Episode 834 Scott Adams: All The Loserthink Around Coronavirus

Date: 2020-02-28 | Duration: 55:28

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a The Adams Law of Slow Moving Disasters Trump administration’s coronavirus response Coronavirus Loserthink The right amount of panic Sanjay Gupta misinterprets President Trump

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:14]

um everybody come on in here did you miss me I hope so I'm back oh yeah you can't keep me away do you know how bad I had to feel yesterday in order to miss the simultaneous hip I'm far more addicted to it than you are but I'm back and today we're going to enjoy the best simultaneous sip of the entire epic epic epic EP och it's a word I don't know what it means exactly but I used it anyway yes let me explain so I've been battling a intestinal problem which for about one hour every day has been screaming in pain now if I'm screaming and pain at 4:00 a.m. I'm usually fine by the time

[1:14]

4:00 a.m. I'm usually fine by the time it's time for the simultaneous F but yesterday the timing was unfortunately bad and I was screaming in pain at exactly what I needed to be on periscope now I'm gonna be completely honest with you the thing that makes the pain go away is medical marijuana it works every time it works a hundred percent and it takes maybe half an hour to kick in so I've been staying as stoned as I can stay 23 hours a day the only time I'm not is if I go to sleep and it wears off and I wake up and screaming pain which is what happened yesterday I woke up a little too close to the to the periscope time and I didn't have time to medicate so if you're wondering Scott why does your energy seem a little different lately it's because I've been doing these periscopes pretty stoned now I let me say as

[2:18]

pretty stoned now I let me say as clearly as I can I've never recommended marijuana as a party drunk but as a medicinal option there are some things it does that just nothing else can do because do you know what the other drug I could be taking to avoid being in screaming pain 24 hours a day I think nothing to the best my knowledge is not even another thing so I'm just being honest but I think it's time for the simultaneous it because we've gone 2 days within it you need to cover a Margaret glass of tanker towels or sign in the canteen jug of flask a vessel of any kind filling with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine to the day the thing that makes everything better the simultaneous sip go anyways long version short I've got a I've got a plan for getting rid of whatever the

[3:20]

plan for getting rid of whatever the hell is wrong with me I think it's c-diff if you're a medical nerd that's what's going on but we'll take care of it alright let's talk about this corona virus because it's all we want to talk about it's all we want to talk about and one of the things that could happen but I'm not seeing it happen is is sometimes humanity needs a common enemy you need a common enemy and this corona virus is a weird one because it should be a common enemy and it should be teaching us hey everybody you better get along a little bit better because here's a good example of why you need to get along but it doesn't seem to be working that way so it looks like some kind of an exception to the common enemy driving us together it just doesn't seem to be now this the corona viruses could be a test kind of a stress

[4:23]

viruses could be a test kind of a stress test or an edge case for what I call the Adams law of slow-moving disasters now I've talked about this before another context and the idea is that when humans can see a disaster coming and we all know it's coming that we've got time to prepare we're usually fine because we're extraordinarily good at avoiding problems when we have enough time for example we've not run out of food even though our population grows we've not run out of fuel even though our population grows so so we're really good at it but do we have enough time with this coronavirus if if all of the resources and creativity and energy of human beings went into solving this which is I think what's happening right now you're seeing massive resources being concentrated do we have enough

[5:25]

being concentrated do we have enough time now it may depend on how we manage it how effective we are how good our leadership is but let me just throw out some thoughts the biggest thing that's killing people apparently is lack of ventilators because if you're older or compromised especially this current virus we'll get your lungs cause a pneumonia like the symptom and apparently the of the things we can actually do about it there actually isn't much you can do about it once somebody has the virus keep them comfortable keep hydrated but mostly if it's a real bad case you need a ventilator and there's not really anything else that makes much difference so here's the question how quickly could American engineers and manufacturers crank out ventilators in in a crisis situation you know we the United States

