Episode 2872 CWSA 06/18/25

There you are.

Let's find out how stocks are doing.

Um S&P is up a little bit.

Tesla is up a little bit.

Yeah.

Little optimism this morning.

Let's make sure I got all my comments working and then we got a show for you.

All right.

Good morning everyone and welcome to the Coffee with Scott Adams show.

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Ah, delicious.

So, so good.

Well, what's happening?

Well, Honda, the automaker, um, has entered the reusable space rocket business.

And they actually uh demonstrated a rocket that went up and uh came back down and landed with no chopsticks whatsoever.

Which makes me wonder, is this better than the uh SpaceX?

Cuz SpaceX needed big chopsticks.

But the Honda rocket just went up and came back down and landed the way it was.

Could it be that there's yet another advancement in space?

Could be.

So, Honda Honda's pretty serious there.

Meanwhile, um, as you were expecting, uh, Trump has extended the Tik Tok ban for another 90 days, meaning the meaning they're delaying the ban for 90 days until they can find a buyer, which I think will not happen.

I've been predicting the the whole time that China will never agree.

China is not going to agree to sell Tik Tok.

So, either Tik Tok will go away, which Trump does not want, or he'll just keep extending it the whole time he's in office.

That's possible.

Um, apparently sometime today there will be a Fed interest rate decision.

Has that already happened?

Does anybody know when that happens?

But that'll move the market a little bit.

And of course, the markets are kind of uh sensitive to what's happening in Iran because that might affect the straight of horses and the oil production and all that stuff.

But so far, the world is not that jittery about oil, which is weird.

You would think they would be a little bit more uncertain, but uh there's a little bit of uncertainty in the oil prices, but not as much as you think.

Um so yesterday I mentioned that I saw a uh a drug test from Elon Musk, but I wasn't sure it was really his.

It really was his.

So uh he has confirmed that was his drug test.

It was all negative.

And he's challenged he's challenged his critics at the New York Times to take a drug test of their own, which I think is hilarious because what are the odds that the uh editors and reporters at the New York Times could all pass a drug test?

I don't know.

Kind of low.

So, apparently that was real.

Um, meanwhile, the feds have nabbed seven thieves who stole 100 million worth of gold, diamonds, and rubies and of a uh armored car.

So, imagine being one of those thieves and you got you got a $100 million worth of stuff and then you thought you got away with it, but you didn't spend any of it apparently and uh got caught eventually.

So, so tough break there.

That was uh they got caught three years after the heist.

I feel like you you can't get away with anything.

As if there's am I allowed to appoint myself head of the Fed?

I'll do much better job than Powell.

Oh, Trump is Trump wants to appoint himself the head of the Fed like like the king that he is.

Anyway, u Homeland Security Secretary Christy Gnome was taken to the hospital by ambulance yesterday because of a alleged allergic reaction to food, I think.

But she's alert and recovering.

Does alert sound good?

If if if your only problem was an allergic reaction, would they say you're alert or would they say, "Oh, you're fine.

You're recovering fine." Why?

Why do they have to throw in alert?

Cuz that makes me think she was not alert.

Like not completely alert or else why would you even mention it?

I don't know.

We'll talk about Brad in a minute.

Um, do you remember Senator Alex Padilla?

He's the one who, speaking of things that make Christy Dome sick.

Um, Alex Padilla, the senator, he's the one who got taken down by security because he was trying to ask a loud, obnoxious question at a Christine Gnome event.

And uh, so he got taken down and handcuffed and he was yelling, "But I'm a senator.

I'm a senator.

That didn't work.

So, if the uh authorities ever start handcuffing you, don't yell I'm a senator because that doesn't work.

I don't know why you can yell, but don't yell I'm a senator.

Doesn't work.

Anyway, um, Senator Padilla, uh, gave a speech at Congress on the Senate floor and he started crying.

Now, do you think he would have ever been elected if if the voters saw him crying over something like that?

Oh my god.

Yeah, don't cry on the Senate floor.

It's a bad look.

but he's uh one of the dramats and the dramcrats are looking for the the best photo op and the most uh tearful um reaction to the news.

So if you're a Republican and something bad happens to you, you say something bad happened.

I wish that bad thing had not happened.

We'll have to do something about that to stop the bad thing from happening.

But if you're a dramat you you start crying about, oh god, what about this?

What about the immigrants?

Oh god, whoa.

That's called drama.

Um, there's a story that seems mostly in the just the news outlet about China and the fake ballots.

Are you following that one?

Now, I'm waiting for other news sources to pick it up and validate it cuz I can't tell how big a deal this is.

But the uh the story is that uh Cash Patel found some documents in the FBI suggesting that the FBI had been alerted um from some source that China was in 2020 um trying to print a bunch of US election ballots to um throw the race to Joe Biden.

Now, that was about the time the Biden crime family was taking millions of dollars from China while while Joe Biden was vice president.

So, did China want Joe Biden to win?

Probably yes, because they they had a little bit of blackmail on them because of the uh payments.

uh but that doesn't mean that China was necessarily involved in this plot.

So the story is that um there was an indication that China because they had a source um was going to do this and then the FBI decided that their source was not credible enough and so they withdrew their warning.

So they had sent out some kind of notice and they said oh get rid of that uh never mind and the reason given was that the source was not confirmed.

So they didn't they weren't weren't confident that they had the story right.

But separately time goes by and the US uh customs border and protection uh captured about 20,000 fake driver's licenses uh mostly from Hong Kong and China in July of 2020 and they were allegedly on their way to battleground states in the Midwest.

Now the uh the uh driver's licenses the fake ones could have been used to give fake ballots which could have been used to rig an election but we don't quite have you know all those dots connected.

So, I would say there's an allegation that China might have been involved in creating or wanting to create some fake ballots, but we don't quite have all those dots connected.

Um, but it looks it looks pretty bad.

And then part of the story is why did the FBI claim they had the story and then take it back?

But that part is hard to judge because I doubt it's that unusual for something like the FBI to say, "Well, we think we've got some information you should know about." And then they look into it a little bit more and find out maybe that source isn't the best one, so we'll withdraw that.

So, some of it looks like business as usual, but it's a provocative story.

So, we don't know how much of this is real or if it affected the election, but it's a quite a story.

Um, meanwhile, as you could imagine, Israel is uh striking Thran again from the air and they're going after Iranian regime military targets in Thran.

But coincidentally, some of those targets happen to be in the same part of the city that allegedly the Supreme Leader is hiding.

Now, I don't know if he's, you know, really hiding or where he is or anything else, but uh allegedly right after uh Kab or Ham, however you say it, their supreme leader, after he appeared on live TV, um the Israeli Jets uh struck that very area that he was in, not the building, but the area.

Um so, the same neighborhood.

So, were they sending him a message?

Maybe.

Maybe.

So, it looks like uh maybe we maybe the Israelis know where he is at all times, but uh maybe we just say we know where he is so he'll move.

Did do you ever think about that?

When Trump said, "We know where you are." You know, he said in a truth social thing, they knew where Kmeni was, or at least Israel did.

What if they didn't?

If they didn't know where he was, but Trump said they did, what would they have to do?

They'd have to move him.

Because even if they didn't believe it, they'd still have to move him.

and then maybe they could detect the movement.

So, it could be a trick.

I'm just speculating.

Uh it could be that they didn't know where he was, but if they say they know where he he is, maybe he'll act differently, but also maybe it'll create some action that they can track and then they can find him.

So, that might be coming.

Meanwhile, um there's a worry that Iran will try to block the straits of Hormuz where a lot of the world's oil goes through.

But uh I was looking at the amuse account on X and he says that China buys about6 of all the seaborn crude from Iran and Grock back that up about 16.

And uh China is responsible for nearly all of Iran's um oil exports.

They buy about 90% of it.

So what would happen to China if uh Iran closes the straits of Hormuz?

