Episode 360 Scott Adams - Romney, Trump’s Press Conference, Arctic Ice and Nuclear Power

ba-ba-ba-ba-ba hey Angela hey everybody come on in here it's time for coffee with Scott Adams this would be the Thursday edition unless you're watching it a ton a different day and those of you who are early you're fast with your fingers you're ready for the simultaneous up grab your mug your cup your glass your stein your tankard you're jealous fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me for this Idol TV ascent so as you all know Mitt Romney wrote a scathing editorial about President Trump recently in which he complained about the president's quote character yes he complained about the president's character I watched him on watched Romney on an interview talking about some of the presidents that he considered to have good character on his list was JFK did JFK have good character is that is that how you is that how you remember it it feels to me like JFK should be on the list of presidents who had bad character but did a pretty good job LBJ's on that list people who were terrible human beings but apparently did a pretty good job Bill Clinton not so good on the personal personal stuff pretty solid president in my opinion so it doesn't seem to be a great correlation between character and performance in office but then there's also the real question of you know what is what is real character and what is the theater because there's an awful lot of politics that's just theater and this president president Trump he does more so than the other president he adopts a role he takes on a character depending on the situation so his character that you would see giving a rally speech is really just a different person than he might see in person than you might see in a meeting etc so it's kind of hard to say what is the president's character exactly because he could modify it for this situation he seems to have a bias toward effectiveness so if the most effective thing is to insult somebody he does if the most effective thing in his Curren in a given situation is to be nice he's nice case in point what was the president's response to Mitt Romney's scathing public rebuke of the president the president said he hopes that MIT becomes more of a team player and that he looks forward to working with him now if President Trump was a person who was simply had bad character and that's just who he was all the time he wouldn't be able to turn it on and off would he and you could see right in front of you that he just he just turns a switch and he says okay in this situation being nice to Mitt Romney is just good for me good for the country makes everything work better so in this particular case I will not strike back because it doesn't make sense in this case I'm not worried about somebody who can modify their personality for the situation I find that reassuring not scary here's my bottom line at Romney I think people are saying why did Romney do it why did he do it now Romney's saying that the reason you did it now is because he's taking office as a senator it's a good time to get on record of where he stands on the issues but I don't think that's the real reason he did it here's here's what I say is the real reason that Romney went hard at the president's character because it's the only thing that Romney feels he has an advantage over President Trump it's the only thing if you were going to say tell me some bad things about Mitt Romney probably character would not be on the list I I don't think correct me if I'm wrong but I don't know a lot of people who were criticizing Romney for any character flaws you know they've criticized him for you know political missteps just normal stuff but for the most part I think it's true than on a character role model basis pretty solid guy but here's what I think is his plan keep in mind there Romney is a finance you know a numbers guy you know he's sort of a consultant quantitative very analytical kind of a background what he's doing is one of the smartest things that you'll see in politics say well you will say what you will about Romney about you know any criticism you will but here's a statement that I think is just true he's really smart right does anybody disagree with that then no matter what you think of him as politics or anything else he's a really smart cat and what he's doing here is the best risk management play you'll ever see because remember he comes from a world where risk management and assessing risk and making the right risk/reward decision is the whole game that's how he made money here's the risk there's probably I don't know how to put a percentage on this but just for conversation let's say let's say there's a solid 20% chance the president Trump will not run for a second term for whatever reason either because he changes his mind he's a certain age anything could happen maybe there's impeachment maybe his poll numbers go down so much he doesn't want to you could think of a number of reasons but maybe collectively if you add them all together maybe a solid 20% chance the president will run so Romney is setting himself up as the emergency president who if you need to break the glass and get the emergency president he's ready he's a senator he's run for president you know he's made a he made a good run for president he's already made his argument for why he should be President and when he was running for office he's considered a you know a senior state's person he solves the problem that that the last president in this scenario he would be solving the problem that people cared about the most from the last president so if he came in as sort of the emergency replacement you know the emergency spare for the Republicans if they just needed a last minute oh god oh god we don't have anybody who are we gonna put in here if President Trump doesn't run for re-election Romney so on a risk/reward basis he took a fairly small risk by running the editorial the small risk is that it would make you harder to work with people and Senate but not really because people still need his vote president Trump showed that instead of insulting him for this he was gonna play nice because he still needs Romney to be on his side so Romney still has all the power he needs as a senator because a vote is a vote and they can't take that away from him so he took a risk it looks to me to be the most solid obvious emergency replacement GOP presidential candidate should president Trump not be running for a second term or maybe to be ready for the term after that but on a risk/reward basis it was a smart play I'm gonna give Romney and a +4 political instinct he put himself in the position as the emergency backup president a very low risk it was a good play and I'm impressed actually by that that doesn't mean that I support him for president it only means that in this one limited case his risk reward assessment looks quite smart but actually you may have seen that that Ann Coulter has made news again remember that she she has been the president Trump build that fence and I'm sorry build that build wall built the wall built the wall if you don't build the wall you're worth nothing you know built that wall so she has been the most wall centric pundit who actually has influence you know in the political process certainly the number one wall proponent and she just did interview with Joel Pollak of Breitbart radio and she was asked the question would she would she be okay with a fence and as far as I know nobody asked that question before and surprisingly she said that she would be okay where the situation like Israel has now when I say that most of you say but wait a minute Israel has a wall turns out that's not the truth Israel has some wall and that's mostly what you see pictures of but they have a long border and I think most of it is a fence like structural you know with different mechanisms for defending as well you know digital and God knows what else so Ann Coulter said and I think it's the first time she said it publicly but correct me if I'm wrong she said that she would be okay with something like what Israel has which is a wall where it makes sense to have a wall but for the larger stretches more of a fence like barrier structure which which is another way of saying leave it up to the engineers now Ann Coulter did not use word engineers as far as I know I didn't hear the whole interview but it's the same concept right if you're okay with what Israel did it's a lot like saying you're okay with letting engineers and experts decide to where's the wall where's the fence where's the no fence no fall