[6:26]

situation you know we the United States famously became a manufacturing giant because of World War two maybe World War one I don't know my history that well but the point is that when the country needs to all of its resources toward manufacturing there are many things we do better where we are like really really good at manufacturing gigantic quantities of stuff when needed we do it when you know when we can make money but we also do it for emergencies so here's a question I just asked on social media and I don't have an answer yet you've seen CPAP machines the things that people use for sleep apnea and snoring how different is that from a ventilator in both cases there's a basque like thing that goes over your at least your nose if not your mouth and your nose it forces air into your lungs

[7:26]

your nose it forces air into your lungs CPAP I think is less than a BiPAP I don't know my paps but apparently there's a slightly different machine in this closer to a ventilator but here's my point there probably are not that many hospital ventilators compared to how many we might need but I'll bet there are tons of CPAP machines and the question is in an emergency if you had to would a CPAP machine operate enough like a ventilator they could keep people alive it's not your first choice and you wouldn't want people on them 24 hours a day but would it work in the short run so it's a question so the question is this are they close enough that we could get a bunch of those going because there are quite a few of them you know that are already available in the country people are using them for sleep apnea but maybe for short periods of time a week somebody with sleep apnea would say

[8:29]

week somebody with sleep apnea would say you know I'll probably won't die of sleep apnea in a week you know it'll be uncomfortable but maybe the guy you know unless they borrow my machine now I don't think we're anywhere near the point where people are going to be loading their CPAP machine out because they might need it for themselves but the point is how hard would it be if we're already developing things CPAP machines to start cranking them out like crazy perhaps with some tweaks to make them more like by paps or more like ventilators or to get that done so it's an unknown but anytime you rule out human ingenuity in terms of manufacturing you're leaving on a really big variable and so it's entirely possible the two things could be true at the same time it could be true that the coronavirus is more lethal bias nature than maybe anything we've seen in this

[9:29]

than maybe anything we've seen in this class while at the same time if we do a better job of treating the worst cases it could also be the lowest death rate so you can't rule out that we could be so good at responding compared to the past that's the worst virus with the least amount of impact it's possible one of the things that President Trump is getting some heat on and indeed Rasmussen shows that his approval dipped pretty quickly because of this coronavirus stuff one of the things he's getting blamed for is his reaction to it the press conference is internal and I don't know I don't know if people who are typically supportive of the president are going to be siding with him as hard as you normally would you know if it were just a political event probably people just take sides and it doesn't matter what the facts are people

[10:31]

doesn't matter what the facts are people just take sides but in this case I think you're seeing a lot more Trump supporters saying you know I'm not completely happy with the way things are going but let's talk about that let's talk about how well the Trump administration is responding and and how the media is treating them for that the first thing I'd say is that if you are sure that the administration is responding poorly or if you're sure that they're responding acted excellently you're probably an idiot or you're either an idiot or you're lying right because the fact is we really can't tell the difference between a good job and a bad job unless it's so extreme that you know anybody anybody could tell but we're nowhere near anything like that we're somewhere in that bumbling middle range where were we're feeling our way

[11:32]

range where were we're feeling our way through it we're doing what we can we're working with limited resources collecting information we're definitely in the bumbling phase of the crisis now human history suggests that we can move very rapidly from bumbling to oh my god that was a good job it is what we do right it's you know you put humans in that situation day one bumbling day two we know why we bumbled day three oh my god you're doing a great job now and that was faster than we thought so we shouldn't make too much of how the first days go because they are likely to look bumbling how rapidly we adjust is going to be the entire game so how are we doing I don't think so here's here's the bottom line on the loser think of looking at the

[12:33]

on the loser think of looking at the administration's efforts so far you cannot compare what we've done we meaning the administration and the United States compared to what another president would have done because we don't have that test there's no other president doing the same job but you know different policies under the same situation you can't compare so there is no reasonable way to know if another president would have done a little bit better than Trump or a little bit worse really no way to tell one of the things that we could probably unless they have a good feel for but still wouldn't know for sure is that Trump by his nature is a little more likely to close a border then another president and there is some suggestion that the United States closing at least its travel from China it hasn't closed as much travel as it could still planes coming from Italy for example but but by acting fairly