And the answer is even if uh Iran wanted to punish the western world, it doesn't look like they could do it with the Straits of Hormuz unless they punish their biggest supporter, which would be China.

So, do you think do you think Iran would uh take out one well take out that much oil from China by closing the straits of Hormuz?

Because once they close it, I don't know how long it would ever take to open it up again.

So, I'm uh I'm curious whether Iran will go after the Straits of Hormuz because I feel like I feel like China would be, you know, tapping them on the shoulder and saying, you know, that would be the one thing maybe you shouldn't go after because that would hurt us pretty directly.

Anyway, um I guess there are a couple of oil tankers that are on fire in the straight, but only because they they crashed into each other.

I don't know how that happens.

How does an oil tanker crash into another oil tanker?

Like, you couldn't see that coming.

There's a reason.

Anyway, let's see what uh Trump has been saying about Iran.

Um, apparently the reporting is that Trump is considering quote a range of options.

So that feels like news.

He's considering a range of options, but it's not really news because that's what everybody does all the time.

You wake up in the morning and you consider a range of options.

It doesn't mean anything, but it sounds like news.

Trump has also signaled on uh social media that uh he wants from Iran unconditional surrender.

Now, is that the way you you talk about Iran?

Um do do you think that gets them to the negotiating table?

If you say unconditional surrender, that feels like exactly the opposite of what you would say if you wanted to talk.

That's pretty much the end of talking.

So, what did the Supreme Leader say about that?

Well, and also that Trump said that we know where the Supreme Leader is and we don't plan to kill him.

Quote, "At least for now." Imagine being the supreme leader of Iran and the people who have taken out all of your generals basically they they found a way to get to all the generals and they say well we're not going to kill you at least not for now.

How would you ever sleep because you would expect this to happen at any moment then anyway?

So uh you would not be surprised that the supreme leader of Iran says that Iran won't surrender.

So apparently no unconditional surrender is uh imminent.

And he says that any US military intervention will bring irreparable consequences.

Irreparable I say.

And uh he says the Iranian uh nation is not one to surrender.

Which I believe I told you.

And uh he he says about Trump's uh comments, he goes, "Those who are wise never speak to this nation in the language of threats." And I think that's right in the sense that if you ever wanted to make a deal with Iran, you would never talk to them with words like unconditional surrender.

You know, you'd say stuff like, "Well, we just have this one problem with the nuclear program and maybe some of your ballistic missiles, so let's talk about that." But if you say unconditional surrender, you're sort of signaling that you're not going to talk.

And Iran is signaling back that they're not going to talk either.

So I wouldn't expect any kind of, you know, peace deal, ceasefire breakthrough.

That's not happening.

And uh Iran says that US involvement will lead to allout war, whatever that means.

So, our cyber experts are worried that Iran might try a cyber attack on the US.

And the question that I have about that is if it were so easy to do a cyber attack on the US, wouldn't we see a lot more of it?

I feel like maybe it's sort of hard to attack the US infrastructure.

You know, maybe China has some we we hear that China has penetrated basically everything, but as Iran and would China help them and say, "Here, here's the keys to the car.

Go take down the grid." I don't know.

I think I think China will will do what China normally does, which is try to stay out of it.

That That's the way I'd play it.

Just stay out of it.

Meanwhile, um, the Hindustan Times, I saw this in a Mario Mario post.

Uh, the Hindustan Times is speculating who might take over if the Supreme Leader were to, let's say, have an accident.

If something happened to him, who would take over?

And they they always show pictures of the top people who might take over looking exactly like the guy they would take over for.

Like they have the same beard, they got the same outfit on, they they're wearing the same wire rim glasses.

I feel like if you if you took out the Supreme Leader, they would replace the Supreme Leader with another Supreme Leader that was so similar to the one that you just had that you wouldn't even know the difference.

Like you you could go down like five deep into, you know, who's who's next in line and the fifth person would just look like the person who just left and all the people above them.

just a gray bearded guy with the same kind of hat and uh the same kind of look and the same attitude and would say all the same things.

So if you think that taking out the top uh domestic leader would get you a good result, I don't think there's any evidence of that.

It just looks like you would get a a younger, matter, more angry, you know, terrorist.

It just seems like it would get worse.

So, I can see why Trump would not want to be rushing to take out the top guy.

Meanwhile, uh both sides are talking about the uh military action like it's a movie sequel.

They're they're using movie sequel language like uh and I've never seen so much marketing talk about a war.

Um so the Israelis are saying that very soon like maybe today or tomorrow we're going to see an operation from Assad that makes the uh the pager deal they did with Hezbollah look like child's play.

So, do you believe that?

Do you believe that in the next 24 hours, uh, MSAD will have done some gigantic, you know, effective attack that nobody saw coming and it's more impressive than the pagers blowing up on Ezah?

Well, maybe, maybe not.

Maybe it's just to scare the Iran Iranians.

And uh meanwhile, the Iranians say um oh, so what what Mossad said is quote, "When the dust settles, you're going to see some surprises on Thursday night and Friday that will make the beeper operation almost seem simple." And then Iran says that uh Israel is going to have a quote great surprise that the world will remember for centuries.

Really?

Is there really going to be a great surprise that the world will remember for centuries?

And will the Mossad really have a a new op that's even better than the pagers?

I don't know.

Sounds a little bit marketing like well the uh ongoing conversation about Tulsi Gabbard and Trump is uh continuing u that's what makes it ongoing.

Um but uh Tulsi Gabbard had apparently said not too long ago that uh that the intelligence community believed that uh Iran was not intending to build a nuclear weapon anytime soon.

But Trump had been saying that their capability was that they could have it very soon.

And so the news said, "Hey, you guys are disagreeing.

It looks like we found some disagreements in the administration that we'll talk about, but I don't think they were exactly talking about the same thing.

So my take is that uh Tulsi Gabbard was talking about their decision um that they had not decided to go nuclear and which might be true might not be true but it was about the decision whereas Trump's comment was about their ability.

So I think Tulsi Gabbard would agree that they have the ability to build a nuclear weapon you know maybe within a year months or something but that uh that when they did their original analysis they didn't see the intention.

Now, I'm not sure if he can measure intention.

So, it does make sense that you would worry a little bit more about their ability, you know, do they have the ability to do it?

And so, I think Trump is a little bit closer on what matters, you know, which is the ability because you, you know, if you're if you're depending on their intention, they could change their intention any minute.

And we also don't know what's happening inside that Fordau underground facility.

How would we know what their intention was?

And even if their intention was to not build a bomb, is it possible that their intention is to go right up to the line where they could build one any minute now?

Because that would look a lot like intending to build it, but not tactically.

So, I think uh I think Trump's on more solid ground by just talking about, you know, whether they could or not.

Uh meanwhile, we're looking at the uh range of options that the US might be involved in.

And at the top of the list is the use of these bunker buster bombs that they say only the US can deliver with their special bombers.

And uh they're called mops or massive ordinance penetrators.

Now, I've never heard of any weapon that sounded more sexual than that.

Hey, hey, baby, you want to see my massive ordinance penetrator?

So, but that's neither here nor there.

Um, but I saw today some experts saying that it might take half a dozen of those uh, MOPs, those massive ordinance penetrators, um, for each of the facilities.

Now, allegedly the US has about 20 of them and then there's one expert and who knows how many, you know, who knows if the experts really know.

But what if it took half a dozen for each of the underground facilities?

I think there are two that they're worrying about especially might be more.

Um, you know what I hear when somebody says it might take me six of these bombs.

What do you hear?

What I hear is it might not work.

Is that what you hear?

Because if it takes six for each of those facilities, that's a whole lot that's a whole lot like they don't know if it'll work.

They don't know if it'll take 20.

They don't know if it'll take a 100.

They don't know if it'll take one.

Six.