you know we're at where the drones that's all anybody is asking nobody's really asking for something that's not that everybody's asking to not be the people who design the border yeah you and I are not saying hey I'm a citizen let me design your border it should be all wall or all fence nobody's saying that everybody in the conversation agrees with this concept that the people who know the most engineers border control people who are close to it and studying it really looking at the specifications really looking at what's worked before in other places the people were really the decision-makers the experts they're the ones who need to decide where you put what everyone agrees with that but we're acting like we don't yes you you probably I heard saw a comment there you probably saw that Greg Gutfeld also mentioned the word Wentz on the five and I think that you're seeing the you're seeing the the public opinion start to converge it felt like there were two opinions but there never were it was a complete illusion it looked like somebody was saying hey wall wall wall and somebody else was saying no all no all no all but nothing like that was ever happening it was a complete illusion caused by the way the news is reported the way people talk in public they you know that the shorthand way that people talk is cetera it has always been let's do what makes most sense once the engineer have dug in and told us what makes no sense so it was always gonna be a little bit of wall and probably a lot of fence and that's where we're heading now apparently Lindsey Graham has said that President Trump has you know no chance of reelection essentially paraphrasing no no chance of reelection if he doesn't stay strong and get some wall funding I think that's probably true I would say that's probably true and I think that's also the reason that we can predict the outcome because the president can actually keep the government closed forever like he can just you can just ride it out if you were would you want to be in a stone throwing contest with the best stone thrower in the world if being a badass is the contest in terms of who can keep the government closed the longest Trump's guide to the bigger badass Lee you don't want to get into a badassery contest with the biggest badass so I don't see any chance that he's gonna fold on this and Rand Paul was the funniest person on this and by the way Rand Paul I don't know what's up with him lately but he's getting funnier and he's just more interesting lately so I'm appreciating that from a consumer standpoint but Rand Paul said he wondered if the public would ever notice that the government was shut down which is an excellent libertarian kind of a point of view now personally I have not noticed it yet can you tell me in the comments have any of you had a personal experience that was impacted by the government shutdown yet I know it's early you know maybe it's too early to say have any of you had any bad experience with the government's shut down I literally don't even know what's at stake other than the garbage SM Parks is not being cleaned up is that it there's a lot of there's some trash at government parks that will get cleaned up later so under that situation I think the president can stay as long as he wants with a closed government did you hear president Trump's fairly long press conference yesterday it really was a sort of a masterpiece of Trump being Trump and I was in the car when I was listening to it so I didn't I didn't write down all of the things I wanted to write down to talk about because it was just it was just packed with things to talk about I'll give you some of my favorites and I do remember so the president's had this line he said if walls don't work you better tell the Pope because the Vatican has a wall now here's what's beautiful about that I always talk about how the president likes to talk in visual form he talks and pictures because our visual senses are most powerful and it's the most persuasive way to communicate if you can put something in the form of a picture you can actually you know pull somebody into the scene they'll remember it it'll have more influence on them etc and when you see the consistency that President Trump talks in visual language compared to people who are not good at this you really see that the power of so he said that so so as soon as he said you better tell the Pope that walls don't work because there's a wall around the Vatican didn't you immediately imagine the Pope and even if you don't know who the Pope looks like which I don't if you asked me to recognize the Pope on the street if the Pope showed up in my room tomorrow and he and he's not wearing the Pope outfit I wouldn't even recognize him but I have this you know general feeling of he's an old white guy in that Pope outfit so I immediately picture him and then I immediately picture the Vatican and I immediately a picture of the wall and so he just brings me right into the scene prior to that hour prior to that the president said that the Obamas in their new home have a ten-foot wall around it which which caused the news to go out and try to debunk him by by taking multiple pictures of Obama's house now I'm not sure that was good for security that the last thing that the Obamas need is lots of pictures of their their personal home with with a story that says the the fence situation isn't that high so I don't think that the president was intending to do this so I'm not going to say that this was any kind of a plan but the outcome of it was that the the anti-trump media which loves some President Obama they love President Obama they went and took lots of pictures of his security situation at his personal home what that actually happened say and and the main story was well President Obama doesn't have that much security I mean we'll all wise now of course President Obama has plenty of security so if you're if you're listening to this and you're thinking well I'll take a run at him don't do that because apparently yeah even the street approaching the house has stopped points and security so you can't even get to the street you can't even get to the house much less get to the wall and if you got there there would be lots of people with machine guns so you wouldn't want to try to climb that wall but just the the theater of it that the president caught that cause the main streets mainstream media the lovers of Obama to expose all of the weaknesses in Obama's personal security situation it's so it's awful and it's funny at the same time but again I don't think the president was intending that to happen but I think what he was intending was to put a picture in people's minds so now I have I didn't have this picture before before this discussion of Obama's wall around his own house did you know what Obama's private house looked like I'd never seen it you know I know it's been in the news but I've never seen it but now I've seen it I know exactly what Obama's house looks like and I know it is a little wall looks like and you could argue whether the wall makes a difference or not but clearly the Secret Service thinks the wall works because they've got a guess some fencing on the back or something I think it was added uh yeah the wall was beefed up a little bit all right and the other thing that the President did besides giving the press two visual images of walls that are working in ways that they like because the press likes the Pope and they like Obama and they both have walls and it's both visual so this is just classic Trump taking your attention to where he wants it and making sure there's a picture there the other thing he did was it looked like he was a be testing a new a new brand for Syria and he said it a few times he said Syria is nothing but sand and death sand and death and he repeated it to make sure we didn't miss it sand and death it's pretty good isn't it yeah sand and death fire and fury sand and death do you see how how similar they are in terms of the stickiness when you take the entire here's what the president does well he takes this big complicated situation and then he boils down all of that complexity to the part that matters at least in terms of communication so you could argue that other things matter but in terms of how you communicate he's boiled all their complexity down to sand and death what value is sand nothing and the other thing is death so basically were dying for nothing if he said we're over they're dying for nothing that would be a concept you couldn't see it you couldn't feel it it wouldn't be as real but when he says the entire situation