[13:35]

example but but by acting fairly aggressively and and early there's some suggestion that the United States bought itself two or three weeks because there's some thinking that the virus is coming you just can't stop it but we may have pushed back you know the the big lump for a few weeks which gives you time to prepare so ask yourself would a president who was in favor of more open borders a president who is more concerned about how it would look race wise if the travel was closed would another president have closed the borders so quickly or closed traveling I guess so quickly and I think the answer is not a chance right I think the answer is not a chance so you don't know I mean maybe you throw a Bernie Sanders in there and he closes it on the first day maybe but it seems unlikely doesn't it because the anti-trump errs are all

[14:36]

because the anti-trump errs are all saying Chuck Schumer said he was being too hasty and it looked racist etc at the time so so if we're evaluating what Trump has done so far the first thing is did he act decisively and quickly even though public opinion wasn't with him yet the answer is yes now was it fast enough there's nothing that will happen from any country or any entity that will be fast enough I here's a rule they should remember forever if something is the right thing to do you can't do it too fast you know the from the moment that it could have been done is when it should have been done if you wanted the best result but we're human things take a while right there will never be a situation where even people who did the right stuff did as quickly as it could have been done not a thing so if you see somebody criticizing somebody for not doing

[15:36]

criticizing somebody for not doing something fast enough just know that that can be said for every situation could be true but it also could be true of every situation all right so here's here's what I think the president got most wrong and I think people were going to be criticizing him are gonna have some traction on this number one I've long been making the case that there's no such thing as a good president there is only a president who is well suited for the specific challenges of the time so in other words I believe if you were to take whoever you thought were your top 20 presidents if they had been presidents in different circumstances may not have been so good so you have to have the right person for the right challenges the best example is a wartime president might have different skill set

[16:36]

president might have different skill set than somebody presiding over a golden age with no no specific war threats this is all a long way of saying I think President Trump is the wrong personality for this specific problem that doesn't mean he'll do a bad job I'm just saying it's an extra challenge and here's why if you have an optimist president that is the greatest president you could have what he's trying to goose things that are already pretty good and I would say that the Obama economy was was solid by the time that chunk got it if you're trying to take something from solid to really good you want a president Trump I doubt anybody could ever be better at that particular skill it's a perfect fit of personality and circumstance you know things are good but watch how good they're gonna be well things are gonna be amazing it'll be the best it's ever been it's gonna be the lowest

[17:37]

been it's gonna be the lowest unemployment that's exactly the president you want in that situation but our situation suddenly changed now this situation is that the best thing that the country could do is to panic a little bit and what I mean by that is you want the citizens to take this really seriously you want them to do what needs to be done but you don't want them to over panic and you don't want them to sell off all their stocks before they show it in cetera so you've got this really fine line here too much optimism makes you look like you ran a touch and that's what the president did the president applied a little too much optimism because that's who he is you know it's hard to turn that off if that's your core personality is optimistic so given that Trump has two modes one he's trying to scare you about something that somebody else's problem let's say immigration or China or

[18:40]

let's say immigration or China or whatever and he's good at that you know if he wants you to wants to scare you he's good at that if he wants you to feel optimistic because things would go great he's good at that too what he's not good at apparently just based on what we've watched is hitting that fine middle ground where you say you know on a scale of one to ten let me tell you you need to take this as a ten of importance but at the same time we're gonna come out we'll come out of this okay that's a really hard message and I would say the president Trump's just not the ideal person before that message great on optimism great on scaring you but take it seriously as a heart attack but we'll be fine that's just not as we spot and I think we saw that next thing he did wrong was

[19:41]

even though I think logically the selection of pence to lead off the thing it might and I don't know this I'm just speculating it might be exactly the right thing functionally because if pence is a smart enough manager and there's every reason to believe he's smart enough what he's going to do is be the club I think a czar called him the club within the government but he's gonna let the experts do the expert stuff so he's already apparently there's some person with a medical background who was appointed to be sort of a bizarre below pence and of course he'll have access to all the resources of the government and he'll be able to be people up faster than some other job good you don't want an unknown leading an effort that's important because the unknown might not be able to pull all the levers and make the phone calls and get people to you know do things immediately but the Vice President of the United States under the direct under