If they'd said, uh, had they said it might take two, then I would think, oh, they know what they're talking about.

that, you know, one will almost certainly get it done, but you might need that second one.

But when they say it might take six for each of the each of those uh underground facilities, what I hear is we don't know if this will work.

So, is it possible that the worst case scenario is that you destroy the front door of the underground facility, but you don't destroy anything that's under there and then whenever you're done, um, Iran just digs out the front door and then they go right back to work.

How would we know exactly if we had collapsed the underground facility?

Would we know?

We could tell what the bomb damage was on the top of the ground, but how would you really know if it got this stuff underground, especially after dropping six of those, you know, mother of all bombs on it?

I don't know.

So suddenly my confidence that all you need is the US to say yes and those facilities will go away.

I'm not so sure.

I I feel like the the US involvement would be maybe, you know, maybe we could destroy them, maybe we couldn't.

So might be worse if we try and fail.

Um cuz that would also tell them exactly how deep they have to build it next time.

If we if we use up six bombs and four now is still operational, then we're going to have to really rethink things.

I think that's possible.

Well, Israel says they've destroyed 40% of uh Iran's missile launchers.

And that might be true because um the number of missiles that Iran has launched toward Israel has gone down each night.

And I guess last night there were only 30 if I have that right.

So they went from a few hundred to 100 to 30.

That would sort of suggest that Iran is running out of usable um good missiles.

So, they started with what were estimated as 2,000 ballistic missiles and allegedly they fired around 400 so far.

But you wonder why they're not firing the rest of them?

Are they saving them?

Is it because they're going to save them for one one big hit somewhere?

or have their rocket launchers been so degraded that they don't even want to load one on a rocket launcher because it means the rocket launcher will disappear.

So, we don't know what they're thinking, but uh it does look like their capabilities have been degraded, but they might have plenty left.

According to the Wall Street Journal, uh, Israel is running low on their defensive um, arrow interceptors.

That would be a certain kind of missile that intercepts the incoming missiles from Iran.

So, you might have Iran is running out of offensive missiles while well, maybe Israel is running out of defensive missiles, but you really can't tell in either case because it's the fog of war.

So, we don't know what's real and what isn't.

Well, Tucker Carlson had a tense conversation with Ted Cruz on Tucker's podcast.

And I guess Ted Cruz is in the camp of uh wanting the US to be to be militarily involved with the attack on Iran.

And uh Tucker is very much against that.

So Tucker got a real good gotcha on Ted Cruz when he asked him, "Does he know the population of Iran?" And Ted Cruz said he did not.

And then Tucker mocked him mercilessly for wanting to bomb a country and not knowing anything about it.

The answer is 92 million people.

So Iran is a big ass country.

So, it's about a third the size of the United States, which is really big.

And uh then Tucker asked him if he knew how many ethnicities are in Iran.

And I think the right answer is there around a dozen major ones and probably infinite smaller varieties.

But, uh, Ted Cruz did not know the answer to either of those questions, but also didn't seem to think it was terribly important.

And I'm not sure he's wrong because if I said to you, um, Iran has 50 million people or I said to you they have 150 million people, would you have a different idea of what to do?

I mean, in both cases, you would still, if you were Ted Cruz, in both cases, no matter what that population center was, you'd still say, you know, should we take out the underground facilities?

So, I'm a little bit on Ted Cruz's side that he really didn't need to know the details because if you know that there are two or three underground nuclear sites and you know the history of Iran and Israel and you know you know what the current military situation is, do you really need to know that the best estimate is they have 92 million people?

It'd be better if he did, but does it make that much difference?

I'm gonna say it was a really good gotcha.

So, it was, you know, it embarrassed Ted Cruz, but I don't think it made that much difference.

I I feel like he knew enough to be part of the conversation.

Meanwhile, the news loves reporting on whether the Trump allies are splintered.

So, it looks like uh Charlie Kirk and JD Vance are on the side of uh Trump has earned the freedom and flexibility to make the decisions and uh that we would trust whatever Trump does to be America first.

That's not a bad opinion.

Um but uh Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and some other notable people comic Dave Smith um are very much uh you know don't get militarily involved.

Now I criticize them not because I disagree but because I think their opinions are incomplete.

They need to tell us what they think it would look like if we allowed the nuclear facilities to remain and didn't get involved.

Now, I don't have an opinion.

I'm just observing and predicting, but I I do note that the people who pretend they do have an opinion, they're incomplete.

you you need to say, "I I want to walk away and not be involved, and I want Iran to reconstitute its nuclear um capabilities while they're way more mad at us than they were before." If if that's your opinion, then you should proudly put it out there.

But it's not really enough just to say we've been wrong every time we tried to do um your regime change or nation building because this is a little bit less than that.

It's very specific to get rid of the nuclear and the the missile programs.

So I don't know if that's enough difference.

I do respect those opinions by the way.

I do respect the opinion that says every time we've tried to do this has been a disaster.

That's not crazy.

It It's hard for me to think of a counter example where we got all involved militarily in the Middle East and everything worked out great.

Does that ever happen?

It feels like it's just this sticky, horrible situation that no matter what you do is bad, so you might as well not do anything.

So, I get it.

I understand their point.

Meanwhile, um a bipartisan group is trying to limit Trump's ability to make war.

Uh so, Thomas Massie said this is not a war and uh reminds us that the Constitution um doesn't make it does not make it a Trump one-man show.

And Tim Kaine, Democrat, is on the same team that he wants to he wants Congress to decide who if we go to war.

And Lindsey Graham is on the other side um saying that we should be flying with Israel if necessary.

In other words, if Iran doesn't give us us, it doesn't give Israel and the US everything we want, um, he thinks we should go in hard militarily.

Who's right?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm not smart enough to know who's right because it depends a lot on the implementation.

If it were true that one bunker buster a piece would solve the whole uh you know nuclear program question if that were true that would be reasonable argument that you should go ahead and do it.

But as soon as you say we might need six a piece it just doesn't sound doable to me even with our technology.

So in that case, um it's hard to know which what would work out.

Um meanwhile, Iran is uh asking its people to delete the Whats.

App app from their devices because I'm sure the Iranians are at this point wondering um how is Israel finding us so easily and killing all our generals?

Is it because they're trying to communicate on Whats.

App?

Well, do you believe that the US andor Israel is reading Whats.

App messages um out of Iran?

Do you think that's happening?

Here's what says.

This is from the corporate Whats.

App.

Quote, we and now listen to how specific this is.

So my question would be, are they denying that the US andor Israel have a back door?

Are they denying?

All right.

Uh Whats.

App says we do not track your precise location.

We don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging and we do not track the personal messages people are sending one another.

and we do not provide bulk information to any government.

Does that seem to you like being a little bit too specific about what they don't do?

And was there anywhere in that where it said we don't provide a backdoor to the United States um CIA, which of course the United States would require, right?

Is there any chance that the CIA doesn't have a backdoor to all of the messaging platforms?

Is there really any chance of that?

I would say no.

But I look at Whats.

App's denial.

And now you know what you're looking for.

So they're not denying that there's a back door.

Here's what they're denying.

We don't track your precise location.

May be true.

But do they track anybody else's precise location?

I believe they don't track mine, but they're not interested.

Does that mean they couldn't if they wanted to?

I don't know.

It's kind of specific.

We don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging.

Well, we're not asking about everyone.

We're asking if there's a back door that allows them to look at the things that they know they want to look at.

That's not everyone's that's not a log of what everyone is messaging.

Um, we do not track the personal messages people are sending one another.

We don't track them.

But do they read them?

What does it mean to not track them?

And we do we do not provide bulk information to any government.

Well, it's not really about bulk information.

It's about knowing if these specific generals are in a specific place.

So, I'm going to say that their uh denial is a little bit too specific.

So, the Iranians probably have a a good argument for getting rid of that app.

