Episode 397 Scott Adams - Fake News, Climatesplaining, Intel Agency Mistakes, Howard Schultz

pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom hello Savannah Allen welcome grab your coffee let's put a dent in the universe says Chris agreed let's just whack that universe art put a big old dent in it well we're gonna have some fun today hello Germany hello everybody something tells me we're gonna get a big crowd in here today I just have a feeling nothing attracts a crowd more than people thinking that they're gonna grind me in the dirt are we're gonna get this guy we think he said or thought or did something that we don't like get him get him well let's see if that happens today but first first let us enjoy hey dr.

drew let us enjoy the simultaneous up raise your cup your mug your thermos your glass your container your stein whatever it is filling with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me for the simultaneous set now you might be aware of a little a little item in the news that teaches us everything we need to know about the universe all right so the item is that Virginia Governor or is a West Virginia Virginia's governor was on video talking about a law that's been struck down and abortion law that's been struck down when I saw the video I tweeted that it was fake news and then the universe opened up on me and started to pee on my head and they said Scott you are always so right about things about man or you were wrong about this one you are so wrong and then of course the governor's office clarified that I was right it was fake news but then what did people say did they say well you're right damn it you're right that he didn't say what he meant to say and that he clarified it later you called that exactly did people say that to me no they didn't I think they accused me of being a baby killer mostly so let me give you some context here and people are saying it wasn't fake so so to those of you who are saying it wasn't fake we're gonna talk about what I meant and and what you are what you're experiencing all right so here are several rules that I want you to keep in mind for how to look at any situation all right rule number one and there's a there's a name for this it's named after a person I forget the person but the idea is that when you are the one in the news if you were the subject of the news in other words if there's an article or a story about you personally you get to see how wrong the news is in a way that other people don't so in other words when I see a story written about me I know what the fake parts are because it's about me but you can't tell as far as you can tell it all looks real so when you're the subject of a story you can see how amazingly unreal they are so it changes your perspective about how real other stories are so if you see other people's stories you're automatically on alert if you've been the subject of your own stories alright so the first rule is if you if you see a story about a famous person a governor a cartoonist a president there's a good chance maybe you 60% that the story is misleading and of context or just wrong right most of you are the gell-mann effect thank you yes the gell-mann effect he's the one who came up with it so I use a physicist I believe and when he saw stories about physics because that was the one thing he understood he could tell that the news was often wrong because that just happened to be one thing he understood so well there you could tell so rule number one about 60% of everything you see in the news about a person and their thoughts and their thoughts is wrong let me give you an example so here's somebody replying to my comments yesterday so this this is just a fresh tweet and this gentleman who may be on the periscope right now said to me because I have no idea why you're willing to apply charitable intentions in this case that didn't happen I did not apply any charitable intentions in fact I thought everybody in this case need you know it's probably worthy of criticism for one thing or another so there were no charitable intentions but this person sees them clearly in other words he's imagining he can read my mind because I never said anything like I have charitable intentions that was just a misinterpretation so and then all morning in all last night I was reading comments to my comment that it was fake news and he almost universally people were complaining about something they imagined I thought or they imagined I said almost nobody was actually criticizing me for something I actually said and actually believed now actually said in this context means interpreted correctly so let's get to the the situation itself so Virginia had this proposed law which apparently was a terrible law so terrible it's already been rejected so rule number one of this conversation we all agree it was a bad law right okay we all agree it was a bad law is there any is there anybody here who thought that was a good law we're all in the same side right right if anybody here thinks that was a good law just say so are we in a hundred percent agreement that the law was a bad law we're all on the same side right now even though we're all on the same side that the law was bad watch how people imagine I'm thinking otherwise and start criticizing me and it's even gonna happen in the in the feed here you're gonna watch people say why are you defending this I'm not as far as I can tell we all think it was a bad law here's the fake part when the video of the governor speaking first dropped and I'm gonna I'm gonna read it to you so the key part here here's the key part this is what the governor said he's been described as a moderate and he said about this talking about what what types of situations this wooden incorporate or encapsulated I guess or include he said quote it's done in cases where there may be severe deformities there may be a fetus that is non viable so in this particular example if a mother is in labor I can tell you exactly what would happen the infant would be delivered the infant would be kept comfortable so far so good the infant would be resuscitated so far so good if that's what the mother and family desire what now it's giving a little sketchy and that a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother and then here on fire .