[20:42]

the United States under the direct under the direct control of the president I think if the Vice President calls you under this circumstance you kind of do whatever he wants right because he's got the authority in the office and he's close enough to the president so so it could be that this is exactly the right move but it might not be and let me give you a couple of other possibilities the problem with pence is that the knock against him from the other team the Democrats is that these anti-science and you know the examples would be climate change and probably something in the lgbtq world but is pence going to be anti-science about a virus well probably not right do you think there's any chance that pence is going to overrule any scientific or tactical person who is

[21:42]

any scientific or tactical person who is working on this is he gonna say you know I hear all your science but I read in my Bible something different so I'm gonna overrule you no no that's not going to happen there's not even the slightest chance that's going to happen so I don't think there's any realistic risk that having a Mike Pence gives you any kind of anti science outcome I think the risk of that is exactly zero he is gonna listen to the experts I just I just feel like there's no there's no real risk there but it does look bad I gotta say if you're trying to make the country feel confident in your in your response does Mike Pence get you there let me throw out a second idea just for comparison this is not a suggestion it's something for comparison suppose the President had put the military in charge of the response you know whoever a General of some kind

[22:42]

know whoever a General of some kind would you feel more comfortable if the military were in charge of the coronavirus response or would you feel that it's scarier so I think you could go either way there I want to see in your comments if having the military in charge would you make you feel better or worse than having the civilian leader Mike Pence remember the the advantage of Mike Pence is not his expertise nor is he telling you it is the advantage of Mike Pence is that he's a heartbeat away from the presidency and you don't want to send your B team after the coronavirus right if Mike Pence says something has to be done under these conditions with the authority that you know he's getting from the executive office I think he's just a giant Club for getting stuff done and that might be exactly what we need

[23:45]

exactly what we need yeah so I'm so I'm looking at your responses and there seems to be a consensus that a military leadership would be scary that's my feeling - here's the counter-argument all right the counter-argument is it's going to get there no matter what meaning that if the if the emergency reaches a large enough critical level it might be that nobody but the military would have the capability of handling whatever falls out from that now I don't know that that's necessarily true but we could easily get there all right so is Mike Pence the right person probably the right person functionally probably not the right person from a messaging and making the the country feel comfortable so I think the administration needs to sell that a little bit better and that might be in

[24:45]

little bit better and that might be in the in the form of describing what Mike Pence is doing and not doing and I think the country needs to see Mike Pence say hey America I just want to be sure you understand that I Mike Pence will not be making medical decisions and I'll be as transparent as I can so you can know what I'm doing and not doing but mostly I'm making sure resources get to the right place I'm not going to be your expert and I'm not going to slow down the experts I'm going to accelerate them I'm throwing resources toward the experts so that's what I'm doing in my job if he explains it that way I think people are gonna say oh okay I get it you know you're not trying to be a scientist that would be a crazy idea you're trying to get them money basically get the money get them get them attention get them resources all right so you're seeing a bunch of criticisms from the usual suspects about

[25:45]

criticisms from the usual suspects about Trump's performance here and they're going for all these vague things such as well this president is you know degraded the credibility of the country just when credibility will be the thing we need and trust and you hear those arguments and you say to yourself yeah I mean I understand the sentences I get what you're saying I understand why do you even make sense but are we seeing the examples of that well what would be an example either in the past or even potentially in which the president's you know history of statements that the fact checkers don't like where his history of dealing with other countries or other people makes any difference what would be an easy all of that because I just don't see one especially in a crisis people get pretty serious in the crisis and I don't think

[26:47]

serious in the crisis and I don't think that people are gonna be stumbling over Trump's history of hyperbole I just don't see how it becomes a real problem
now will all of this affect the election is what you're asking me you have an S but I know you're thinking and the answer is yes if you ask me a couple days ago I would have said I don't know might affect the election it might it might run its course before then I would say at this point this is going to be a variable and this is one of the reasons that I always am so careful to say when I say that the president is heading for a landslide slaughter victory I'm always careful to say if everything stayed the same and it won't you know I always throw in in it won't the one thing you can be sure of is that there will be surprises between now and Election Day well this is a pretty big one I didn't see this one coming