Well, who knows how many other apps on their phone are tracking them.

So, it might be one of several apps that's tracking them.

What are they going to you do?

Use Telegram or something?

All right.

Um, in other news, the big thing that the Iranian military stuff uh has done is it makes us forget about Gaza.

Do you remember when Gaza was, you know, all we talked about?

And then time went by and we talked less about Gaza and there I don't think there's that much um news and a Gaza.

Well, there's probably news, but I don't think the news organizations have that much access to Gaza.

Probably less than they've had.

But there is some Reuters report that uh Israeli tanks killed 59 people in Gaza crowd trying to get food and aid.

Does that sound real?

Do you do you believe that Israel Israeli tanks killed 59 people in Gaza who are just trying to get food aid and food and aid?

Does that sound real?

I don't know.

I I don't trust it.

But uh my larger point is that Gaza is now in the back burner which probably works to uh Israel's benefit.

So they can do what they want with less criticism.

Uh according to the Hill uh Democrats have a little bit of optimism for the first time lately because their no kings uh event was so successful.

Now, is that as funny to you as it is to me?

The the no kings event was literally trying to stop an imaginary thing from happening, which is Trump becoming a king.

It's literally imaginary.

It's It's not like he's ignoring the courts if the courts say you can't do that or, you know, I mean, he he's as aggressive as he could possibly be.

But uh as Trump has said, it's so hard to get anything done.

It's hard to imagine him as a king.

But uh that's enough to make the Democrats feel positive.

They got that no kings thing working.

That's all they got.

Well, also according to Reuters, um Trump has uh now increased the number of active duty troops on the US Mexico border from 2500 to 80,000.

And the the new thing that um the Trump administration is doing at the border is they've got these military zones.

So they have designated that this little sliver of land when you first come over our border are actually military zones and that allows the military to arrest people um and detain them that not not arrest them forever but detain them for the border patrol.

So apparently that's working.

So that was pretty clever.

Another thing that Biden didn't think of on the uh subject of the big beautiful bill according to the Hill u looks like there might be a little trouble because the the House you know pass their version but then the Senate gets to mark it up and make their changes before they send it back to the House.

And uh apparently the Republicans are not in agreement on how much to cut Medicaid.

And I feel underinformed on this topic because the Democrats have been saying, "You Republicans are going to cut Medicaid." And then the Republicans would say, "No, we're not.

Trump doesn't want to do that." And then I read the news that the Senate is trying to cut Medicaid.

And uh apparently that's what the current version of the bill does.

It cuts Medicaid like quite a bit.

So my question would be what exactly are they cutting?

Does that mean that somebody who should be covered is not covered or is it just um what does it do?

Is it just paying the medical professionals less?

Is it just saying that uh if you're not a citizen you can't get covered?

We're we're missing the main part of the story.

The the story just says they're going to cut Medicaid.

Does that really tell you anything?

Don't Don't you kind of need to know who are they cutting and why?

Are they cutting everybody 5%.

So, you know, the hospital has to take less money or are they saying you people can't be on it and you're citizens?

I don't know.

So that's a big question.

Well, according to Reclaim the Net, um the Xplatform is suing New York because New York wants to uh force some kind of moderation disclosure.

So, they want the XC corporation and presumably other platforms to uh define how they moderate politically sensitive content such as hate speech, misinformation, and extremism.

Now, you might say to yourself, why does X care so much about these labeled categories?

And the answer is that it would give New York state some uh control over how X categorize things.

So basically it would be a like a clever way to uh censor X um content without doing it directly.

So X is taking them to court over in LA.

Um, there's a report from Fox News that over a 100 LA looters ransacked an auto zone.

And uh, what they what the story says is they wonder if it's a street takeover.

Street takeover.

Is that a thing?

So, so now there's such a thing as a street takeover, which is so well understood that you can just mention it in a news story without defining it.

Because I don't know exactly what a street takeover is, but I'm assuming it's a mob that's so big that they can kind of take over the street and loot it.

Is that what it is?

Because as soon as something like that has a name where you can say, "Oh, it looks like looks like we're planning a street takeover on Thursday." Well, you're going to get a lot more of it if it has a name.

So, that's bad.

Um, Craft Hind says it's going to remove the artificial dyes from its US products by the end of 2027, according to CBS News.

And uh my question would be this.

Are the artificial dyes the things that make the craftiness pro uh products unhealthy?

Isn't it the food itself?

Now I I suppose it depends which food you're talking about.

But is craft hinds notable for creating healthy food and the only problem was uh a couple of food dyes are banned?

I feel like they're getting away easy if all they do is get rid of the food coloring, but it's better than nothing.

So get rid of that food coloring.

It apparently it only applies to 10% of their products.

Um, Microsoft and OpenAI according to Futurism are having a little uh problem negotiating and you can understand why because OpenAI and Microsoft have this really sort of complicated relationship and they're trying to trying to adjust it and you know both companies have you know massive interests because the money is the the dollar amounts are so big.

But the one thing that stood out as one of their disagreements is um apparently Microsoft signed a deal with open AI that if open AI ever achieved uh artificial general intelligence, AGI, that would be the better kind of AI than the kind we have right now.

We have these large language models, but they hallucinate and they they don't reason so well.

But if it gets to the point where it can do the theoretical higher level of thinking, uh that would end the agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI.

Now, can you believe that Microsoft signed that deal?

So, that's their current deal.

And knowing that Open AI and all the other AI companies are are running as fast as they can to get to AGI, why would Microsoft ever sign a deal that says if they get to the really valuable part of AI that that's when the the deal falls apart and it and it just disappears.

No wonder they want to renegotiate that.

That just looks like a a contract error.

And you know, in my opinion, unless Microsoft believed that nobody could ever get to that point, but they wouldn't be asking to renegotiate it if they didn't think OpenAI could get there.

So that might be the biggest mistake I've ever seen in a contract to to say that it would be the contract would end if they reached this higher level of AI.

Why in the world?

Why would they agree to that?

It's crazy.

According to uh Zero Hedge, there's a uh survey that says uh by Public Square and Red Balloon that only 13% of California small businesses say they're happy with their current location.

13%.

So, how bad is my state?

It's so bad.

um that it's 40% lower than the national average.

So, a lot of lot of small businesses wish they were somewhere else, but not as bad as California.

Um but they also have no ability to relocate because it' be too expensive and blah blah blah.

So, in California, 67% of small businesses say they're either planning a move or considering one, or they feel stuck and want to move, but they can't afford it.

Oh my god, California is just garbage at the moment.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for today.

Um, I have to run and do something.

So, normally I say some words to the locals people afterwards, but if you don't mind uh today I have to run.

And um thanks for joining and I will see you uh tomorrow, same time, same place and we'll work out all this Iran Israel stuff.

So, look out.

According to the marketing, there's going to be big surprises coming today and tomorrow and maybe Friday night.

big big surprises.

So, you got that to look forward to.

All right, everybody.

Say so long.

See you later.

There you are.

Let's find out how stocks are doing. Um

S&P is up a little bit.

Tesla is up a little bit.

Yeah. Little optimism this morning.

Let's make sure I got all my comments

working

and then we got a show for you.

All right.

Good morning everyone and welcome to the

Coffee with Scott Adams show. And if

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All you need for that is a cup or a mug

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Ah, delicious.

So, so good. Well, what's happening?

Well, Honda,

the automaker,

um, has entered the reusable space

rocket business. And they actually uh

demonstrated a rocket that went up and

uh came back down and landed with no

chopsticks whatsoever.

Which makes me wonder, is this better

than the uh SpaceX?

Cuz SpaceX needed big chopsticks.

But the Honda rocket just went up and

came back down and landed the way it

was. Could it be that there's yet

another advancement in space? Could be.

So, Honda Honda's pretty serious there.

