read it it was so clever I'm wondering why nobody else thought of it so I think if I could recall I think the lie was the they take and of context Trump saying I can do anything because I'm president something like that but of course it's a lie because the the actual quote was about something specific he can do which is hire and fire a Comey because that's his job so what so what Trump was actually saying is that the president has the authority to hire and fire people in the executive branch as literally nobody disagrees with there's nobody in the world who is on the other side of what Trump clearly and unambiguously sad so

[4:15]

Trump clearly and unambiguously sad so what the Democrats have been doing is taking that in a context and and repeating it until they repeat it into reality and you've seen them do this with the charlottesville hoax the saying that the the president called the race is fighting people didn't happen never happened you could look at the transcript you can look at the video and find out for yourself it never happened but they've repeated it so much it's just sort of morphed into a fact for half the country well now they're doing the same thing with the the impeachment and actually they're doubling down on that I'll talk about that later so so Harris very cleverly embeds this grotesque obvious lie which is really central to their case that little quote gives them the the frame to put their entire he's trying to be a dictator you can tell because he said so he must be trying to be a dictator so if they lose that narratives that he's trying to be a

[5:16]

that narratives that he's trying to be a dictator they they don't have as much of a case they don't have a framework to to attach everything to so that that lie is very central to what they're doing and getting the chief justices of the United States to read it a live television in the Senate was really good but wait but wait it gets better it gets better that's not the end of the story that's the beginning of the story so it turns out that that Conell harris is not the only smart person in the senate over on the quasi republican side if you've got you've got this guy called Rand Paul Rand Paul now here again I'm gonna make an assumption and I try to call it out when I'm you know just speculating because mind-reading is always a thinking error I think Rand Paul saw what she did this is just

[6:17]

Rand Paul saw what she did this is just a guess and said good lord look what she did this is you know my imagination of why he might have been thinking let's see if I can do that so Rand Paul submits a question to the Chief Justice of the United States which has embedded in the question the name of the whistleblower
will you join me in a slow clap I want you to play along at home Rand Paul oh
my god that was probably the funniest political move you have ever seen in your life now what happened when Chief Justice saw that the whistleblower name was in the question he rejected it can he do that does it does the Chief Justice in this context does does he have the option of rejecting the question well he did now I

[7:19]

rejecting the question well he did now I I'm just guessing that his his reasoning might be that he didn't want to be party to a crime so I think Rand Paul's question if the Chief Justice had read it I don't know that I'm not sure about this but it might have made him party to a crime okay there's nothing funnier than that Rand Paul trying to trick the Chief Justice into being a party to an actual crime and outing the whistleblower because culeros used that same trick just before this is gray stuff if you are not entertained by this you're dead inside you're dead inside so anyway the Chief Justice declined to read that question and what do you think predictably happened well it turned into a tweet and what do you think when the news story got turned into a tweet about what Rand Paul tried to do well of course the news story doesn't mention

[8:20]

course the news story doesn't mention the name of the whistleblower but every person in the comments did every person in fact you're saying the name you know fly by on the screen here in the comments so bye so Rand Paul's play completely successful because he got the entire country to be angrily you know putting that guy's name the whistleblower into every communication that they can so that was the funniest thing all right I don't know if it's as funny as Joe Biden on the campaign trail reminding people that he's going to die soon because he's old he actually said that I mean it's my own words but he actually said he's an old guy so he needs a young vice president there's no way to interpret that other than he might die in office right there's no other way to read it and I actually give him credit for being completely candid about that so it

[9:23]

completely candid about that so it actually made me like him more frankly but it's a it's a it's a good point he might die in office a his age that's a that's a wrist Lee you've got to consider so there's a viral video of Joe Biden telling people not to vote for him he has this little quirk where when he gets challenged at a some public event you know you'll push back a little but then he will dismissively say well don't vote for me vote for the other guy vote for the other guy and I'm thinking to myself that I don't know in some context that might be the right play because it's sort of folksy and seems plain spoken and all that but if you keep saying it it turns into something else and I think he's saturd enough now that it's turned into you start wondering if he really wants to win this thing let me ask you this do you think that Joe Biden