wait a minute did this governor just say did this governor just say in the clearest possible terms that they would deliver a healthy baby and then decide whether they would kill it that's fake news all right it's fake news that they were deciding that they would kill a healthy baby after delivery so that's the fake news part and that's the part that of course was clarified so was I correct that it was fake news well it wasn't fake news in the sense that he said those words because I was on video it was fake in the way that people interpreted it they interpreted it as him saying that you'd have a perfectly fine baby and then for any reason to whatsoever if the mother said yeah let's kill it the doctor would say okay well that's the law if you'd like to kill this perfectly healthy baby I'll do that for you now twenty percent of you watching this just mistakenly thought I came out in favor of killing babies so let me stop again because this is one of those topics where we're misinterpreting is the norm I'm not in favor of killing any babies I'm not in favor of killing healthy ones I'm not in favor of killing unhealthy ones I'm not in favor of killing babies under any under any condition all right so don't confuse my talking about how clear the video was and how clear the message was I get to get rid of you for being in so whoever accuses me of being an apologist is not listening closely enough so I'm just blocking those people all right so I'm talking about the clarity of the message I'm not talking and now talking about the proposed bill which we all agree was bad right nobody here wants to kill a baby we're all the same side right but watch how even though we're all on the same side nobody wants to kill a baby nobody thought that would belong was good wall to the same sides and at the same point people are gonna say damn it Scott I disagree with you while agreeing with you completely alright now was the bill poorly written apparently yes and and the the insane part of the bill as it's been reported and I'm not sure this is as accurate as it could be but if this is true it's just crazy that one of the reasons that the the a healthy baby could be terminated as if it was causing the mother mental problems after birth after it was born you know if the bill said something like that of course nobody's in favor of that but specific case let me just say what the governor was saying and this is not me agreeing with him this is not me defending him this is not me being an apologist I'm just talking about the message and how clear it was it seemed clear to me when I saw the video that the governor was talking about a situation in which the the baby was born technically alive but could not have survived and the question then becomes more of a hospice situation you know what Hospice is right Hospice is when let's say there's an elderly person they've only got maybe a week to live and at that point the people in charge if the if the person is no longer let's say clear thinking maybe there's a relative who gets to decide based on the directions that have been left you know the directive can they can they stop feeding them and stop stop trying to keep them alive so the context here was sort of a hospice social situation for a newborn so that's that was the context so the question was should you do heroic things to keep a baby alive for another few hours or not now most of you would be correct in saying this baby this bill is not written with the kind of precision that you can even you could ever agree with it right even people who were pro-abortion would disagree with this bill the way it's written because it's not it just doesn't have the kinds of protections that any of us would want so the governor's context which to me seemed completely clear was that you're not talking about a baby that could have lived and had a you know normal life and that the doctor would have to be agreeing now that's essentially what what they clarified after the fact right so the governor's office issued a clarification which was largely what I said but I better anything yeah the the part about the mental health of the mother that's just a that's just a part of the bill that nobody could agree with and so it's a good thing that got killed but that's not what the governor was saying the governor was not talking about the context of the the mother's mental health the government was talking about specifically a baby that was not viable meaning it wasn't going to live under any assumptions right now how many of you how many of you in the comments believe that the government the governor was saying in that video that a live healthy baby could still be terminated for a reason how many of you believe that because that's what the news that's the way it was presented on the internet let's say so the way people received it was the fake news a little bit more than the news itself which was the video how many of you believe that right on the internet a lot of people believed it so here's the here's the clarification we're once again we're all on the same side it was a bad bill we're all on the same side you don't kill a healthy baby we're all we're all on the same side that if the baby could live it was some kind of a some kind of a life nobody wants to you know to take away that possibility so we're all the same side I'm just saying that the way you received his specific message was inaccurate and then later he clarified it you can still hate the bill we're not arguing about that all right it's probably impossible to even make the point I'm making without people hearing it as a