[27:49]

one I didn't see this one coming so here's the here's one of the surprises Rasmussen is reporting that the president's approval went from 52 to 47 almost overnight directly after his response to the coronavirus so I believe the public has spoken and the public just said you know I don't think you hit a homerun here on this but the bad thing is all of the reporting the information is just so amazingly horrible amazingly horrible that it's hard to form a good opinion here let me ask you this if you believe that I tweeted this if you believe that the administration is not doing enough to be ready for or to combat the corona virus what specifically have they not done this should have been done that was also possible watch how many people have

[28:49]

possible watch how many people have really firm opinions the president has not done and is not doing the right stuff but then you say what would be an example of the right stuff well what it what is it that he hasn't done that he should do and you're gonna find people don't really know what should be done they don't know what he has done they don't know what he should do but they're pretty sure they have an opinion on it so because it's a big complicated and confusing situation and because the pundits will be spinning this in the most anti-trump way I think it's gonna leave mark now the way that this could turn positive for the president is that he said something pretty outrageous and this is hurting him too he's kind of acted like we're gonna be fine or that there's a good chance that we'll be fine whereas the experts are saying you know there's not even a chance we're gonna be fine the experts are pretty clear

[29:51]

fine the experts are pretty clear there's sort of nothing you can do this this virus is coming our way we're just gonna get it that's all there is to it now again what is it the president should have done that he hasn't done art do we not have enough money for something I've seen no report have you seen any report that something stopped or couldn't be done because we didn't have funding I'm not aware of any reporting like that so money-wise no are you aware of anybody who's who hasn't done the thing they were supposed to do maybe I don't know of anybody now so that's the unknown the other big unknown is the is the death rate now I talk all the time about the two movies on one screen and we've got another just perfect example of it whenever you have complicated situations that allows people to

[30:51]

situations that allows people to interpret them as entirely different movies and but the amazing thing is when people look at the same fact it's on video it's right there you can look at it and they still come away with different ideas about that one fact that we can both look at and replay it's on video you can see it as much as you want and still have a different opinion of what that fact was and that happened again on CNN so you probably have seen by now the clip of dr. Gupta asking a question of the press conference any and dr. Gupta's question was about the relative danger and lethality the death rate of the coronavirus versus the regular flu so here's what Gupta said and I'm gonna paraphrase a little bit to tell the story so Gupta says that the regular flu is have a mortality rate of 0.1 so 1/10 of 1% whereas and then he goes on to say

[31:53]

of 1% whereas and then he goes on to say that the coronavirus has something like a 2 to 3 percent which could be you know 2025 times worse than a regular flu President Trump says
it's higher than that so that's what President Trump said he said it's higher now Gupta goes and talks to I think was Anderson Cooper Cooper after and he's talking about the his question and the answer and this is what Gupta says happened and remember this is on video you can go watch it yourself what Gupta says happened is that the president said on live TV during that press conference that the regular flu had a higher death rate than the corona virus which of course is not only wrong it's wrong by a factor of 25 it would be exactly upside down so Gupta and CNN they're talking

[32:54]

down so Gupta and CNN they're talking about how dumb the president is that this most critical fact about the corona virus that he has upside down and he did it during a press conference about the corona virus at the very time you should be the best informed he was completely uninformed backwards except that didn't happen go watch the video the entire report about the president getting those two figures backwards didn't happen but Gupta goes on camera and he talks about it like it just happened like you just watched it so I had to go back and watch it what the hell am I seeing that's not even close to whatever Gupta just saw I mean he was there and I'm watching the video of the exact exchange and here's how I interpreted it Gupta said the Reg the the regular flu has a death rate of 0.1 and then he continues talking and he

[33:55]