[10:23]

ask you this do you think that Joe Biden wants to spend the last years of his life doing one of the hardest jobs in the world I think he's barely handling the campaign and I say that just because he doesn't you know I'm assuming unless something has changed that he's not keeping an intense campaign schedule because her there you know acknowledging his age do you think he really wants to be President I think he would rather win that lose because everybody likes to win more than they'd like to lose so I think he's you know gonna try but I don't think his heart is in it I remember I taught you that when I was learning hypnosis to become a hypnotist one of the things we are taught is that people tell you exactly what they want in direct words but sometimes you have to pick an end of the paragraph and in this case Joe Biden repeatedly is telling people to not vote for him now the context of course is that he thinks

[11:23]

the context of course is that he thinks they're people who won't vote for him anyway probably so it's you know there's a reason for why he's saying it the way you saying it but the hypnotist says you know there were other ways to say that if all he was trying to say is that you know you know he's not for everyone there could have been a less direct way to say it he could say you know I I acknowledge your argument and I know I'm not going to change every mind but you know I hope we can change your mind you know with the other stuff I hope that's not your only the only thing that you're worried about it's a big country lots of topics you know I hope you'll stay with me he could have said that there are a thousand ways that Biden could respond to people in public disagreeing with a policy or two but he keeps telling him not to vote for him I think he means it I think he means it on some level it looks like he's revealing that he's not

[12:24]

looks like he's revealing that he's not fully into it let's talk about the play of the day all right so as you know the Democrats coordinate their messaging their anti-trump messaging and it's very clear that they have they have landed on the following strategy for today and the strategy is to take what Alan Dershowitz said in his arguments yesterday and prior to that and misinterpret them so
let me say this is what's Stephan or Stephen Collinson wrote in on CNN today and see if this sounds familiar from something you've heard from me so you said the Republicans have variously argued so he's going to talk about the different ways that the Trump defenders have argued that Trump is innocent they variously argued the Trump did nothing wrong the Democrats made up

[13:25]

nothing wrong the Democrats made up impeachment charges or that there was no quid pro quo but they have missus cording to Collinson but they have apparently been pushed to this final fallback position in the light of Bolton's claim about the manuscript bla bla that Trump did indeed tell him to withhold aid to keV but so now they're going with the the Dershowitz thing that it doesn't matter because it's not impeachable now who was the first person when this whole impeachment thing started who was the first person who said stop arguing about the details because it's not a winning yeah it's not a winning strategy did did I call it who could have called this more accurately I said those little weed arguments of it's not a quid pro quo but but they are not gonna win the only argument is it doesn't matter because it's not unbeatable anyway so as even

[14:26]

it's not unbeatable anyway so as even Collinson is saying that the Republicans have apparently sort of taken their bruising on the weeds and they're backing up and by the way I think they want on the weeds if you were to look at their actual arguments from the legal perspective I do think the president's attorneys won on all the details it's just that the public can't follow it so winning on the details is exactly like losing because the public can't follow the details so they don't know you won but they can certainly hear all the points and the more they hear quid pro quo or the president wants to be a dictator that's all they're hearing so it doesn't matter if you win on the weeds you still lose that way Dershowitz being the smartest person in the game apparently is brought the only argument that's there has a chance of winning which is it's not a beatable but here's the fun part the here's how the various

[15:28]

the fun part the here's how the various critics are wading into Mis interpret Dershowitz now keep in mind Dershowitz his argument is a total kill shot it's simple to understand and it's the stake driven through the heart of impeachment Dershowitz killed impeachment as dead as anything can be dead it doesn't live anymore even it's it's a you know it's an undead vampire life he just killed that too he put his steak race through the the vampire's heart impeachments over all right he killed it so what do you do the said the Democrats are going to their go-to strategy they're going to grossly misinterpret him and repeat the misinterpretation until their team thinks it's true they did it with Charlottesville the you know you they did it with the that quote take it out of context I can do anything I walked that you know was out of context and now