completely different point since somebody's saying nice try say it's impossible to actually even have this conversation now here's some of the some of the other things to learn from this so we all experience the yani and laurel illusion right so we all saw that we can look at exactly the same thing and have a different a different impression of what happened we've all watched the Trump presidency and again we've seen that we can all look at the same news and have completely different impressions of what we saw and then we saw the and then we saw the covington situation in which people like me said well my eyes can't lie to me I'm looking at something right on video I'm definitely not wrong about that and then you see the context and you say whoops totally wrong about that and so I immediately immediately clarified and apologized now I think you know that I have no compunction no embarrassment whatsoever about apologizing what I'm wrong but here's here's the thing to learn from this the people who were most angry with me said it can't be fake news and I can't be fooled by this because I'm looking at it with my own eyes I'm seeing the entire clip I'm not just looking at a little clip I'm seeing the entire context I'm hearing it clearly this could not be more clear how is this fake news if you think that you have not learned the lessons of last few years the last few years should have taught you that no matter how clear this looks it could still be completely wrong so if you haven't if you haven't at least allowed for the possibility that no matter how obvious and clear this looks it could not be that it could be something different you have to at least allow that that's possible if you don't allow that you've learned nothing in the last few years all right which doesn't mean doesn't mean my interpretation was the right one I'm just saying that you have to allow that or you've learned nothing so here's another rule this is the Scott Alexander rule I've talked about this a few times if you see if you see in the news something that's so outrageous you seems unbelievable and then it becomes headline news chances are and when I say chances are probably a 90% plus it's not true keep this rule in mind all the time when you see a news story that by its nature is so outrageous if you think my god how could it be true that we're contemplating killing a live baby after birth the answer is usually that it's not true so you should have seen this video and as clear as it was to you the the most rational thing to say was yeah this very clearly this governor is saying in the clearest possible terms that they can kill a live baby after birth because it did look like that the way he said it was terribly muddled right so no matter how clear that was you still should have said to yourself that's so outrageous there's a 90% chance of fake now suppose you go into the future and it turns out it was completely real well that would be the exception but your first instinct should have been there's a 90% chance it's not what you think it is and sure enough the and sure enough the a lot of people were calling me arrogant on this point no I want to talk about that in a minute so you should have had much less confidence in your opinion even though you saw the entire context on video right in front of your eyes and even though it looked to you very clear right so here's the other here are the other hints they should not have been so confident about your first impression people like me saw exactly what you saw and didn't see what you saw I was looking at exactly the same video the whole video and I didn't see what you saw so here's another rule the hallucinations are usually positive meaning that if you and I are standing in a room and there's nothing else in the room and you say do you see that elephant and I say what elephant and you say the elephant right in front of you this elephant right in front of you do you see it and I say no I do not see an elephant there if that's the only thing you knew about the story one person saw it one person did not and let's say it's you know there's no forest involved you're in a small room and the elephant was either in there or not who is usually right who is usually right the person who doesn't see the elephant is usually right and the reason is that a hallucination is usually adding something to a situation hallucination is rarely subtracting something so if you and I looked at the same video and you saw a guy saying that he was in favor of killing live babies for whatever reason after they're born you know as long as you don't want them if that's what you saw but there's anybody else who saw the same video and said no that looks like it's out of context he's just talking about a hospice situation where you know you're deciding whether to try to keep alive a baby that was born alive but can't possibly live for you know much longer all right always go with the person who doesn't see it doesn't mean you'd be right every time but the bad bet was that this story was true just the way you originally thought it that was the bad bet it is still true and tried to hold these thoughts in your head it could still be true that you misinterpreted the video well it's also true that the bill was so bad that it did allow bad things to happen if it had been enacted exactly the way it had been contemplated all right so people are saying to me Scott you're being arrogant I'm arrogant and talking down to people let me I have to look up the definition of arrogant before I govern that all right a definition of arrogant and by the way I'm not saying that