Meanwhile, um, as you were expecting,

uh, Trump has extended the Tik Tok ban

for another 90 days, meaning the

meaning they're delaying the ban for 90

days until they can find a buyer, which

I think will not happen.

I've been predicting the the whole time

that China will never agree.

China is not going to agree to sell Tik

Tok. So, either Tik Tok will go away,

which Trump does not want, or he'll just

keep extending it the whole time he's in

office. That's possible. Um, apparently

sometime today there will be a Fed

interest rate decision. Has that already

happened? Does anybody know when that

happens? But that'll move the market a

little bit. And of course, the markets

are kind of uh sensitive to what's

happening in Iran because that might

affect the straight of horses and the

oil production and all that stuff.

But so far, the world is not that

jittery about oil, which is weird. You

would think they would be a little bit

more uncertain,

but uh there's a little bit of

uncertainty in the oil prices, but not

as much as you think.

Um so yesterday I mentioned that I saw a

uh a drug test from Elon Musk, but I

wasn't sure it was really his. It really

was his. So uh he has confirmed that was

his drug test. It was all negative.

And he's challenged he's challenged his

critics at the New York Times to take a

drug test of their own,

which I think is hilarious because what

are the odds that the uh editors and

reporters at the New York Times could

all pass a drug test?

I don't know. Kind of low. So,

apparently that was real.

Um, meanwhile, the feds have nabbed

seven thieves who stole 100 million

worth of gold, diamonds, and rubies and

of a uh armored car.

So, imagine being one of those thieves

and you got you got a $100 million worth

of stuff

and then you thought you got away with

it, but you didn't spend any of it

apparently and uh got caught eventually.

So,

so tough break there.

That was uh they got caught three years

after the heist. I feel like you you

can't get away with anything.

As if there's am I allowed to appoint

myself head of the Fed? I'll do much

better job than Powell. Oh, Trump is

Trump wants to appoint himself the head

of the Fed

like like the king that he is.

Anyway,

u Homeland Security Secretary Christy

Gnome was taken to the hospital by

ambulance yesterday because of a alleged

allergic reaction

to food, I think. But she's alert and

recovering. Does alert sound good?

If if if your only problem was an

allergic reaction, would they say you're

alert or would they say, "Oh, you're

fine. You're recovering fine." Why? Why

do they have to throw in alert?

Cuz that makes me think she was not

alert.

Like not completely alert or else why

would you even mention it? I don't know.

We'll talk about Brad in a minute. Um,

do you remember Senator Alex Padilla?

He's the one who, speaking of things

that make Christy Dome sick. Um, Alex

Padilla, the senator, he's the one who

got taken down by security because he

was trying to ask a loud, obnoxious

question at a Christine Gnome event. And

uh, so he got taken down and handcuffed

and he was yelling, "But I'm a senator.

I'm a senator. That didn't work. So, if

the uh authorities ever start

handcuffing you, don't yell I'm a

senator because that doesn't work.

I don't know why you can yell, but don't

yell I'm a senator. Doesn't work.

Anyway,

um, Senator Padilla, uh, gave a speech

at Congress on the Senate floor and he

started crying.

Now, do you think he would have ever

been elected if if the voters saw him

crying over something like that? Oh my

god.

Yeah, don't cry on the Senate floor.

It's a bad look. but he's uh one of the

dramats and the dramcrats are looking

for the the best photo op and the most

uh tearful

um reaction to the news. So if you're a

Republican

and something bad happens to you, you

say something bad happened. I wish that

bad thing had not happened. We'll have

to do something about that to stop the

bad thing from happening. But if you're

a dramat

you you start crying about, oh god, what

about this? What about the immigrants?

Oh god, whoa.

That's called drama.

Um, there's a story that

seems mostly in the just the news outlet

about China and the fake ballots. Are

you following that one? Now, I'm waiting

for other news sources to pick it up and

validate it cuz I can't tell how big a

deal this is. But the uh the story is

that uh Cash Patel found some documents

in the FBI suggesting that the FBI had

been alerted um from some source that

China was in 2020 um trying to print a

bunch of US election ballots to

um throw the race to Joe Biden. Now,

that was about the time the Biden crime

family was taking millions of dollars

from China while while Joe Biden was

vice president.

So, did China want Joe Biden to win?

Probably yes, because they they had a

little bit of blackmail on them because

of the uh payments.

uh but that doesn't mean that China was

necessarily involved in this plot. So

the story is that um there was an

indication that China because they had a

source um was going to do this and then

the FBI decided that their source was

not credible enough and so they withdrew

their warning. So they had sent out some

kind of notice and they said oh get rid

of that uh never mind

and the reason given was that the source

was not confirmed. So they didn't they

weren't weren't confident that they had

the story right. But separately time

goes by and the US uh customs border and

protection uh captured about 20,000 fake

driver's licenses

uh mostly from Hong Kong and China in

July of 2020

and they were allegedly on their way to

battleground states in the Midwest.

Now the uh the uh driver's licenses the

fake ones could have been used to give

fake ballots which could have been used

to rig an election but we don't quite

have you know all those dots connected.

So, I would say there's an allegation

that China might have been involved in

creating or wanting to create some fake

ballots, but we don't quite have all

those dots connected. Um,

but it looks it looks pretty bad. And

then part of the story is why did the

FBI claim they had the story and then

take it back?

But that part is hard to judge because I

doubt it's that unusual

for something like the FBI to say,

"Well, we think we've got some

information you should know about." And

then they look into it a little bit more

and find out maybe that source isn't the

best one, so we'll withdraw that. So,

some of it looks like business as usual,

but it's a provocative story. So, we

don't know how much of this is real or

if it affected the election, but it's a

quite a story.

Um, meanwhile, as you could imagine,

Israel is uh striking Thran again from

the air and they're going after Iranian

regime military targets in Thran. But

coincidentally,

some of those targets happen to be in

the same part of the city that allegedly

the Supreme Leader is hiding.

Now, I don't know if he's, you know,

really hiding or where he is or anything

else, but uh allegedly right after uh

Kab or Ham, however you say it, their

supreme leader, after he appeared on

live TV, um the Israeli Jets uh struck

that very area that he was in, not the

building, but the area.

Um so, the same neighborhood. So, were

they sending him a message?

Maybe. Maybe.

So, it looks like uh maybe we maybe the

Israelis know where he is at all times,

but uh maybe we just say we know where

he is so he'll move.

Did do you ever think about that? When

Trump said, "We know where you are." You

know, he said in a truth social thing,

they knew where Kmeni was, or at least

Israel did.

What if they didn't?

If they didn't know where he was, but

Trump said they did, what would they

have to do?

They'd have to move him. Because even if

they didn't believe it, they'd still

have to move him. and then maybe they

could detect the movement. So, it could

be a trick. I'm just speculating. Uh it

could be that they didn't know where he

was, but if they say they know where he

he is, maybe he'll act differently, but

also maybe it'll create some action that

they can track and then they can find

him. So, that might be coming.

Meanwhile,

um

there's a worry that Iran will try to

block the straits of Hormuz where a lot

of the world's oil goes through. But uh

I was looking at the amuse account on X

and he says that China buys about6

of all the seaborn crude from Iran

and Grock back that up about 16. And uh

China is responsible for nearly all of

Iran's um oil exports. They buy about

90% of it.

So what would happen to China if uh Iran

closes the straits of Hormuz? And the

answer is

even if uh Iran wanted to punish the

western world, it doesn't look like they

could do it with the Straits of Hormuz

unless they punish their biggest

supporter, which would be China.

So, do you think do you think Iran would

uh take out one well take out that much

oil from China

by closing the straits of Hormuz?

Because once they close it, I don't know

how long it would ever take to open it

up again. So, I'm uh I'm curious whether

Iran will go after the Straits of Hormuz

because I feel like I feel like China

would be, you know, tapping them on the

shoulder and saying, you know,

that would be the one thing maybe you

shouldn't go after because that would

hurt us pretty directly.