[16:30]

that you know was out of context and now they're doing it with Dershowitz argument let me tell you that here's what here's what Dershowitz actually sets this is a quote on CNN's page you know one of their pages and I think it's in Paul Begala thing or someplace but Paul Begala was writing on CNN he's one of their anti-trump go-to guys so he's here's what darshan was actually sent and then I'll tell you how it was interpreted alright this is the actual quote from Dershowitz and if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected , in the public interest that's the important part in the public interest Kawa that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment so what Dershowitz is clearly saying is if there are two conditions you know one is that there's something that will help

[17:30]

is that there's something that will help somebody get elected that's the first condition but also at the same time comma it's in the public interest that's not an impeachable thing right so two things are true it's it's good for the politician good for the country that's not a beatable so how did Paul Begala and all of the other people misinterpret this here's Paul Begala 'z interpretation of that he's he's putting this these words basically in dershowitz mouth if a president thinks his reelection is in the public interest anything he does in pursuit of his reelection is legal what what that is not anything like what Dershowitz said so he makes this completely false statement this was stupid on its face that a president can do anything he wants basically I'll read it again if a president thinks his reelection is in

[18:31]

anything he does in pursuit of his re-election is legal no that's not the quote that you that you gave Dershowitz in your own article that's completely wrong all right so then Begala goes on to argue against his own misinterpretation all right how about Justice Stephen Collinson this is his misinterpretation right and these are actually calling since actual words that he's putting in Dershowitz his mouth as the misinterpretation the Harvard emeritus professor claimed on the Senate floor that if a politician thinks his reelection is in the national interest and the action he takes toward that end cannot by definition be impeachable Dershowitz didn't say that or anything like that this is completely made-up and then he goes on to write his article based on his completely false interpretation it gets better

[19:32]

interpretation it gets better here's how Adam Schiff misinterpreted Dershowitz he's putting this he said he's basically doing another fake quote and putting it in Dershowitz of mouth all right so this is Adam Schiff making up a hypothetical fake quote to cat to mischaracterize order shoe it says fake quote you can't do anything about it because if he views it as in his personal interest meaning the president if he views it as his in his personal interest that's just fine he's allowed to do it none of the founders would have accepted that kind of reasoning Schiff said well she if you are correct that none of the founders would have recognized that kind of reasoning because it didn't happen Dershowitz never said that these are completeness interpretations but my favorite came from Stephen Colbert so he

[20:35]

favorite came from Stephen Colbert so he accepts the Democrat misinterpretation and then he does his whole cringeworthy I'm calling it cringe tainment sometimes when you watch something that's cringe worthy but it entertains you because it's cringe worthy I'm calling that cringe tainment you can use that and he does this whole bit where he very mockingly makes fun of Alan Dershowitz for being illogical that's right Stephen Colbert with with not a trace of irony or self-reflection claims on national television in a mocking sarcastic way the he's Stephen Colbert can tell with his great powers of reason that one of the most or maybe the most famous experienced constitutional scholars in the world had an illogical argument let me say this

[21:45]

you can have arguments that you disagree with that's a thing and some people have illogical arguments let me tell you what Alan Dershowitz does not have any illogical argument not this one probably not ever now there are arguments which he's lost I'm sure I mean I don't know but I'm I imagine he's argued cases and lost in the past I don't know that that's true actually maybe you wasn't all but it's one thing to lose because the other argument just carries more weight well when was the last time Alan Dershowitz was illogical in his argument never how about never how about probably never all right certainly not in this case the only way you can get to illogical is by believing the Democrats with their misinterpretation of what he said and then of course it looks illogical and so I say to this I say to a pallbearer just

[22:49]

I say to this I say to a pallbearer just something to consider just just put this in the hopper of something you should maybe reflect on I'm not going to suggest you change anything you're doing just just keep this thought in the back of your head when you're mocking a preeminent constitutional scholar because you believe he's being illogical just just keep this thought in mind maybe just just maybe the problems on your end I'm just putting that out there can you rule it out I don't think so so I think I think next we'll see on The Late Show with Colbert his his snide takedown of Einstein so you know you know that's coming it's like Einstein he could barely do math are you kidding me with his physics who is he trying to get that Einstein guy oh my god all right