I'm not arrogant exaggerating were disposed to exaggerate one's own worth okay I don't think I've done that have I I mean no more than anybody on television is trying to say that their opinions are good ones so doesn't put that one ones own Worth or importance now I mean I'm a person that you come to watch on a regular basis to give my opinions so if I give my opinions that's just sort of what I do right that's not exaggerating my importance in an overbearing manner alright or having an offensive attitude of superiority offensive is one of those things that you can't argue with so I will agree I will agree that if it seems offensive to you since that's subjective you know it's I don't really control I can't control how you feel so if you feel it's offensive that would fit the definition of of arrogant so I would have to agree with you on that and then showing an offensive attitude of superiority all right the topic that we're talking about which is persuasion and and had it had a view reality the reason that you come here is because you think I have something to add that's the whole reason anybody is here if you didn't think I had something to add you know within this field nobody would be listening so how could I hide my feeling of superiority what would that even mean you know should I do you think these do you think coffee with Scott Adams would be better if I didn't act like I believed anything I said I kind of have to believe what I'm saying or the whole thing doesn't work right now my suspicion is that a lot of people got got caught with the fake news and and they don't like it all right so yeah I can't make a generalization about every every person who's commenting but for some of you you got caught in the fake news you really believed that there was a law saying that you could kill a perfectly healthy baby just because you know and then once you found out that it was a much more limited thing still something you hated still something that needed to be defeated but not quite what you thought it was and and and you're sort of taking that down on me a little bit which is okay all right so I will acknowledge that if you felt offended by my air of superiority on this narrow point of fake news which I happen to be fairly qualified to speak about but if you were offended then it would be fair for you to say that my attitude was arrogant because it meets the definition alright let's talk about climate splaining how many of you have first of all Perl probably every person here understands I hope by now that today's weather doesn't say anything about whether climate change is is a problem or not right can we agree everybody here that 100% of us understand that today's weather no matter how cold or warm it is doesn't tell you anything about the long-term climate implications right at the same time at the same time we're all explaining that to each other haven't you seen is it my imagination or do I explain this to people about five times a week and then people explain it back to me like I've never heard it it's the damndest thing are you all experience is the same thing if you're having the same conversations are you experiencing the same thing where where you'll say to somebody you know don't make a big thing about this weather whether it's hot or cold because that's just weather that's not the climate and then two days later somebody will explain that same thing to you like you didn't just explain it to them like I'm having this weird situation so the president of course made things worse with his tweet about global whamming or warming I guess it was a typo in there and he of course mocked the climate alarmists because it's unusually cold and where's my where's where's my climate stuff now here's the thing we don't know what the president is thinking just in general e should always say you don't really know what people are thinking we know what he did we know that he sent a tweet that anybody who understands the topic would know was ridiculous right so it's ridiculous to say that the weather today tells you something about the climate it is not ridiculous to use it in a persuasive humorous way which is how I interpreted it that he was trying to persuade because and here's the here's the fun part because the other side is making the same stupid argument correct me if I'm wrong but when we had all the forest fires in Northern California wasn't the news telling us that that was strong evidence of global warming right when we had the lot of hurricanes not this year but the year before wasn't wasn't the news telling us that that was probably because of global warming none of those things are true those are just things that might be as a bad year for hurricanes but that's all you could really say about them so both sides are trying to have it both ways both sides of the climate debate are trying to claim the anecdotal stuff things were seeing today are actually solid evidence of their point of view mmm it's not true either way so we're explaining to each other that that weather and climate aren't the same even though I think everybody understands that all right let's talk about President Trump I guess he tweeted some negative things about his Intel heads and so he he had some disagreement with Dan Coates in particular I guess Dan Coates said something along the lines of to Congress he said it's unlikely that North Korea will ever give up their nukes so that so dan coates what's his job ahead of I don't some top Intel guy I forget the exact title said it's unlikely that North Korea will give up its nukes he should be fired for that dan coates