Anyway, um I guess there are a couple of

oil tankers that are on fire in the

straight, but only because they they

crashed into each other. I don't know

how that happens. How does an oil tanker

crash into another oil tanker? Like, you

couldn't see that coming.

There's a reason. Anyway, let's see what

uh Trump has been saying about Iran.

Um, apparently the reporting is that

Trump is considering quote a range of

options.

So that feels like news. He's

considering a range of options, but it's

not really news because that's what

everybody does all the time. You wake up

in the morning and you consider a range

of options. It doesn't mean anything,

but it sounds like news.

Trump has also signaled on uh social

media that uh he wants from Iran

unconditional surrender.

Now, is that the way

you you talk about Iran?

Um do do you think that gets them to the

negotiating table? If you say

unconditional surrender, that feels like

exactly the opposite of what you would

say if you wanted to talk.

That's pretty much the end of talking.

So, what did the Supreme Leader say

about that? Well, and also that Trump

said that we know where the Supreme

Leader is and we don't plan to kill him.

Quote, "At least for now."

Imagine being the supreme leader of Iran

and the people who have taken out all of

your generals basically they they found

a way to get to all the generals and

they say well we're not going to kill

you at least not for now.

How would you ever sleep because you

would expect this to happen at any

moment then

anyway? So uh you would not be surprised

that the supreme leader of Iran says

that Iran won't surrender.

So apparently no unconditional surrender

is uh imminent. And he says that any US

military intervention will bring

irreparable consequences.

Irreparable I say.

And uh he says the Iranian uh nation is

not one to surrender. Which I believe I

told you.

And uh he he says about Trump's uh

comments, he goes, "Those who are wise

never speak to this nation in the

language of threats."

And I think that's right in the sense

that if you ever wanted to make a deal

with Iran, you would never talk to them

with words like unconditional surrender.

You know, you'd say stuff like, "Well,

we just have this one problem with the

nuclear program and maybe some of your

ballistic missiles, so let's talk about

that."

But if you say unconditional surrender,

you're sort of signaling that you're not

going to talk. And Iran is signaling

back that they're not going to talk

either. So I wouldn't expect any kind

of, you know, peace deal, ceasefire

breakthrough. That's not happening.

And uh Iran says that US involvement

will lead to allout war,

whatever that means. So, our cyber

experts are worried that Iran might try

a cyber attack on the US. And the

question that I have about that is if it

were so easy to do a cyber attack on the

US, wouldn't we see a lot more of it? I

feel like maybe it's sort of hard to

attack the US infrastructure. You know,

maybe China has some

we we hear that China has penetrated

basically everything, but as Iran and

would China help them and say, "Here,

here's the keys to the car. Go take down

the grid." I don't know. I think I think

China will will do what China normally

does, which is try to stay out of it.

That That's the way I'd play it. Just

stay out of it.

Meanwhile, um, the Hindustan Times, I

saw this in a Mario Mario post. Uh, the

Hindustan Times is speculating who might

take over if the Supreme Leader were to,

let's say, have an accident.

If something happened to him, who would

take over? And they they always show

pictures of the top people who might

take over looking exactly like the guy

they would take over for. Like they have

the same beard, they got the same outfit

on, they they're wearing the same wire

rim glasses.

I feel like if you if you took out the

Supreme Leader, they would replace the

Supreme Leader with another Supreme

Leader that was so similar to the one

that you just had that you wouldn't even

know the difference. Like you you could

go down like five deep into, you know,

who's who's next in line and the fifth

person would just look like the person

who just left and all the people above

them. just a gray bearded guy with the

same kind of hat and uh the same kind of

look and the same attitude and would say

all the same things. So if you think

that taking out the top uh domestic

leader would get you a good result, I

don't think there's any evidence of

that. It just looks like you would get a

a younger, matter, more angry,

you know, terrorist.

It just seems like it would get worse.

So, I can see why Trump would not want

to be rushing to take out the top guy.

Meanwhile, uh both sides are talking

about the uh military action like it's a

movie sequel.

They're they're using movie sequel

language like uh and I've never seen so

much marketing talk about a war. Um so

the Israelis are saying that very soon

like maybe today or tomorrow we're going

to see an operation from Assad that

makes the uh the pager deal they did

with Hezbollah look like child's play.

So, do you believe that? Do you believe

that in the next 24 hours, uh, MSAD will

have done some gigantic,

you know, effective attack that nobody

saw coming and it's more impressive than

the pagers blowing up on Ezah?

Well, maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's just

to scare the Iran Iranians.

And uh meanwhile, the Iranians say um

oh, so what what Mossad said is quote,

"When the dust settles, you're going to

see some surprises on Thursday night and

Friday that will make the beeper

operation almost seem simple." And then

Iran says that uh Israel is going to

have a quote great surprise that the

world will remember for centuries.

Really?

Is there really going to be a great

surprise that the world will remember

for centuries? And will the Mossad

really have a a new op that's even

better than the pagers?

I don't know. Sounds a little bit

marketing like

well the uh ongoing conversation about

Tulsi Gabbard and Trump is uh continuing

u that's what makes it ongoing. Um but

uh Tulsi Gabbard had apparently said not

too long ago that uh that the

intelligence community believed that uh

Iran was not intending to build a

nuclear weapon anytime soon. But Trump

had been saying that their capability

was that they could have it very soon.

And so the news said, "Hey, you guys are

disagreeing. It looks like we found some

disagreements in the administration that

we'll talk about,

but I don't think they were exactly

talking about the same thing. So my take

is that uh Tulsi Gabbard was talking

about their decision

um that they had not decided to go

nuclear

and which might be true might not be

true but it was about the decision

whereas Trump's comment was about their

ability.

So I think Tulsi Gabbard would agree

that they have the ability

to build a nuclear weapon you know maybe

within a year months or something but

that uh that when they did their

original analysis they didn't see the

intention.

Now, I'm not sure if he can measure

intention.

So, it does make sense that you would

worry a little bit more about their

ability, you know, do they have the

ability to do it? And so, I think Trump

is a little bit closer on what matters,

you know, which is the ability because

you, you know, if you're if you're

depending on their intention, they could

change their intention any minute. And

we also don't know what's happening

inside that Fordau underground facility.

How would we know what their intention

was?

And even if their intention was to not

build a bomb, is it possible that their

intention is to go right up to the line

where they could build one any minute

now? Because that would look a lot like

intending to build it, but not

tactically.

So, I think uh I think Trump's on more

solid ground by just talking about, you

know, whether they could or not.

Uh meanwhile, we're looking at the uh

range of options that the US might be

involved in.

And at the top of the list is the use of

these bunker buster bombs that they say

only the US can deliver with their

special bombers. And uh they're called

mops or massive ordinance penetrators.

Now, I've never heard of any weapon that

sounded more sexual than that. Hey, hey,

baby, you want to see my massive

ordinance penetrator?

So, but that's neither here nor there.

Um, but I saw today some experts saying

that it might take half a dozen of those

uh, MOPs, those massive ordinance

penetrators,

um, for each of the facilities.

Now, allegedly the US has about 20 of

them

and then there's one expert and who

knows how many, you know, who knows if

the experts really know. But what if it

took half a dozen

for each of the underground facilities?

I think there are two that they're

worrying about especially might be more.

Um, you know what I hear when somebody

says it might take me six of these

bombs.

What do you hear? What I hear is it

might not work.

Is that what you hear?

Because if it takes six for each of

those facilities,

that's a whole lot that's a whole lot

like they don't know if it'll work. They

don't know if it'll take 20. They don't

know if it'll take a 100. They don't

know if it'll take one.