0.1 and then he continues talking and he says coronavirus two to three percent the president says it's higher than that I interpreted it to say that the president was saying that the regular flu is worse than what Gupta is saying now I don't think it is but he's saying is it's worse than you're saying Gupta interpreted that as saying that a regular flu is worse than the corona virus which Trump didn't say that's just something they group to interpret it now I watched it I thought now I'm watching the same words at the same time that's not how I interpret it and the reason I don't interpret it that way is that it would be crazy now if Trump said that the regular flu is is worse than people said he's right or he's wrong but it's sort of immaterial it's not terribly important to the story but the way CNN interpreted it was that he had

[34:57]

way CNN interpreted it was that he had reversed something that's point one was something that's 2 to 3 25 times difference and that's a gigantic difference somebody in the comments somebody says I saw that and I was confused here's what CNN should have done they should have said his answer was ambiguous we'd better find out what he meant that would have been honest because I think they were sort of expecting the Trump to be so uninformed that they left to that conclusion and you know if that's true well I would be amazed now it's also reported and this part is just head shaking but maybe I'm just uninformed so fill in the blanks for me here it's reported also in CNN that the president was not aware that the regular flu just the normal annual flu in its different forms also kills tons of people and CNN is reporting that he

[35:59]

people and CNN is reporting that he learned that just before the press conference from some expert who told them that and I'm thinking to myself okay but where's the where's the evidence of that that's a pretty big claim saying that the president only just learned before his press conference on the corona virus that he had just learned minutes before that that the regular virus kills lots of people you'd better show me the quote you'd better show me more than one named source or I'm gonna say that didn't happen because it's a little bit mind Reedy isn't it do you exactly know what he was thinking here's what I do think is likely I do think is likely that before he went on he was being updated about how bad the regular flu is and I think most of us every time we find that even though we all know that lots of people die from

[37:00]

all know that lots of people die from the regular flu when you hear the actual numbers it's kinda shocking even if you know the general idea that the regular flu kills a lot of people I believe that he was reminded of those numbers before he talked and when Gupta said that the regular flu you know kills 0.1 president just having having just been briefed that the regular flu is bad stuff may have applied as usual hyperbole and said you know it's even worse than that so in other words it probably didn't happen the way CNN reported it so don't trust anything with the news tells you about any of this stuff now one of the questions I had was how do you calculate the death rate of a virus if you don't have the denominator in other words you know if you're doing a ratio of dead people to people who have the virus but did not die well you have the numerator because when people died you were a little bit better at counting back

[38:00]

little bit better at counting back because that's a discrete event and you can usually tell if it was the corona virus or not so the numerator dead people we probably know that but there is a strong suggestion that there might be a lot of asymptomatic people people who don't have any symptoms who might have the you know their carriers so until you know that do you know anything now people send me papers on Twitter that are brainy papers from PhDs that suggest their statistical ways that they can determine this for example in China they can you know take a group of several hundred people and they can just test them and then they can find out how many of them had it there would not have been discovered but really yeah a few hundred people that got tested in China number one do you believe their data no

[39:02]

number one do you believe their data no you shouldn't you shouldn't believe any data that comes out of China for that or really anything else and secondly what about the people who have mild symptoms who are hiding if you were Chinese and you had a sniffle would you tell anybody I don't think so I think you would just tell your family hey just you know just shove the food under the door for a couple weeks I'm gonna be hiding in this room over here don't tell anybody down here I can't believe for a second that we can get the denominator right so here's a possibility and one I think that Trump unwisely suggested is possible which is that we might be fine in other words it might not be worse than the regular flu when all is said and done for a few reasons one is we may be responding to this far more aggressively than regular flus that could make a difference just in survival rates but

[40:04]

difference just in survival rates but it's also possible that this is the most most viral flu we've ever had just see if you can follow along in this we haven't ruled out the possibility that it's the most viral virus we've ever had just people can get it really easily at the same time that maybe most of the people who get it don't have much in the way of symptoms or even notice it so we really don't know the denominator we've got smart people guessing that it's really high and scary I think we should act as though it's big and high and scary that's the smart thing to do you don't want to err in the wrong direction but Trump has opened up the possibility that maybe in the end this won't be worse in terms of death than the regular flu still would be terrible all right