[23:52]

guy oh my god all right so I would like to give you a a one-act play in which Dale the anti-trump er will be arguing the Democrats side of this I will take the role of Alan Dershowitz famous constitutional scholar you know Dale it looks like this impeachment will probably be over soon because the founders would agree that the the clay of the allegations or the the impeachment articles do not come anywhere near what they intended as a crime or misdemeanor or anything that's like a crime because there's no abuse of power or anything that's really crime and and that the abuse of Congress is ridiculous for other reasons what do you think about that Dale well it's obvious that if you accept that argument the

[24:54]

that if you accept that argument the president's just a dictator and he can do anything he wants that's what you're saying Ellender - it's the president's a dictator you can do anything he wants mmm no no I actually didn't say anything like that let me explain it to you if the President does something that is good for the nation or even arguably you could disagree but let's say he does something that's good for the country but it's also good for his reelection as long as those two conditions are met it's not a beatable because that's our system our system allows you to pursue your best election you know reelection result by doing good work for the nation that's how the system works you get that down well I get a plenty to get a plenty you're saying that the president can just ignore what's good for the people and do whatever will get him re-elected choose somebody on Fifth Avenue for example no I'm not saying anything like

[25:57]

example no I'm not saying anything like that all I'm saying is if there are two conditions that one of them is that it's good for the country but it's also good for the politician that cannot be impeachable you know unless it's actually a crime I suppose and they all would say so oh you admit that the president can commit gross crimes for his reelection digging up dirt using foreign interests and that's okay with you that's okay with you Alan Dershowitz no no I'm not saying even anything remotely like that not even in the same universe as whatever the hell you're hallucinating Dale it's just real simple if he's doing the people's work but it's also good for re-election and and it's all legal you're fine there's nothing in peach' ball wouldn't you be happy with that dictator situation wouldn't you next thing you know he's dictator for life

[26:59]

thing you know he's dictator for life because you just said Alan Dershowitz you just you just admitted that he can have foreign countries dig up dirt on an opponent for just his personal interest and you're okay with that you're okay with that are you willing to say that in public that you're okay with that no no Dale I'm not okay with that I didn't say that I didn't say anything like that nothing like that see so watch this watch this what I play play out all day today all day long the Democrats are going to be misinterpreting Dershowitz just like I did and I here's the here's the the bad part it's gonna work now I don't think it'll work in terms of reversing the outcome of the the Senate

[28:01]

reversing the outcome of the the Senate vote you know President will be cleared but it's going to work on the public the public is is definitely gonna believe that the Democrats have interpreted Dershowitz correctly do you know why because for every one person who watched dirt - its live there will be a thousand people who only hear the democrats of version of what der Xuan said so it's a thousand to one more effective for them to lie than to do anything that would be in the realm of truth and so they are there's no penalty for lying in this context which you have to think is a flaw a flaw in the in the process alright let's see what else we've got going on here I I'd like permission to curse everybody ok with that there is some cursing coming up mild cursing alright so if you don't like that this

[29:04]

alright so if you don't like that this you know you might want to mute your phone for that yeah and it has to do with the topic of general Flynn because there's some there's an update so apparently the Department of Justice is not going to see jail time originally they were going to seek jail time and and Flynn had withdrawn his his guilty plea because apparently he just got he got basically blackmailed into it because they said they take down his family it sounds like it sounds like he was trying to protect his family and he said I'm guilty even though it wasn't so he basically took a bullet for his family but now that more information is command about the you know the faked FISA and all the other stuff and rush occlusion disappeared changed his changed his plea to not guilty and the Department of Justice said now they're only going to be looking at sage probation so they're they're only going