Six. If they'd said, uh, had they said

it might take two,

then I would think, oh, they know what

they're talking about. that, you know,

one will almost certainly get it done,

but you might need that second one. But

when they say it might take six for each

of the each of those uh underground

facilities, what I hear is we don't know

if this will work.

So, is it possible

that the worst case scenario is that you

destroy the front door of the

underground facility, but you don't

destroy anything that's under there and

then whenever you're done, um, Iran just

digs out the front door and then they go

right back to work. How would we know

exactly if we had collapsed the

underground facility? Would we know? We

could tell what the bomb damage was on

the top of the ground,

but how would you really know if it got

this stuff underground,

especially after dropping six of those,

you know, mother of all bombs on it? I

don't know. So suddenly my confidence

that all you need is the US to say yes

and those facilities will go away. I'm

not so sure. I I feel like the the US

involvement would be maybe, you know,

maybe we could destroy them, maybe we

couldn't.

So might be worse if we try and fail.

Um cuz that would also tell them exactly

how deep they have to build it next

time.

If we if we use up six bombs and four

now is still operational,

then we're going to have to really

rethink things. I think that's possible.

Well, Israel says they've destroyed 40%

of uh Iran's missile launchers. And that

might be true because um the number of

missiles that Iran has launched toward

Israel has gone down each night. And I

guess last night there were only 30 if I

have that right. So they went from a few

hundred to 100 to 30. That would sort of

suggest that Iran is running out of

usable

um good missiles. So, they started with

what were estimated as 2,000 ballistic

missiles and allegedly they fired around

400 so far. But you wonder why they're

not firing the rest of them?

Are they saving them? Is it because

they're going to save them for one one

big hit somewhere? or

have their rocket launchers been so

degraded that they don't even want to

load one on a rocket launcher because it

means the rocket launcher will

disappear.

So, we don't know what they're thinking,

but uh it does look like their

capabilities have been degraded,

but they might have plenty left.

According to the Wall Street Journal,

uh, Israel is running low on their

defensive

um, arrow interceptors. That would be a

certain kind of missile that intercepts

the incoming missiles from Iran. So, you

might have Iran is running out of

offensive missiles while well, maybe

Israel is running out of defensive

missiles, but you really can't tell in

either case because it's the fog of war.

So, we don't know what's real and what

isn't.

Well, Tucker Carlson had a tense

conversation with Ted Cruz on Tucker's

podcast.

And I guess Ted Cruz is in the camp of

uh

wanting the US to be to be militarily

involved with the attack on Iran. And uh

Tucker is very much against that. So

Tucker got a real good gotcha on Ted

Cruz

when he asked him, "Does he know the

population of Iran?" And Ted Cruz said

he did not.

And then Tucker mocked him mercilessly

for wanting to bomb a country and not

knowing anything about it. The answer is

92 million people.

So Iran is a big ass country. So, it's

about a third the size of the United

States, which is really big. And uh then

Tucker asked him if he knew how many

ethnicities

are in Iran. And I think the right

answer is there around a dozen major

ones

and probably infinite smaller varieties.

But, uh, Ted Cruz did not know the

answer to either of those questions, but

also didn't seem to think it was

terribly important. And I'm not sure

he's wrong because if I said to you, um,

Iran has 50 million people or I said to

you they have 150 million people, would

you have a different idea of what to do?

I mean, in both cases, you would still,

if you were Ted Cruz, in both cases, no

matter what that population center was,

you'd still say, you know, should we

take out the underground facilities?

So, I'm a little bit on Ted Cruz's side

that he really didn't need to know the

details because if you know that there

are two or three underground nuclear

sites and you know the history of Iran

and Israel and you know you know what

the current military situation is, do

you really need to know that the best

estimate is they have 92 million people?

It'd be better if he did, but does it

make that much difference?

I'm gonna say it was a really good

gotcha. So, it was, you know, it

embarrassed Ted Cruz, but I don't think

it made that much difference. I I feel

like he knew enough to be part of the

conversation.

Meanwhile, the news loves reporting on

whether the Trump allies are splintered.

So, it looks like uh Charlie Kirk and JD

Vance are on the side of uh Trump has

earned the freedom and flexibility to

make the decisions and uh that we would

trust whatever Trump does to be America

first.

That's not a bad opinion. Um but uh

Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and some

other notable people comic Dave Smith um

are very much uh you know don't get

militarily involved. Now I criticize

them not because I disagree but because

I think their opinions are incomplete.

They need to tell us what they think it

would look like if we allowed the

nuclear facilities to remain and didn't

get involved. Now, I don't have an

opinion. I'm just observing and

predicting,

but I I do note that the people who

pretend they do have an opinion, they're

incomplete.

you you need to say, "I I want to walk

away and not be involved, and I want

Iran to reconstitute its nuclear

um capabilities while they're way more

mad at us than they were before."

If if that's your opinion,

then you should proudly put it out

there. But it's not really enough just

to say we've been wrong every time we

tried to do um your regime change or

nation building because this is a little

bit less than that. It's very specific

to get rid of the nuclear and the the

missile programs.

So I don't know if that's enough

difference. I do respect those opinions

by the way.

I do respect the opinion that says every

time we've tried to do this has been a

disaster.

That's not crazy.

It It's hard for me to think of a

counter example where we got all

involved militarily in the Middle East

and everything worked out great.

Does that ever happen? It feels like

it's just this sticky, horrible

situation that no matter what you do is

bad, so you might as well not do

anything. So, I get it. I understand

their point.

Meanwhile,

um a bipartisan group is trying to limit

Trump's ability to make war. Uh so,

Thomas Massie said this is not a war and

uh reminds us that the Constitution

um doesn't make it does not make it a

Trump one-man show. And Tim Kaine,

Democrat, is on the same team that he

wants to he wants Congress to decide who

if we go to war. And Lindsey Graham is

on the other side um saying that we

should be flying with Israel if

necessary. In other words, if Iran

doesn't give us us, it doesn't give

Israel and the US everything we want,

um, he thinks we should go in hard

militarily.

Who's right? I don't know. I don't know.

I'm not smart enough to know who's right

because it depends a lot on the

implementation.

If it were true

that one bunker buster a piece would

solve the whole uh you know nuclear

program question if that were true that

would be reasonable argument that you

should go ahead and do it. But as soon

as you say we might need six a piece it

just doesn't sound doable to me even

with our technology. So in that case,

um it's hard to know which what would

work out. Um meanwhile, Iran is uh

asking its people to delete the WhatsApp

app from their devices because I'm sure

the Iranians are at this point wondering

um how is Israel finding us so easily

and killing all our generals? Is it

because they're trying to communicate on

WhatsApp?

Well,

do you believe that the US andor Israel

is reading WhatsApp messages

um out of Iran?

Do you think that's happening? Here's

what says. This is from the corporate

WhatsApp. Quote, we and now listen to

how specific this is. So my question

would be, are they denying that the US

andor Israel have a back door? Are they

denying? All right. Uh WhatsApp says we

do not track your precise location. We

don't keep logs of who everyone is

messaging and we do not track the

personal messages people are sending one

another.

and we do not provide bulk information

to any government.

Does that seem to you like being a

little bit too specific about what they

don't do?

And was there anywhere in that where it

said we don't provide a backdoor to the

United States um CIA, which of course

the United States would require, right?

Is there any chance that the CIA doesn't

have a backdoor to all of the messaging

platforms?

Is there really any chance of that?

I would say no. But I look at WhatsApp's

denial.

And now you know what you're looking

for. So they're not denying that there's

a back door.

Here's what they're denying. We don't

track your precise location.

May be true.

But do they track anybody else's precise

location?

I believe they don't track mine, but

they're not interested. Does that mean

they couldn't if they wanted to?

I don't know. It's kind of specific. We

don't keep logs of who everyone is

messaging. Well, we're not asking about

everyone.