[41:04]

what else we got going on here it's a it's kind of a frustrating crisis because there's not much you can do right and you can wash your hands but really you could put on a mask but apparently there's a disagreement about whether that makes any difference or makes things worse who knows so here's what Trump said about this quote it's going to disappear one day it's like a miracle it will disappear Trump said at the White House Thursday he also worried that things could get worse before it gets better but then he added it could maybe go away we'll see what happens nobody really knows now in terms of technical accuracy well I think he's accurate it is accurate to say that there are some unknowns here and we might be surprised how we've been surprised lots of times by things we thought would be worse than they were right it's it's fairly confident we thought that the oil spill

[42:05]

confident we thought that the oil spill in the Gulf would be way worse than it was we thought that the year 2000 bug be way worse than it was we thought climate change as bad as people think it will be for years people have been suggesting it would be way worse so the president you know if you're looking if you're a certain age and you've seen how many times things were predicted to be a crisis and then in the end and you know in hindsight you looked at and he said yeah I guess we did pretty good on that yeah we got out of that early as somebody saying in the comments I guess we did pretty good so I don't think the president is wrong that we could find out that we're better at handling this than current evidence would suggest but I do think he messaged it wrong the right sweet spot would have been a little less optimism because it looks makes it look a little out of it I think it would have been cleaner and odd message to say you know the experts say

[43:07]

message to say you know the experts say it's common but we're America we're gonna get through this and you know we might get lucky but you shouldn't plan on it you should plan you should plan for it to be a big event and you should prepare for it and we're going to get through this we are America and we'll do better than other countries and we'll help other countries if we can that's the sort of message I want to hear like but if I hear that the president's saying one day you might wake up and it's a miracle it will disappear then I think that's not really the leader messaging I want to hear so he needs to fix that I think let's say I understand that we still have travel coming in from Italy and they have some cases there I'd love to know what kind of thinking goes into when you close an airport yeah I get that we're trying to

[44:08]

airport yeah I get that we're trying to protect the economies and stuff but I know Italy maybe you want to think about clothes and stuff that the Swiss government has banned all large-scale events or a thousand people how soon before we do that I think we're gonna see our schools closed and large events all canceled is my guess I would be surprised if this spring we see a full slate of stadium sports and that sort of thing all right
you know one of the weirdest parts of this the whole coronavirus story is that there are four members of the Iran ruling regime who have confirmed rotavirus cases and of course the Ayatollah is up there at age 80 whatever and that's the dangerous zone so what

[45:11]

and that's the dangerous zone so what are the odds that the Ayatollah has not been infected by now if if four members of the regime who have met with him recently and that with people who have met with him what are the odds I would say the odds are pretty good that the ayatollahs got this already or will get it what are the odds that he would die well he's that age he would have the best health care but he's that age so there's something like a you know somebody calculated a nine percent I think can calculated this a nine percent chance that there will be a regime change in Iran just because of the virus you know you wouldn't bet on that but I think there's a solid sub ten percent chance that it could be a regime change event here's some good news the GOP Minority Leader McCarthy has

[46:13]

the GOP Minority Leader McCarthy has introduced some climate change I guess you call it a Republican response to climate change and what's different about it is that it acknowledges co2 as a problem and warming is a problem but it promotes gas natural gas and nuclear as two of the biggest pillars and I think that's what we've been waiting for because the president had been basically you know unarmed when it came to talking about climate change but this McCarthy thing gives him gives him a path that is completely compatible with all past statements because whether you believe that climate change is a big problem or not a problem you'd still want to sell as much natural gas as you could because it's better than the alternatives and we sell it the United States makes a lot of it and you'd still want to build nuclear as quickly as you can for a whole variety of reasons one of them is getting enough energy

[47:14]

of them is getting enough energy polluting less preparing for you know the the war in space where we want to we're going to have we're going to need a good nuclear scientific community from all that so anyway that's some good news but it's not getting much attention because as coronavirus has taken all the attention speaking of which Josh wholly senator from Missouri has some legislation that that will allow the United States to better diversify away from being have too much of our medical supplies in one place outside the country so the big problems that China makes a lot of her medicines and medical supplies and this Josh Hawley legislation proposed legislation who would make it easier to identify where our problems are so we could bring more manufacturing to safer places like the US and I think that's a great idea yeah