[30:07]

probation so they're they're only going to look at probation there's a little swearing coming okay if our justice system plans to find general Flynn guilty in this situation and they whether they you know want us one of the sentences into jail or probation that I got 60 million people who say to you Department of Justice that that innocent or Nothing that you can have 60 million really pissed off people if under these current conditions he still found guilty probation or not that and if they do find him guilty and

[31:07]

that and if they do find him guilty and given probation I imagine that gives the president just full authority to avoid the whole thing and wipe the record clear whichever words you use on that but yeah I there's 60 million people who are not going to be able to live with Flynn being railroaded like this just isn't going to happen so the Department of Justice just has to figure out what how to change their mind 60 million pissed-off people it's not going to be pretty alright so if the department justice wants to retain any sense of credibility rethink that Alright swearing is off for now the well maybe I should put it back on for this next topic apparently six suspected drug dealers accused of running a seven million dollar fentanyl distribution operation were released without bail under the new criminal justice law what what these

[32:16]

criminal justice law what what these people running a seven million dollars fentanyl distribution operation we're not talking about Street dealers they were major major fentanyl dealers released without bail are you happy with that well here's what I wonder would it be legal to build a private website private meaning privately built and funded not private from the public that listed the people who are known or and here's the controversial part suspected fentanyl dealers so that parents can just take a photo of their kids friends and run it through a system and say ah you're hanging around with a fentanyl dealer maybe you shouldn't hang around with that kid anymore
and of course your immediate reaction is my god people will it's like it's like

[33:17]

my god people will it's like it's like the what is that the shitty men's list somebody made a private list of the men who had me to people but unfortunately anybody could contribute to the list and so it appears that a number of innocent people were you know labeled as me tours when in fact they were not so that's how a gigantic risk wouldn't you say but I believe there's probably a way to do this and here the whole point of this is it looks like the government is helpless if the government is helpless to stop fentanyl wouldn't it help if you could tell every person who sold fentanyl when you saw socially it would be hard to it would be hard to operate in normal society if everywhere you went everybody knew you were a fentanyl dealer now is there a way that you can do this without labelling people I don't

[34:19]

do this without labelling people I don't know but I'll bet there is my my intuition says there's there's a way to do this that does let me give you an example this is just brainstorming I'm not going to say this is the idea but suppose anybody could contribute to the list but they had to provide their own identification and they had to provide a paragraph that says why they they know this to be true now perhaps you don't make that person who contributed to the list public unless there's a dispute if there's a dispute then the person so accused could you maybe hire a lawyer or something and then talk to the talk and at that point the person who made the claim could either remove the claim or make their name public just the lawyer and the person who's got the dispute so in that case you would always be able to face your accuser if you challenged it if you don't challenge it you just have to live with the fact that you're on a list of fentanyl dealers but if you challenge it

[35:20]

fentanyl dealers but if you challenge it there should be a process where at that point you know who your accuser is you know what the argument is the accuser can modify it or correct it or you can argue your case so there might be some way to to make it safe against people being you know put on their list all right so that's just something to think about I can't go so far as to say we should do it speaking of misunderstanding Elizabeth Warren came out with a plan on digital disinformation and the idea is she wants to make illegal some forms of all read the exact words and she says she wants the social media companies to address false posts don't know what that means having them label certain content don't know exactly what that means you know who gets the desired had a label stuff BAM accounts trying to interfere with elections how do you define that and

[36:21]

elections how do you define that and alert users who have interacted with content determined to be disinformation again who to gets to determine what's disinformation among other things she would also lead a charge to criminalize spreading spreading false information about voting in other words if you had a social media post that said hey everybody vote the day after election day and it was you know designed to keep people from voting she would make that illegal now that part may not be the worst idea in the world because it is direct election interfering the the part about if you're if you're telling people that Election Day is on the wrong day or that there's some process that makes it impossible to vote maybe that should be illegal I guess that argument but the other stuff I would have to I would have to hear a more detailed argument as to who it is who gets to decide what is disinformation it would be far better in my opinion if anything that was in this