is nothing but sand and death that's really good branding wise again separate you know his branding and persuasion from whether you like the policies or don't like the policies those are good questions but we're separating them for now technique-wise sand and death is really good stuff the president also I you could tell that he was he was going to drive the fact-checkers crazy because in the course of I don't know an hour or whatever he talked he said so many things that are directionally true but maybe not precisely true one of them was that that he essentially fired mattis he essentially fired him he didn't fire him because mattis you know technically not technically but literally resigned hold on but the president's statement that he technically fired him makes the media have to deal with that question because they're fact-checking yet tried to debunk it etc and so how far off is it to say that the president essentially fired because remember the situation was that Madison the president no longer were on the same page if you're the boss and your employee won't do what you want him to do and then the employee resigns is that really a resignation is it a resignation when you know you're going to get fired or if you know that you can't do what your boss asks you to do well technically the person who writes a resignation letter is the one who resigned that is technically not being fired but what the president says I essentially fired him it's not that far from false I think the fact checkers would be on solid ground to say it is false what is so close and he does this all the time it's kind of close right because once you know the thing that that the boss is not getting the employee to do what he wants and he's not happy about it and your boss is the most famous firing boss ever it seems to me the madness wisely just got in front of it so it looks like Madison might have been fired if he hadn't resigned and if somebody says if you don't resign I'm gonna fire you or suggests suggests that maybe if you don't resign you're gonna get fired pretty quickly is it unfair to say that you essentially fired him it's not that far off but it's it's perfect fodder for the fact checkers to talk about that question all right the funniest part that the president said was he said he called up I don't know who he called up Saudi Arabia or he called up the OPEC countries or something he said he got on the phone and he simplified this big complicated situation about oil prices and the the geopolitical you know stability of the world and supply and demand this big complicated ball of stuff that determines what the actual oil price is you simplified this too he made a phone call and said you got to lower those gas prices and then they did now I don't know a lot about geopolitical anything and I wasn't there when he made the phone call and I don't remember exactly who he called but it's hilarious because you could he hadn't draws a visual picture you can see him in your mind on the phone talking to someone on the other end who's dressed in traditional Saudi you know Saudi clothing whether it's a Saudi or somebody else so you've got this picture he's on the phone he's the president he's in the Oval Office and you imagine him talking to somebody who's dressed in Saudi kind of clothing saying you've got to lower those gas prices all right good you get a lower room great I'll announce this at the press conference like now did something like that actually happen probably he probably was on the phone to various people who could control how much how much pumping of oil there was he probably did ask them to do this and sure enough gas prices are in a better range so I don't know if the phone call made the difference but the way he turned it into a story and simplified this complicated situation down to the president made a phone call and made it happen to me was hilarious and effective but maybe won't exactly effect you know won't make the fact-checkers exactly happy but it was just kind of a perfect persuasion I tweeted around a photo of the freshman class in the news new house so the house has there are new members now and I tweeted around the picture as they're a whole bunch of them I don't know how many 50 of them maybe standing on the steps and there was a big group picture and I tweeted - who do you notice first standing right in the front now I think the women were in the front that helps their visibility but there were three women I think who wore plain very easy to recognize dresses there was a light green there was a bright red and I think there was a maybe a cream-colored one but they just jumped out and the one that jumped out to me the most was a Oh see she was in the red now if you wanted to be noticed in a big sea of mostly men mostly men and but now a lot more women because of the incoming class what would you wear to be the most noticeable person there you would wear a plain tasteful bright red dress once again you see the aoc makes the right move in a seat of people not making the right move now you could argue that the the other women who wore the the cream-colored dress and the green in the pale blue or green dress they also you know made good style choices and they and they stood out but not compared to bright red bright red is the one that you think is in charge bright red is the one that's dangerous bright red is the one that's gonna change stuff bright red is coming at you bright red means you better pay attention bright red means you better stop stop and pay attention so while I you know a lot of people said I noticed the other women's dresses first and I'm sure that's true one of those colors was the right choice and all of the other colors were less good there was one other woman who seemed to be wearing essentially the same dress as AOC but in the photo anyway she put on I don't know the the name for women's clothing but some kind of a top that covered most of the top of the red dress I don't know if she put that on because AOC had a similar dress maybe I don't know or maybe that was just part of the outfit we don't know but here's the thing here was this group picture of all these people exactly one of those people and of that entire group made the best choice for what to wear that day only one now keep watching for how many times that same one person makes exactly the right choice when everybody else does is not an accident I tweeted around a just before I got on here I gave two links to opposite stories about climate change and they're focusing on whether the ice the amount of ice and the Arctic is growing or shrinking now let me ask you this given that we think or at least half of the country believes that climate change might be the biggest problem in the history of humanity could it be the biggest problem ever that's how big it is for half of the country anyway and yet on this what you would think would be a simple question is the ice in the Arctic melting or staying the same or growing and if you read an article any article on this point it's going to tell you with certainty what the answer to that question is but the problem is the next article you read might tell you the opposite how is it possible that in 2019 when when climate change is the most important question you know many people would say in the history of civilization that we don't know the answer to that can't we pick can can we agree that we'll never really agree on all of the different you know all of the different complexities of climate science will probably never all agree on that stuff but can't we pick just a few things that would be the result of a warming climate to decide whether is warming or not can we not just say look let's forget everything else let's just bet it all on ice or maybe sea level suppose you say okay I don't understand enough about climate science as a citizen to have an independent opinion whether the skeptics are right or the the promoters of climate change being a big problem all right so let me just boil it down to one variable man make your predictions you guys say that there will be less ice and it will be quite noticeable and it's going to happen fast meaning that next year will be less ice and we can definitely measure it the other side says that's not happening that there might be less ice in some places but there's more ice in other places it's breaking even or maybe even increasing isn't that the simplest thing for science to be able to do we got satellites up there we can take pictures how in the world can we not figure out if ice is increasing or decreasing you know net we can we can tell we