should be fired for saying that absolutely you should be fired now the president had every right to tear him a new a-hole in public for saying that because we're still in a negotiation what's the worst thing you can say if you're in a negotiation the very very very worst thing they're probably a lot of bad things you can say when you're in a negotiation but the worst thing you can say is we don't expect to get the thing that we're asking for there's nothing worse than that because what did North Korea say when they saw that the head of the Intel said they're never going to give up their nukes if they're smart and I believe they are North Korea said oh they don't even expect us to give up our nukes why should we even try why would we even put that on the table they're not even expecting it dan coates should have been fired for saying that in public now more importantly as I'm saying in the comments you're prompting me more importantly it's a mind-reading opinion the worst of the worst the fact is we don't know if he was sticking with the facts he would have said we're asking North Korea to give up this stuff the history history suggests this is going to be a tough fight we don't know how this will and well we're definitely going to push Lord as hard as we can those would just be facts right facts are fine if dan coates had said facts that disagreed with the president I would say no no I'd rather see the facts the exception would be if there's some persuasion kind of thing that's that's important so Kim jong-un has generals to say similar things because they're on the North Korean side yes maybe you're agreeing with me I may have misinterpreted that here's another one they were I guess the Intel Chiefs I forget which one was disagreeing with Trump that Isis is beaten disagreeing with Trump the ISIS is beaten whoever said that should be fired tell me why in the comments whoever whoever disagreed with the president and said that Isis is not beaten whatever beaten means everybody agrees that it's a it's a permanent problem but whoever said Isis is not beaten should be fired why here's why here's why do you know what's good for recruiting to say that they're they might win to say that they have a chance do you know what's bad for Isis recruiting they're so beaten down there's nothing left them yeah there's remnants but basically they're beaten the smart way to play this is to say they're beaten while acknowledging that it's a permanent ongoing smaller problem the last thing you want to do is to say that the biggest military in the world has been fighting them for however many years and they're not beaten you need to get fired for that stuff that's like one of the biggest mistakes you could ever say in public those are terrible now what was the other thing something better ran above and so the president also was trying to keep maximum pressure on Iran by saying that there you know a maximum problem how is our negotiation helped by the Intel people acting like Iran isn't that big of a problem compared to what the president is saying you should get fired for that you should be fired for disagreeing with the negotiating position of the commander-in-chief you should give fired for that weird word all the comments go all right so given that the Intel Chiefs made some of the biggest mistakes I've I can't even conceive of in public was it acceptable or problem or is it a problem that the president called the mail fairly immediately and in public was it a problem to me and not a problem to me I love the transparency the transparency is part of what we like about this president that's what it's a feature it's not a bug if somebody makes those that kind of mistake I mean these are monumental mistakes these are the kind of mistakes that cause Wars and this is a war sized set of mistakes by his Intel chips yes he should call them out yes you should do it in public in public absolutely in public yes it should be immediate and yes you should tweet it so absolutely he should have called them out for that he should have embarrassed them in public and he should make sure that nobody is dumb enough to do it again all right I don't even think he was hard enough on him I think those were firing the firing mistakes all right let's talk about Howard Schultz so I've been getting to watch a little bit more of Howard Schultz doing interviews so he's doing the tour and he's selling a book he's doing a great job to selling his book I'll bet because he's getting all kinds of attention and I'm starting to form an opinion about him that I didn't have before so here's my opinion number one in a normal world where we didn't have these these weird parties you know the Republicans and the Democrats were not you know worlds apart in a normal world he'd be a pretty solid candidate he he has charisma he's got the look he's he's tall he's got good hair he's got a good back story he got health care and and in college benefits for his employees long before before that was popular or even practical his story is great seems totally qualified and he's he's moderate in that middle area where it's easy to imagine he could even get crossover votes so in a normal world he would be a really strong candidate really strong I have to say but there is no home for him in the Democratic Party and never will be because he is a white male right so yeah he's a white male and he looks sort of traditionally like you know the white male CEO the white male you know good hair candidate sort of thing so I don't think there's any chance that he could ever be the standard-bearer for the Democrats and