[48:18]

US and I think that's a great idea yeah you to say that would so this would be gigantic news except for the corona virus but apparently Syrian forces which probably means Russia in this case apparently they bombed and killed a few dozen Turks somewhere in Syria so turkey is responding by opening their border and letting refugees flow into Europe what so we have this weird NATO situation because on one hand we back our NATO allied turkey against Syria and probably Russian military action against them but wasn't an accident why did they do it we don't really know what's going on there because you know 30 people could have been one one missile one Bob that wouldn't went wrong so we don't know exactly what's going on but can we have a NATO ally who just opened its

[49:20]

have a NATO ally who just opened its border to pour a bunch of refugees into Europe what kind of a NATO ally is that that's not much of a NATO ally is it so we're watching that I guess the biggest news about that is that we don't care does the United States care if Syria and Turkey are killing each other I mean we wish nobody we're dying right but in terms of our national interest I just don't never know if we care now I would like to ask you this question for those of you who have been watching my periscopes when the first news broke of the corona virus in China some of you saw me give a rather expletive Laden periscope which I was calling for closing the airports and this is a question because I don't know the answer was I the first person that you heard

[50:23]

was I the first person that you heard say closed the airports because you know I like to do an audit of what I have tried to persuade and how it did and whether it's compatible with what actually happened you can't really tell if you've made a difference but you could tell if it's compatible with what happened and but in in the public realm was I the first person that most of you saw saying closed the effing airport and can we say at this point some people are saying no so I'd like if other people were saying it I would be interested that but my expletive Laden that periscopes became very viral and as you know a lot of people watch them who were part of the government and part of the media and I'm thinking I don't know if anybody went as strong as early as I did and I liked as I'd like to think it was

[51:23]

and I liked as I'd like to think it was helpful
so Talib said close it down but did he persuade as aggressively as I did so I'm saying other names people said to shut it down Steve Benton was first well I'd like to know who was who was early and persuasive than that I will I will not make the claim that I was first because that doesn't make any sense you know who knows who's thinking what to wear at what time but I'd like to think that I did something useful by getting in as fast as I could and being as let's say aggressive as I was about that point
persuasion check your biasing responses yeah I am we're also seeing way more decoupling talk than ever before I'm certainly one of the most active people talking about decoupling I would not be the strongest voice for that but

[52:24]

the strongest voice for that but certainly doing my part so it could be the Bandon was first some people are saying anyway it doesn't matter who was first but the people who were there early and were aggressive about it pat yourself on the back I think that the you know I was talking about this before that our form of government has transmogrified or evolved from being something like a republic to something more like a direct democracy where the influential people on social media are pushing the government so instead of instead of electing people and they go off and make decisions on your behalf the public is more directly pushing the politicians on the issues that we understand I think this is an example I would say that the public and primarily primarily social media I think that the persuasive people on social media probably saved the

[53:27]

on social media probably saved the United States two to three weeks to help us get prepared again I don't know if the preparation makes a difference but it probably does so I would say congratulations to anybody who was on social media who was part of really aggressively pushing the government to act quickly and decisively in a way that everybody knew would be politically unpopular everybody knew it would be politically unpopular but the President did it and he did it pretty quickly and I think he did it because of social media pressure and I think you got to Pat yourselves on the back alright because I mean but anybody who retweeted you know my curse ladened opinion or anybody who retweeted you abandon or anybody else who was saying the same thing Mike sort of itch jacked Bassam 'ok any of those people you all helped I mean you were you were directly part of

[54:29]

mean you were you were directly part of that solution so pat yourself on the back who knows how it all turned out but I feel as if reason one didn't it you know I feel like the system kind of proved itself pretty well there all right I think that's about all I got to talk about somebody said you were more aggressive but not necessarily the first I think that probably is the most accurate statement I believe I was the most aggressive of the people who were early but being early and not aggressive I don't know if that made a difference being early and being crazy about it gets more attention all right that's all I have to say for now I will talk to you later later