can tell that what's changing in any one place but we don't seem to be good about knowing how the whole is going so so I tweeted that out and I think I'm going to keep a sort of a running list of the points and the counter points now here's the thing that worries me about the counter points I had been seeing two really good skeptics me and when I say really good I mean persuasive so for my money there were two people in the in the conversation about climate who were really persuasive on the skeptical side and so every time I saw a good article that was that I'd read and I say wow that's a pretty good argument I don't know if it's true because I can't independently judge climate science stuff you know I could just read the article and say well it sounded like BS sorta sounded legitimate that's the best I can do and there were two people who just had always the best solid legitimate arguments and then I found out those two people are the same guy so apparently one of them is the you know sort of a internet name he was using probably he was using that because dangerous to talk about this in the beginning so it was Steve Goddard was the I guess pen name for Tony Heller I had been thinking that I was seeing two people with independent opinions which were both powerful skeptics now I know it was the same guy what does that do to my impression of his credibility it it decreases it now again whenever I talk about credibility I'm never talking about what's true or false because sometimes you can't know what's true or what's false but you can know if something looks believable to you you know does it feel to you credible and I was quite disappointed to find out that the two most powerful voices in my opinion were actually just the same guy because that means that if that same guy is wrong you know you know you don't have that diversification of the opinion that you thought you had it's just one guy who could be wrong so I would say that my opinion of the credibility of the skeptics has decreased this week as I'm learning more about the arguments and so somebody says he was public as hell about it that that's true so let me be clear here my understanding is that he is there may have been a point when he wasn't but that's not important because lately it's you know he's published and he's very public about it he's not trying to hide it it's you know not something I don't think it's something that somebody else found out about it I think he's been I think he's the one who said it was him so I'm not I'm not criticizing him for having a pen name because that probably made sense given the topic it probably was a I imagine it was risky to talk about this stuff at some point so that's not the problem but the point is in my mind just my you know my understanding of it went from two good critics down to one now somebody said that Judith curry there's another good one and I think you're right but in terms of charts and looking at the numbers Tony Heller was the strongest voice on that that I've seen in terms of credibility all right so if we can't figure out the simple question of whether there's more or less ice and we can't figure out the simple question of whether the oceans are rising or not because apparently in some places they don't rise in some places they do which makes sense because the the sea level rises not just because there's more water but because it's warmer and when it's warmer the volume expands so the sea Rises so you could actually you could actually have the sea level rise in one part of the world without it rising in the other part if the temperatures are different yeah and then there's the question of the land itself rises and falls and that changes its relationship to the water alright what I think of the rebuttal charts to the temperature adjustments the rebuttal translate okay sure oh so yes so one of the major points from the Toni Heller side of skepticism was that all of the adjustments made to the temperature records were in the same direction and then somebody sent me a link to what looked to be a credible source showing all of the adjustments over time and you can see that some it was about equally equal number of them were adjusted up versus down now those are two completely opposite truths and it's not immediately obvious to me how they could both be true and it's not obvious to me how it isn't obvious to the people who work in this field which one is completely wrong and I still don't know that so you have two versions of the truth there's the Steve Goddard Toni Heller same person truth this says that all the adjustments were in same direction and in this case it doesn't mean the same direction is higher or lower it means the site the same direction means always in the direction that would cause the future a graph to look steeper so that could be it could be raising temperatures in the past but it could be you know depending on where you are in the curve you can raise it or lower it to make the graph what you want and then the sceptics argument is no here's a graph of all the adjustments and it's obvious that about half of them are up half of them are down it's completely random they can't both be true and wouldn't that be the simplest thing to determine can somebody send me a tweet with two links showing the argument that says all the adjustments are in one direction one direction meeting causing the graph to look like it's going up and the other saying now it's all random and here's the data and look at it yourself ah we're in this weirdest world where the most basic objective easily checkable fact is in dispute I believe we're using the same database right isn't everybody looking at exactly the same data and one says is cold outside and the other says it's hot outside terrible analogy but how is that not agreed on it's weird all right here's another question I can't determine is nuclear power cost effective or not cost effective isn't that a pretty basic question now of course there's a big challenge with the rules and regulations it would be hard and a lengthy process to get a nuclear power plant built but when I talk to smart people there's a difference of opinion and I'm talking about really smart people people were investing putting you know their own money into it in big ways some of them say nuclear is definitely the way to go an including fusion so there are smart people who are close to it was fusion actually has been elusive up so now but we've we've got to the point where we think we can solve the last remaining leg of problems and other people say no not even close that's complete garbage we'll never get there then others say that there's more variations on traditional nuclear power from using depleted uranium to thorium you know other words that I don't understand but that those are closer to being economical and then Bill Gates is pushing nuclear so Bill Gates who obviously looks at the numbers you know it's not like Bill Gates is making an investment without looking at the financial projections he says nuclear's the answer other people just as smart just as well-informed just as interested say the opposite say green technology is the only way to go on an economics basis why isn't that most basic question something we all agree on now it would be one thing if we said you can't do nuclear power because of all the regulations I think everybody would agree that the regulations are a burden but if you could remove those regulations why can't we agree that nuclear is either economical or not economical wouldn't that be among the most basic questions how do we not know that all right I think we've reached a world that is harder to understand that maybe it has ever been before partly because it's more complicated partly before because people have naked interests that they hide no that would be different people have naked interests and they also have interests that they hide and it's just impossible to know what's a good idea from a bad idea anymore we can't tell the difference as Mark Twain said we don't know the difference between good news and bad news that's our world anyway that's all I have for now and I'm gonna keep digging into this claim to change things to find out what's what and I'll build up a I'll build up a catalog of links so if they're for every individual point about ice or no ice sea level no sea level coral bleaching no coral bleaching I want to have the point in the counterpoint and then if I can I want to get the counterpoint to the counterpoint because you need to get to that level I think all right we'll see what we can do and I will talk to you later

ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

hey Angela hey everybody come on in here

it's time for coffee with Scott Adams

this would be the Thursday edition

unless you're watching it a ton a

different day and those of you who are

early you're fast with your fingers

you're ready for the simultaneous up

grab your mug your cup your glass your

stein your tankard you're jealous

fill it with your favorite liquid I like

coffee and join me for this Idol TV

ascent so as you all know Mitt Romney

wrote a scathing editorial about

President Trump recently in which he

complained about the president's quote

character yes he complained about the

president's character I watched him on

watched Romney on an interview talking

about some of the presidents that he

considered to have good character on his

list was JFK did JFK have good character

is that is that how you is that how you

remember it it feels to me like JFK

should be on the list of presidents who

had bad character but did a pretty good

job LBJ's on that list people who were

terrible human beings but apparently did

a pretty good job Bill Clinton not so

good on the personal personal stuff

pretty solid president in my opinion so

it doesn't seem to be a great

correlation between character and

performance in office but then there's

also the real question of you know what

is what is real character and what is

the theater because there's an awful lot

of politics that's just theater and this

president president Trump he does

more so than the other president he

adopts a role he takes on a character

depending on the situation so his

character that you would see giving a

rally speech is really just a different

person than he might see in person than

you might see in a meeting etc so it's

kind of hard to say what is the

president's character exactly because he

could modify it for this situation he

seems to have a bias toward

effectiveness so if the most effective

thing is to insult somebody he does if

the most effective thing in his Curren

in a given situation is to be nice he's

nice

case in point what was the president's

response to Mitt Romney's scathing

public rebuke of the president the

president said he hopes that MIT becomes

more of a team player and that he looks

forward to working with him now if

President Trump was a person who was

simply had bad character and that's just

who he was all the time he wouldn't be

able to turn it on and off would he and

you could see right in front of you that

he just he just turns a switch and he

says okay in this situation being nice

to Mitt Romney is just good for me good

for the country makes everything work

better so in this particular case I will

not strike back because it doesn't make

sense in this case I'm not worried about

somebody who can modify their

personality for the situation I find

that reassuring not scary here's my

bottom line at Romney I think people are

saying why did Romney do it why did he

do it now Romney's saying that the

reason you did it now is because he's

taking office as a senator it's a good

time to get on record of where he stands

on the issues but I don't think that's

the real reason he did it here's here's

what I say is the real reason that

Romney went hard at the president's

character

because it's the only thing that Romney

feels he has an advantage over President

Trump it's the only thing if you were

going to say tell me some bad things

about Mitt Romney probably character

would not be on the list I I don't think

correct me if I'm wrong but I don't know

a lot of people who were criticizing

Romney for any character flaws

you know they've criticized him for you

know political missteps just normal

stuff but for the most part I think it's

true than on a character role model

basis pretty solid guy but here's what I

think is his plan keep in mind there

Romney is a finance you know a numbers

guy you know he's sort of a consultant

quantitative very analytical kind of a

background what he's doing is one of the

smartest things that you'll see in

politics say well you will say what you

will about Romney about you know any

criticism you will but here's a

statement that I think is just true he's

really smart right does anybody disagree

with that then no matter what you think

of him as politics or anything else he's

a really smart cat and what he's doing

here is the best risk management play

you'll ever see because remember he

comes from a world where risk management

and assessing risk and making the right

risk/reward decision is the whole game

that's how he made money here's the risk

there's probably I don't know how to put

a percentage on this but just for

conversation let's say let's say there's

a solid 20% chance the president Trump

will not run for a second term for

whatever reason either because he

changes his mind he's a certain age

anything could happen

maybe there's impeachment maybe

his poll numbers go down so much he

doesn't want to you could think of a

number of reasons but maybe collectively

if you add them all together maybe a

solid 20% chance the president will run

so Romney is setting himself up as the

emergency president who if you need to

break the glass and get the emergency

president he's ready he's a senator he's

run for president you know he's made a

he made a good run for president he's

already made his argument for why he

should be President and when he was

running for office he's considered a you

know a senior state's person he solves

the problem that that the last president

in this scenario he would be solving the

problem that people cared about the most

from the last president so if he came in

as sort of the emergency replacement you

know the emergency spare for the

Republicans if they just needed a last

minute oh god oh god we don't have

anybody who are we gonna put in here if

President Trump doesn't run for

re-election Romney so on a risk/reward

basis he took a fairly small risk by

running the editorial the small risk is

that it would make you harder to work

with people and Senate but not really

because people still need his vote

president Trump showed that instead of

insulting him for this he was gonna play

nice because he still needs Romney to be

on his side so Romney still has all the

power he needs as a senator because a

vote is a vote and they can't take that

away from him so he took a risk it looks

to me to be the most solid obvious

emergency replacement GOP presidential

candidate should president Trump not be

running for a second term or maybe to be

ready for the term after that but on a

risk/reward basis it was a smart play

I'm gonna give Romney and a +4 political

instinct he put himself in the position

as the emergency backup president a very

low risk it was a good play and I'm

impressed actually by that that doesn't

mean that I support him for president it

only means that in this one limited case

his risk reward assessment looks quite

smart but actually you may have seen

that that Ann Coulter has made news

again remember that she she has been the

president Trump build that fence and I'm

sorry build that build wall built the

wall built the wall if you don't build

the wall you're worth nothing you know

built that wall so she has been the most

wall centric pundit who actually has

influence you know in the political

process certainly the number one wall

proponent and she just did interview

with Joel Pollak of Breitbart radio and

she was asked the question would she

would she be okay with a fence and as

far as I know nobody asked that question

before and surprisingly she said that

she would be okay where the situation

like Israel has now when I say that most

of you say but wait a minute

Israel has a wall turns out that's not

the truth Israel has some wall and

that's mostly what you see pictures of

but they have a long border and I think

most of it is a fence like structural

you know with different mechanisms for

defending as well you know digital and

God knows what else

so Ann Coulter said and I think it's the

first time she said it publicly but

correct me if I'm wrong she said that

she would be okay with something like

what Israel has which is a wall where it

makes sense to have a wall but for the

larger stretches more of a fence like

barrier structure

which which is another way of saying

leave it up to the engineers now Ann

Coulter did not use word engineers as

far as I know I didn't hear the whole

interview but it's the same concept

right if you're okay with what Israel

did it's a lot like saying you're okay

with letting engineers and experts

decide to where's the wall where's the

fence where's the no fence no fall you

know we're at where the drones that's