[37:23]

my opinion if anything that was in this disinformation category if you could provide a link to the other argument so in other words I wouldn't be I wouldn't be too sad if every time there was a claim that somebody thought was false that instead of removing it or making it illegal or something that the social media company attached what they thought is the counter-argument that might be a little better than our current situation so I think Warren's got a big ask here in other words she's asking more than I think the nation could ever accept but there's something there there's a little bit something in there that's worth talking about I don't know if she's sussed that out well enough let's talk about the Middle East peace plan that the the major media seems to want to ignore I assume that they're ignoring it why because it's good for Trump I don't know exactly why but it is getting less

[38:23]

know exactly why but it is getting less attention than anything and there's there's something emerging about this peace plan that is really clever and and you're not going to see this coming here's my take on it it's not a peace plan everybody's going to call it a peace plan I think it's called you know officially it's probably called the peace plan of some kind but it's not its peace plan like its peace plan adjacent it's suggestive of a peace plan it's in some ways analogous to a peace plan but not completely here's what it really is it's a path it's a path that the Israelis and here's the fun part apparently in Israel both the you know both the the leading parties have agreed on this that's a gigantic thing to get all of the people in Israel at

[39:24]

to get all of the people in Israel at least the two major parties on the same side gigantic gigantic moved forward on just that part but it's better than that Saudi Arabia signed on a few other Arab countries have signed on Egypt says it's worth looking at so suddenly the Palestinian faction is sort of abandoned and surrounded meanwhile Israel can just go down their path without regard to whether the Palestinians like it this is what's different a normal piece planned both sides have to agree when it looks like right that's what a peace plan is you you agree I'll do this you do this we both agree what we're doing that's not this that's why it's not a peace plan the Israel is basically saying this is what we're going to do we don't control what you're gonna do we're just going to control what we do we are going to get on the same page as our whole

[40:26]

to get on the same page as our whole country the majority anyway and the same page with your neighbors the Arab countries who typically or I don't know if you want to call them Muslim countries or Arab countries in this case I think they're all the same in this one context because you know Iran bullet bomb anyway longer story so we have the situation where Israel can just march forward because they drew the boundaries in a way that it just captures the places that they already are all they have to do is start building some borders and Israel can say well we're done here's the fun part the Palestinians can complain forever and you know do some terrorist attacks and fire some rockets but they were going to do that anyway right if if the Palestinians decide to play along and agree to the plan nobody nobody thinks that's going to happen or if they don't

[41:26]

that's going to happen or if they don't which one would have more terrorists attacks against Israel probably the same probably exactly the same if if a boss Palestinian leader decided tomorrow to sign off on the deal he can't control everybody in this country you would still have the same amount of terrorist attacks which fortunately are not that terrible Israel's got a good good control on that with their wall at cetera so Israel has no downside risk in terms of terrorism make a deal don't make a deal it's probably going to look exactly the same in terms of terrorist attacks and then it puts the Palestinians in this weird isolated situation correct me if I'm wrong I need a fact check in this but has it the United States already withdrawn financial aid from the Palestinians that that's correct right who else gives the Palestinians financial aid oh I don't know this but I'm imagining other other

[42:29]

know this but I'm imagining other other countries in the region maybe Saudi Arabia right now if somebody said Iran I don't know exactly what kind of support Iran does if it's just supporting the terrorists stuff or if it's more but Iran is broke so you've got the United States isn't given the Palestinians money the Saudi Arabia and the others who say that the peace plan looks good now have a reason to stop funding the Palestinians if they were I don't know the exact situation there but I assume the Palestinians were getting help from a variety of places if they turn down the deal and other people say you know is you're never going to get a better deal than this so if you turn this down why the hell am I going to waste my money sending money to your your failed country you can't even help yourself so this situation we've never been in where the Palestinians have a choice and it has nothing to do with other people's choices this is the cool part if the Palestinians decide to not