We're asking if there's a back door that

allows them to look at the things that

they know they want to look at. That's

not everyone's

that's not a log of what everyone is

messaging.

Um, we do not track the personal

messages people are sending one another.

We don't track them.

But do they read them? What does it mean

to not track them?

And we do we do not provide bulk

information to any government. Well,

it's not really about bulk information.

It's about knowing if these specific

generals are in a specific place.

So, I'm going to say that their uh

denial is a little bit too specific.

So, the Iranians probably have a a good

argument for getting rid of that app.

Well, who knows how many other apps on

their phone are tracking them. So, it

might be one of several apps that's

tracking them. What are they going to

you do? Use Telegram or something?

All right. Um, in other news, the big

thing that the Iranian military stuff uh

has done is it makes us forget about

Gaza.

Do you remember when Gaza was, you know,

all we talked about?

And then time went by and we talked less

about Gaza and there I don't think

there's that much um news and a Gaza.

Well, there's probably news, but I don't

think the news organizations have that

much access to Gaza. Probably less than

they've had. But there is some Reuters

report that uh Israeli tanks killed 59

people in Gaza crowd trying to get food

and aid. Does that sound real?

Do you do you believe that Israel

Israeli tanks killed 59 people in Gaza

who are just trying to get food aid and

food and aid? Does that sound real? I

don't know. I I don't trust it.

But uh my larger point is that Gaza is

now in the back burner which probably

works to uh Israel's benefit. So they

can do what they want with less

criticism.

Uh according to the Hill

uh Democrats have a little bit of

optimism for the first time lately

because their no kings uh event was so

successful.

Now, is that as funny to you as it is to

me? The the no kings event was literally

trying to stop an imaginary thing from

happening, which is Trump becoming a

king.

It's literally imaginary. It's It's not

like he's ignoring the courts if the

courts say you can't do that or, you

know, I mean, he he's as aggressive as

he could possibly be.

But uh as Trump has said, it's so hard

to get anything done. It's hard to

imagine him as a king. But uh that's

enough to make the Democrats feel

positive. They got that no kings thing

working. That's all they got.

Well, also according to Reuters, um

Trump has uh now increased the number of

active duty troops on the US Mexico

border from 2500 to 80,000. And the the

new thing that um the Trump

administration is doing at the border is

they've got these military zones. So

they have designated that this little

sliver of land when you first come over

our border are actually military zones

and that allows the military to arrest

people um and detain them that not not

arrest them forever but detain them for

the border patrol. So apparently that's

working. So that was pretty clever.

Another thing that Biden didn't think of

on the uh subject of the big beautiful

bill

according to the Hill u looks like there

might be a little trouble because the

the House you know pass their version

but then the Senate gets to mark it up

and make their changes before they send

it back to the House. And uh apparently

the Republicans are not in agreement on

how much to cut Medicaid.

And I feel underinformed on this topic

because the Democrats have been saying,

"You Republicans are going to cut

Medicaid." And then the Republicans

would say, "No, we're not. Trump doesn't

want to do that." And then I read the

news that the Senate is trying to cut

Medicaid.

And uh apparently that's what the

current version of the bill does. It

cuts Medicaid like quite a bit.

So my question would be what exactly are

they cutting? Does that mean that

somebody who should be covered is not

covered or is it just um what does it

do? Is it just paying the medical

professionals less? Is it just saying

that uh if you're not a citizen you

can't get covered?

We're we're missing the main part of the

story. The the story just says they're

going to cut Medicaid. Does that really

tell you anything?

Don't Don't you kind of need to know who

are they cutting and why? Are they

cutting everybody 5%.

So, you know, the hospital has to take

less money or are they saying you people

can't be on it and you're citizens? I

don't know. So that's a big question.

Well, according to Reclaim the Net, um

the Xplatform is suing New York because

New York wants to uh force some kind of

moderation disclosure.

So, they want the XC corporation and

presumably other platforms to uh define

how they moderate politically sensitive

content such as hate speech,

misinformation, and extremism.

Now, you might say to yourself, why does

X care so much about these labeled

categories? And the answer is that it

would give New York state some uh

control

over how X categorize things. So

basically it would be a like a clever

way to

uh censor X

um content without doing it directly.

So X is taking them to court

over in LA. Um, there's a report from

Fox News that over a 100 LA looters

ransacked an auto zone.

And uh, what they what the story says is

they wonder if it's a street takeover.

Street takeover.

Is that a thing? So, so now there's such

a thing as a street takeover,

which is so well understood that you can

just mention it in a news story without

defining it. Because I don't know

exactly what a street takeover is, but

I'm assuming it's a mob that's so big

that they can kind of take over the

street and loot it. Is that what it is?

Because as soon as something like that

has a name where you can say, "Oh, it

looks like looks like we're planning a

street takeover on Thursday." Well,

you're going to get a lot more of it if

it has a name.

So, that's bad.

Um, Craft Hind

says it's going to remove the artificial

dyes from its US products by the end of

2027, according to CBS News. And uh my

question would be this.

Are the artificial dyes the things that

make the craftiness pro uh products

unhealthy?

Isn't it the food itself?

Now I I suppose it depends which food

you're talking about. But is craft hinds

notable for creating healthy food and

the only problem was uh a couple of food

dyes are banned?

I feel like they're getting away easy if

all they do is get rid of the food

coloring,

but it's better than nothing.

So get rid of that food coloring. It

apparently it only applies to 10% of

their products.

Um, Microsoft and OpenAI according to

Futurism are having a little uh problem

negotiating

and you can understand why because

OpenAI and Microsoft have this really

sort of complicated relationship and

they're trying to trying to adjust it

and you know both companies have you

know massive interests because the money

is the the dollar amounts are so big.

But the one thing that stood out as one

of their disagreements

is um apparently Microsoft signed a deal

with open AI

that if open AI ever achieved uh

artificial general intelligence, AGI,

that would be the better kind of AI than

the kind we have right now. We have

these large language models, but they

hallucinate and they they don't reason

so well. But if it gets to the point

where it can do the theoretical higher

level of thinking, uh that would end the

agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI.

Now, can you believe that Microsoft

signed that deal? So, that's their

current deal.

And knowing that Open AI and all the

other AI companies are are running as

fast as they can to get to AGI,

why would Microsoft ever sign a deal

that says if they get to the really

valuable part of AI that that's when the

the deal falls apart and it and it just

disappears.

No wonder they want to renegotiate that.

That just looks like a a contract error.

And you know, in my opinion, unless

Microsoft believed that nobody could

ever get to that point, but they

wouldn't be asking to renegotiate it if

they didn't think OpenAI could get

there.

So that might be the biggest mistake

I've ever seen in a contract to to say

that it would be the contract would end

if they reached this higher level of AI.

Why in the world? Why would they agree

to that? It's crazy.

According to uh Zero Hedge, there's a uh

survey that says uh by Public Square and

Red Balloon that only 13% of California

small businesses say they're happy with

their current location. 13%.

So, how bad is my state? It's so bad.

um that it's 40% lower than the national

average. So, a lot of lot of small

businesses wish they were somewhere

else, but not as bad as California.

Um

but they also have no ability to

relocate because it' be too expensive

and blah blah blah. So, in California,

67% of small businesses say they're

either planning a move or considering

one, or they feel stuck and want to

move, but they can't afford it.

Oh my god,

California is just garbage at the

moment. All right, ladies and gentlemen,

that's all I have for today. Um, I have

to run and do something. So, normally I

say some words to the locals people

afterwards, but if you don't mind uh

today I have to run. And um thanks for

joining and I will see you uh tomorrow,

same time, same place and we'll work out

all this Iran Israel stuff. So, look

out. According to the marketing, there's

going to be big surprises coming today

and tomorrow and maybe Friday night. big

big surprises.

So, you got that to look forward to. All

right, everybody.

Say so long. See you later.