all anybody is asking nobody's really

asking for something that's not that

everybody's asking to not be the people

who design the border yeah you and I are

not saying hey I'm a citizen let me

design your border it should be all wall

or all fence nobody's saying that

everybody in the conversation agrees

with this concept that the people who

know the most engineers border control

people who are close to it and studying

it really looking at the specifications

really looking at what's worked before

in other places the people were really

the decision-makers the experts they're

the ones who need to decide where you

put what everyone agrees with that but

we're acting like we don't yes you you

probably I heard saw a comment there you

probably saw that Greg Gutfeld also

mentioned the word Wentz on the five and

I think that you're seeing the you're

seeing the the public opinion start to

converge it felt like there were two

opinions but there never were it was a

complete illusion it looked like

somebody was saying hey wall wall wall

and somebody else was saying no all no

all no all but nothing like that was

ever happening it was a complete

illusion caused by the way the news is

reported the way people talk in public

they you know that the shorthand way

that people talk is cetera it has always

been let's do what makes most sense once

the engineer

have dug in and told us what makes no

sense so it was always gonna be a little

bit of wall and probably a lot of fence

and that's where we're heading now

apparently Lindsey Graham has said that

President Trump has you know no chance

of reelection essentially paraphrasing

no no chance of reelection if he doesn't

stay strong and get some wall funding I

think that's probably true I would say

that's probably true and I think that's

also the reason that we can predict the

outcome because the president can

actually keep the government closed

forever like he can just you can just

ride it out if you were would you want

to be in a stone throwing contest with

the best stone thrower in the world if

being a badass is the contest in terms

of who can keep the government closed

the longest Trump's guide to the bigger

badass Lee you don't want to get into a

badassery contest with the biggest

badass so I don't see any chance that

he's gonna fold on this and Rand Paul

was the funniest person on this and by

the way Rand Paul I don't know what's up

with him lately but he's getting funnier

and he's just more interesting lately

so I'm appreciating that from a consumer

standpoint but Rand Paul said he

wondered if the public would ever notice

that the government was shut down which

is an excellent libertarian kind of a

point of view now personally I have not

noticed it yet can you tell me in the

comments have any of you had a personal

experience that was impacted by the

government shutdown yet I know it's

early you know maybe it's too early to

say

have any of you had any bad experience

with the government's shut down

I literally don't even know what's at

stake

other than the garbage SM Parks is not

being cleaned up is that it there's a

lot of there's some trash at government

parks that will get cleaned up later so

under that situation I think the

president can stay as long as he wants

with a closed government did you hear

president Trump's fairly long press

conference yesterday it really was a

sort of a masterpiece of Trump being

Trump and I was in the car when I was

listening to it so I didn't I didn't

write down all of the things I wanted to

write down to talk about because it was

just it was just packed with things to

talk about I'll give you some of my

favorites and I do remember so the

president's had this line he said if

walls don't work you better tell the

Pope because the Vatican has a wall now

here's what's beautiful about that I

always talk about how the president

likes to talk in visual form he talks

and pictures because our visual senses

are most powerful and it's the most

persuasive way to communicate if you can

put something in the form of a picture

you can actually you know pull somebody

into the scene they'll remember it it'll

have more influence on them etc and when

you see the consistency that President

Trump talks in visual language compared

to people who are not good at this you

really see that the power of so he said

that so so as soon as he said you better

tell the Pope that walls don't work

because there's a wall around the

Vatican didn't you immediately imagine

the Pope and even if you don't know who

the Pope looks like which I don't if you

asked me to recognize the Pope on the

street if the Pope showed up in my room

tomorrow and he and he's not wearing the

Pope outfit I wouldn't even recognize

him but I have this you know

general feeling of he's an old white guy

in that Pope outfit so I immediately

picture him and then I immediately

picture the Vatican and I immediately a

picture of the wall and so he just

brings me right into the scene prior to

that hour prior to that the president

said that the Obamas in their new home

have a ten-foot wall around it which

which caused the news to go out and try

to debunk him by by taking multiple

pictures of Obama's house now I'm not

sure that was good for security that the

last thing that the Obamas need is lots

of pictures of their their personal home

with with a story that says the the

fence situation isn't that high so I

don't think that the president was

intending to do this so I'm not going to

say that this was any kind of a plan but

the outcome of it was that the the

anti-trump media which loves some

President Obama they love President

Obama they went and took lots of

pictures of his security situation at

his personal home what that actually

happened say and and the main story was

well President Obama doesn't have that

much security I mean we'll all wise now

of course President Obama has plenty of

security so if you're if you're

listening to this and you're thinking

well I'll take a run at him don't do

that because apparently yeah even the

street approaching the house has stopped

points and security so you can't even

get to the street you can't even get to

the house much less get to the wall and

if you got there there would be lots of

people with machine guns so you wouldn't

want to try to climb that wall but just

the the theater of it that the president

caught that cause the main streets

mainstream media the lovers of Obama to

expose all of the weaknesses in Obama's

personal security situation

it's so it's awful and it's funny at the

same time but again I don't think the

president was intending that to happen

but I think what he was intending was to

put a picture in people's minds so now I

have I didn't have this picture before

before this discussion of Obama's wall

around his own house

did you know what Obama's private house

looked like I'd never seen it you know I

know it's been in the news but I've

never seen it but now I've seen it

I know exactly what Obama's house looks

like and I know it is a little wall

looks like and you could argue whether

the wall makes a difference or not but

clearly the Secret Service thinks the

wall works because they've got a guess

some fencing on the back or something I

think it was added uh yeah the wall was

beefed up a little bit all right and the

other thing that the President did

besides giving the press two visual

images of walls that are working in ways

that they like because the press likes

the Pope and they like Obama and they

both have walls and it's both visual so

this is just classic Trump taking your

attention to where he wants it and

making sure there's a picture there the

other thing he did was it looked like he

was a be testing a new a new brand for

Syria and he said it a few times he said

Syria is nothing but sand and death sand

and death and he repeated it to make

sure we didn't miss it sand and death

it's pretty good isn't it yeah sand and

death fire and fury sand and death do

you see how how similar they are in

terms of the stickiness when you take

the entire here's what the president

does well he takes this big complicated

situation and then he boils down all of

that complexity to the part that matters

at least in terms of communication so

you could argue that other things matter

but in terms of how you communicate he's

boiled all their complexity down to

sand and death what value is sand

nothing and the other thing is death so

basically were dying for nothing

if he said we're over they're dying for

nothing that would be a concept you

couldn't see it you couldn't feel it it

wouldn't be as real but when he says the

entire situation is nothing but sand and