[43:31]

part if the Palestinians decide to not try to become a recognized nation they can what will that change well it changes nothing in Israel they're just going to draw their borders and do everything that they were going to do anyway doesn't change what they're you know so-called allies and region would do the same thing so I think the only thing that the Palestinians have to decide is whether they want help and redevelopment and money from other countries or not do they want to be a nation building towards something good or not but Israel doesn't have to agree with what they do they don't even have to care so you you actually have a situation where the Palestinians have been isolated all their sport is either eroded to the point of trivial or gone and they can just live their own life and it can be a good one or a bad one and nobody cares you've never seen this before this is not a peace plan it's a path and

[44:33]

this is not a peace plan it's a path and we're already walking down it we don't have to wait for anybody I've never seen anything like this really it doesn't fit in any good category so I think that's also why people are going to have trouble understanding it it doesn't doesn't fit any other model I guess the borders our border people have found the longest border tunnel ever that they've discovered under the the border between Mexico and the United States and there's such a thing as a tunnel task force did you know that there's a tunnel task force and I guess they find tunnels and this one was really well built at ventilation and lighting electricity and it ran for long long stretch out in Ottawa but here's the question I asked myself why do you need a tunnel did you ever wonder that you know I know they use all kinds of different means to ship drugs in probably some by land and air and sea

[45:35]

probably some by land and air and sea and everything else but isn't a tunnel a pretty hard thing to do I know the cartels have lots of money and resources but it's kind of hard to build the tunnel with with all the resources that it requires and I thought to myself would you be building this tunnel if it were easy to just go across the border on land have we gotten to the point where it's just so hard to cross where there's a wall or maybe even where there is no wall that it's easier to build a tunnel why is it easier to build a tunnel that all of those other places the only thing I could take away from this is that we're getting a lot better with our border security now I know there have been tunnels for a long time but the fact that tunnels are needed at all suggests that that those other those other mechanisms for getting into the country have a higher risk so I imagined we're getting better at detecting

[46:35]

we're getting better at detecting tunnels there's got to be some technology for that all right see oh here's a here's a little persuasion lesson for you this comes courtesy of Mark Snyder our favorite our favorite nuclear energy advocates and he he had this realization which he tweeted about which I thought was amazingly clever and good persuasion and it goes like this I'll just I'll just read you his tweet it just occurred to me why nuclear waste leaks scare people the waste from weapons production was stored as a liquid alright so you see you get it right if you knew that nuclear waste was liquid that's pretty scary because do you think well if his liquid isn't gonna melt through the bottom or whatever you put it in if you wait long enough are you sure that thing is well sealed

[47:35]

are you sure that thing is well sealed can't that like would get out and then Mark points out and I didn't know this this was brand new information for me he says in his tweet inside the spent fuel containers at commercial sites you know the ones that are just producing electricity inside those fuel containers the spent fuel are solid fuel assemblies and they showed a picture of one they're actually like physical solid tubes and sort of a structure that holds them together and I thought if you see I I was gonna I didn't have time I was gonna print out a picture and show - yeah the rods physical rods and I thought that really changes how you see this if you said to somebody to control nuclear waste we've got to put these hard rods inside a container dozen isn't that a completely different mental model than any kind of a liquid waste it completely

[48:35]

any kind of a liquid waste it completely am i right it completely changes how you feel about the risk doesn't it let me test that on you if you knew that it was a solid doesn't that tell you well yeah we can definitely put a solid in a container and they'll probably stay there forever somebody says they already knew that well I didn't know it and let me point out what makes this so good so this is persuasion wise first of all it's visual visual persuasion always wins so so if I the way I'm telling you is not nearly as persuasive as if you saw the picture I'm merely describing you see it and you go oh that does look safe so it's visual it's simple you know weapons used to use nuclear waste would have nuclear waste commercial ones that ones we care about don't pretty simple and it's also a contrast play because

[49:38]

and it's also a contrast play because he's contrasting how safe these solid ones are with what you imagined was less safe than liquid version so you got contrast simplicity is visual and it reframes the argument perfect perfect perfect persuasion all right let's see what else we got I think we've hit all the big points I think that's all we got so watch today in delight and entertainment as people misinterpret Dershowitz and argue against their own hallucination it'll be fun I will talk to you later