of course he's too liberal to to be with the Republicans and but what's interesting is we're seeing him frame the Democrats as being crazy which is actually quite a public service it's I would consider this a legitimate public service that he's coming out as you know more liberal than not kind of a person he would say centrist and and he's calling out the side that people associate him with even if he doesn't associate himself with it calling them out for their math not working now at the same time apparently Bloomberg has done the same thing so Bloomberg who I have a sort of a love/hate feeling about there there are things that Bloomberg likes that that I probably don't like so in terms of policies I don't I wouldn't say I would agree with him on and everything but I gotta say that plucky little Bloomberg guy he does he does seem honest in terms of you know his public stuff he does seem sincere he does seem capable he does seem to have a control of the issues there's a lot to like about him all right except these policies are not the ones you want which of course matters but in terms of a candidate as an individual it's got a lot going for him I don't think he can win but what would happen I'm just gonna throw this out there what would happen if Bloomberg and Howard Schultz decided to run as you know president vice-president package as as independence as independence they'd be a pretty strong package and but the you know the way the media is organized nobody can win outside of the the major parties at this point because they don't have a they don't have a media platform to support him yeah yes white male Bloomberg also could not be candidate on the Democrat side he doesn't have the doesn't have the required skill which is to be not a white male so I've told you how when I watch the news I have a different experience than many of you do which is which is that quite often you're just watching the news whereas I become the news have you noticed that there are there are cases where I think I'm just watching the news and talking about it but then I become the news because the news is about had the news is covered so with that Covington Catholic school thing being one of the first people to reverse courses I became part of the national news because they were making news about people who change that are their opinion of it when they saw the full video and I was one of the first Politico did an article yesterday in which they were talking about how there were prominent Trump supporters who were noticing that a OC had the same skill set as Trump lately I've been calling her a blue Trump blue for Democrat and Trump for her skill set as a persuader and sure enough Politico has now made the aoc story partly about me so I mentioned in the story prominently as as one of the people would called that her skill set for persuasion Mike Serna in there Steve been and I think is mentioned and yeah they always lumped me with what they consider alright but other people do not consider alright so what we're all mislabeled in this now somebody says really don't see it yeah so I will just say it's weird to watch the news and then be absorbed into it and then when I'm watching the news the news is partly about me which is weird somebody says that's not a good group bait over Trump never happened yeah bado won't be the candidate for president you don't have to worry about that mega hat attack I don't know what that's about it's not weird it's false modesty because I love the attention I didn't say I didn't love the attention oh my god if anybody loves attention it's me the one the one thing I'll never say is that I don't I don't like attention if you ever hear me say I don't like attention you should just never watch me again because then you would know I'm a liar we'll talk about a hoaxed on another another thing I want to I want to finish it before I talk about it somebody's asking for another simultaneous sip and here we go so there's a story about some actor from Empire whose name I can't remember Smollett I guess he is reportedly is he does he does he self-identify his gay that's what somebody saying well let's let's say he does and there's some question about whether he was really attacked by somebody wearing a hat and apparently it's hard to confirm that it happened I would say I'm gonna put this in the category of things that it's sort of a wait-and-see you know it probably they're just things we'll never know about what happened there I'm not sure we'll ever have an answer so it's hard to have an opinion about that oh the stone read yeah you know a lot has been said about the Roger stone raid and I don't think that I don't think that I would have anything to add to that I'm doing I think we all have the same impression which is why in the world would you need to raid a guy who of course says he knows he's been the subject of investigation if there were if there were any evidence laying around he certainly would have gotten but more importantly as somebody joked I wish I could give credit but somebody joked recently if you wanted to catch Roger stone all you had to do is say CNN wants to talk to you and he would come running out of his house and that's completely true right if you wanted to catch Roger stone just say hey we got an interview on the front lawn once you come out here and then then put the handcuffs on them so one has to ask what was the purpose what was the purpose of the the major raid and I want to suggest that there's a reason that has not been considered and the reason that hasn't been considered is there's a reason that we just don't