death that's really good branding wise

again separate you know his branding and

persuasion from whether you like the

policies or don't like the policies

those are good questions but we're

separating them for now technique-wise

sand and death is really good stuff

the president also I you could tell that

he was he was going to drive the

fact-checkers crazy because in the

course of I don't know an hour or

whatever he talked he said so many

things that are directionally true but

maybe not precisely true one of them was

that that he essentially fired mattis he

essentially fired him he didn't fire him

because mattis you know technically not

technically but literally resigned hold

on

but the president's statement that he

technically fired him makes the media

have to deal with that question because

they're fact-checking yet tried to

debunk it etc and so how far off is it

to say that the president essentially

fired because remember the situation was

that Madison the president no longer

were on the same page if you're the boss

and your employee won't do what you want

him to do and then the employee resigns

is that really a resignation is it a

resignation when you know you're going

to get fired or if you know that you

can't do what your boss asks you to do

well technically the person who writes a

resignation letter is the one who

resigned that is technically not being

fired but what the president says I

essentially fired him it's not that far

from false I think the fact checkers

would be on solid ground to say it is

false what is so close and he does this

all the time it's kind of close right

because once you know the thing that

that the boss is not getting the

employee to do what he wants and he's

not happy about it and your boss is the

most famous firing boss ever it seems to

me the madness wisely just got in front

of it so it looks like Madison might

have been fired if he hadn't resigned

and if somebody says if you don't resign

I'm gonna fire you or suggests suggests

that maybe if you don't resign you're

gonna get fired pretty quickly is it

unfair to say that you essentially fired

him it's not that far off but it's it's

perfect fodder for the fact checkers to

talk about that question all right the

funniest part that the president said

was he said he called up I don't know

who he called up Saudi Arabia or he

called up the OPEC countries or

something he said he got on the phone

and he simplified this big complicated

situation about oil prices and the the

geopolitical you know stability of the

world and supply and demand this big

complicated ball of stuff that

determines what the actual oil price is

you simplified this too he made a phone

call and said you got to lower those gas

prices and then they did now I don't

know a lot about geopolitical anything

and I wasn't there when he made the

phone call and I don't remember exactly

who he called but it's hilarious because

you could he hadn't draws a visual

picture you can see him in your mind on

the

phone talking to someone on the other

end who's dressed in traditional Saudi

you know Saudi clothing whether it's a

Saudi or somebody else so you've got

this picture he's on the phone he's the

president he's in the Oval Office and

you imagine him talking to somebody

who's dressed in Saudi kind of clothing

saying you've got to lower those gas

prices all right

good you get a lower room great I'll

announce this at the press conference

like now did something like that

actually happen probably he probably was

on the phone to various people who could

control how much how much pumping of oil

there was he probably did ask them to do

this and sure enough gas prices are in a

better range so I don't know if the

phone call made the difference but the

way he turned it into a story and

simplified this complicated situation

down to the president made a phone call

and made it happen

to me was hilarious and effective but

maybe won't exactly effect you know

won't make the fact-checkers exactly

happy but it was just kind of a perfect

persuasion I tweeted around a photo of

the freshman class in the news new house

so the house has there are new members

now and I tweeted around the picture as

they're a whole bunch of them I don't

know how many 50 of them maybe standing

on the steps and there was a big group

picture and I tweeted - who do you

notice first standing right in the front

now I think the women were in the front

that helps their visibility but there

were three women I think who wore plain

very easy to recognize dresses there was

a light green there was a bright red and

I think there was a maybe a

cream-colored one but they just jumped

out and the one that jumped out to me

the most was a Oh see she was in the red

now if you wanted to be noticed in a big

sea of mostly men mostly men and but now

a lot more women because of the incoming

class what would you wear to be the most

noticeable person there you would wear a

plain tasteful bright red dress once

again you see the aoc makes the right

move in a seat of people not making the

right move now you could argue that the

the other women who wore the the

cream-colored dress and the green in the

pale blue or green dress they also you

know made good style choices and they

and they stood out but not compared to

bright red bright red is the one that

you think is in charge

bright red is the one that's dangerous

bright red is the one that's gonna

change stuff bright red is coming at you

bright red means you better pay

attention

bright red means you better stop stop

and pay attention so while I you know a

lot of people said I noticed the other

women's dresses first and I'm sure

that's true one of those colors was the

right choice and all of the other colors

were less good there was one other woman

who seemed to be wearing essentially the

same dress as AOC but in the photo

anyway she put on I don't know the the

name for women's clothing but some kind

of a top that covered most of the top of

the red dress I don't know if she put

that on because AOC had a similar dress

maybe I don't know or maybe that was

just part of the outfit we don't know

but here's the thing here was this group

picture of all these people exactly one

of those people and of that entire group

made the best choice for what to wear

that day only one now keep watching for

how many times that same one person

makes exactly the right choice when

everybody else does

is not an accident I tweeted around a

just before I got on here

I gave two links to opposite stories

about climate change and they're

focusing on whether the ice the amount

of ice and the Arctic is growing or

shrinking now let me ask you this given

that we think or at least half of the

country believes that climate change

might be the biggest problem in the

history of humanity could it be the

biggest problem ever that's how big it

is for half of the country anyway and

yet on this what you would think would

be a simple question

is the ice in the Arctic melting or

staying the same or growing and if you

read an article any article on this

point it's going to tell you with

certainty what the answer to that

question is but the problem is the next

article you read might tell you the

opposite how is it possible that in 2019

when when climate change is the most

important question you know many people

would say in the history of civilization

that we don't know the answer to that

can't we pick can can we agree that

we'll never really agree on all of the

different you know all of the different

complexities of climate science will

probably never all agree on that stuff

but can't we pick just a few things that

would be the result of a warming climate

to decide whether is warming or not can

we not just say look let's forget

everything else let's just bet it all on

ice or maybe sea level suppose you say

okay I don't understand enough about

climate science as a citizen

to have an independent opinion whether

the skeptics are right or the the

promoters of climate change being a big

problem all right so let me just boil it

down to one variable man make your

predictions you guys say that there will

be less ice and it will be quite

noticeable and it's going to happen fast

meaning that next year will be less ice

and we can definitely measure it the

other side says that's not happening

that there might be less ice in some

places but there's more ice in other

places it's breaking even or maybe even

increasing isn't that the simplest thing

for science to be able to do we got

satellites up there we can take pictures

how in the world can we not figure out

if ice is increasing or decreasing

you know net we can we can tell we can

tell that what's changing in any one

place but we don't seem to be good about

knowing how the whole is going so so I

tweeted that out and I think I'm going

to keep a sort of a running list of the

points and the counter points now here's

the thing that worries me about the

counter points I had been seeing two

really good skeptics me and when I say

really good I mean persuasive so for my

money there were two people in the in

the conversation about climate who were

really persuasive on the skeptical side

and so every time I saw a good article

that was that I'd read and I say wow

that's a pretty good argument I don't

know if it's true because I can't

independently judge climate science

stuff you know I could just read the

article and say well it sounded like BS

sorta sounded legitimate that's the best

I can do and there were two people who

just had always the best solid

legitimate arguments and then I found

out those two people are the same guy so

apparently one of them is the you know

sort of a internet name he was using

probably he was using that because

dangerous to talk about this in the

beginning so it was Steve Goddard was

the I guess pen name for Tony Heller I

had been thinking that I was seeing two

people with independent opinions which

were both powerful skeptics now I know

it was the same guy what does that do to

my impression of his credibility it it

decreases it now again whenever I talk

about credibility I'm never talking

about what's true or false because

sometimes you can't know what's true or

what's false but you can know if

something looks believable to you you

know does it feel to you credible and I

was quite disappointed to find out that

the two most powerful voices in my

opinion were actually just the same guy

because that means that if that same guy

is wrong you know you know you don't

have that diversification of the opinion

that you thought you had it's just one

guy who could be wrong so I would say

that my opinion of the credibility of

the skeptics has decreased this week as

I'm learning more about the arguments

and so somebody says he was public as

hell about it that that's true so let me

be clear here

my understanding is that he is there may

have been a point when he wasn't but

that's not important because lately it's

you know he's published and he's very

public about it he's not trying to hide

it it's you know not something I don't

think it's something that somebody else

found out about it I think he's been I

think he's the one who said it was him

so I'm not I'm not criticizing him for

having a pen name because that probably

made sense given the topic it probably

was a I imagine it was risky to talk

about this stuff at some point so that's

not the problem but the point is in my

mind just my you know my understanding

of it went from two good critics down to

one now somebody said that Judith curry

there's another good one and I think

you're right but in terms of charts and

looking at the numbers

Tony Heller was the strongest voice on

that that I've seen in terms of

credibility all right

so if we can't figure out the simple

question of whether there's more or less

ice and we can't figure out the simple

question of whether the oceans are

rising or not because apparently in some

places they don't rise in some places

they do which makes sense because the

the sea level rises not just because

there's more water but because it's

warmer and when it's warmer the volume

expands so the sea Rises so you could

actually you could actually have the sea

level rise in one part of the world

without it rising in the other part if

the temperatures are different yeah and

then there's the question of the land

itself rises and falls and that changes

its relationship to the water alright

what I think of the rebuttal charts to

the temperature adjustments the rebuttal

translate okay sure oh so yes so one of

the major points from the Toni Heller

side of skepticism was that all of the

adjustments made to the temperature

records were in the same direction and

then somebody sent me a link to what

looked to be a credible source showing

all of the adjustments over time and you

can see that some it was about equally

equal number of them were adjusted up

versus down now those are two completely

opposite truths and it's not immediately

obvious to me how they could both be

true and it's not obvious to me how it

isn't obvious to the people who work in

this field which one is completely wrong

and I still don't know that so you have

two versions of the truth there's the

Steve Goddard Toni Heller same person

truth this says that all the adjustments

were in

same direction and in this case it

doesn't mean the same direction is

higher or lower it means the site the

same direction means always in the

direction that would cause the future a

graph to look steeper so that could be

it could be raising temperatures in the

past but it could be you know depending

on where you are in the curve you can

raise it or lower it to make the graph

what you want and then the sceptics

argument is no here's a graph of all the

adjustments and it's obvious that about

half of them are up half of them are

down it's completely random they can't

both be true and wouldn't that be the

simplest thing to determine can somebody

send me a tweet with two links showing

the argument that says all the

adjustments are in one direction one

direction meeting causing the graph to

look like it's going up and the other

saying now it's all random and here's

the data and look at it yourself ah

we're in this weirdest world where the

most basic objective easily checkable

fact is in dispute

I believe we're using the same database

right isn't everybody looking at exactly

the same data and one says is cold

outside and the other says it's hot

outside terrible analogy but how is that

not agreed on it's weird

all right here's another question I

can't determine is nuclear power cost

effective or not cost effective isn't

that a pretty basic question now of

course there's a big challenge with the

rules and regulations it would be hard

and a lengthy process to get a nuclear

power plant built but when I talk to

smart people there's a difference of

opinion and I'm talking about really

smart people people were investing

putting you know their own money into it

in big ways some of them say nuclear is

definitely the way to go an including

fusion so there are smart people who are

close to it was

fusion actually has been elusive up so

now but we've we've got to the point

where we think we can solve the last

remaining leg of problems and other

people say no not even close that's

complete garbage we'll never get there

then others say that there's more

variations on traditional nuclear power

from using depleted uranium to thorium

you know other words that I don't

understand but that those are closer to

being economical and then Bill Gates is

pushing nuclear so Bill Gates who

obviously looks at the numbers you know

it's not like Bill Gates is making an

investment without looking at the

financial projections

he says nuclear's the answer other

people just as smart just as

well-informed just as interested say the

opposite say green technology is the

only way to go on an economics basis why

isn't that most basic question something

we all agree on now it would be one

thing if we said you can't do nuclear

power because of all the regulations I

think everybody would agree that the

regulations are a burden but if you

could remove those regulations why can't

we agree that nuclear is either

economical or not economical wouldn't

that be among the most basic questions

how do we not know that all right I

think we've reached a world that is

harder to understand that maybe it has

ever been before partly because it's

more complicated partly before because

people have naked interests that they

hide no that would be different people

have naked interests and they also have

interests that they hide and it's just

impossible to know what's a good idea

from a bad idea anymore we can't tell

the difference as Mark Twain said we

don't know the difference between good

news and bad news

that's our world anyway that's all I

have for now and I'm gonna keep digging

into this claim

to change things to find out what's what

and I'll build up a I'll build up a

catalog of links so if they're for every

individual point about ice or no ice sea

level no sea level coral bleaching no

coral bleaching I want to have the point

in the counterpoint and then if I can I

want to get the counterpoint to the

counterpoint because you need to get to

that level I think all right we'll see

what we can do and I will talk to you

later