know what it is one of the things I'm writing about my new book which you'll see in a few months is that sometimes we we draw conclusions based on our own lack of imagination so if you say to me Scott imagine all the reasons that you can think of that the FBI would have such a show of force to pick up Roger stone when all of us believe we can't think of any reason that would be necessary unless they were just you know being being jerks or they were overreaching or or something like that yeah or maybe they were sending a message somebody says etc now maybe maybe maybe those are the reasons but did they do they pass the sniff test do you think there was somebody at the FBI who said this will be a good look for us I think this will be good for the FBI if we send way too many people to pick up Roger stone I don't quite get how they thought that was the way to go so here's what I'm going to suggest by far the most likely explanation of why they sent so many people to pick him up and in such a dramatic fashion was that there's something we don't know now I know you don't like to hear that because you like to think you've seen it all but by far the most likely explanation this is some day you know maybe it's the head of the FBI will say okay what we didn't tell you is that we had this other concern and there was a reason we did it the way we did it or they might say it was simply let me give you a I'll just brainstorm here alright so this is just brainstorming imagine that they decided to pick them up and originally they're just go send three or four people and if you saw three or four people show up you'd say oh that looks about right three or four people you know wouldn't that feel about right to you and let's say the words got out the three or four people we're gonna go do this job is it possible that other people said well maybe we'll be back up for you just just in case and then maybe you just sort of drifted into too many people showed up and then they all had to act like they were doing something so they all stood around looking menacing and it was just way too many people so it's possible that the FBI is like any big organization where you call a meeting and you say alright I've invited six people and and twelve people show up have you ever been in a business meeting where you're sure that only six people were invited but you sit down and there are 12 people there because each of them invited two other people all right so it's possible that there's just nothing to it there was just a big administrative situation where just too many people showed up yeah now I'm not saying that that's likely I'm saying that you always have to assume that when you have these hard-to-explain situations that maybe just maybe the explanation is something you don't know something you haven't considered so keep that in mind that's why I don't have a firm opinion about whether this was the worst thing in the world or or just some weird mistake that the FBI did they wanted to be there for historic mm-hmm yeah it's entirely possible that people in the FBI just wanted to be there because it was gonna be a good show you know just wanted to be part of history that's possible and and then maybe nobody stopped them yeah okay well you're here anyway that's not how law enforcement works yeah I'm not suggesting that that what I'm brainstorming with no thought whatsoever is what actually happened I'm just saying that in general you can't always know all the things that went into these into the back backstory razor carefully planned people don't show up well you called it a raid what if it was never arraigned what if it was always for people who were gonna knock on the door and the other FBI agents in the neighborhood knew that was going to happen maybe maybe maybe the FBI heard that the well how about this what if the FBI heard that CNN had cameras there if you heard the CNN had cameras would you bring extra people just to make sure that the media was controlled away from the away from the working situation I think you would right if you knew that there was a camera crew outside of Roger Stone's home would you bring more FBI agents or fewer I think you'd bring more because you'd have an extra population to control so consider all the possibilities but I think we can we're all on firm ground and saying we do need an explanation I think the public needs an explanation but don't assume it's going to be some some evil intention it could be just don't know Star Trek STD are you watching is anybody watching the new Star Trek on CBS I it got bad reviews but I think it's the best one actually I love the new Star Trek all right that's all for now I'll talk to you later bye

pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom

pom pom pom hello Savannah Allen welcome

grab your coffee let's put a dent in the

universe says Chris agreed let's just

whack that universe art put a big old

dent in it

well we're gonna have some fun today

hello Germany hello everybody

something tells me we're gonna get a big

crowd in here today I just have a

feeling nothing attracts a crowd more

than people thinking that they're gonna

grind me in the dirt are we're gonna get

this guy we think he said or thought or

did something that we don't like get him

get him well let's see if that happens

today but first first let us enjoy hey

dr. drew let us enjoy the simultaneous

up raise your cup your mug your thermos

your glass your container your stein

whatever it is filling with your

favorite liquid I like coffee and join

me for the simultaneous set now you

might be aware of a little a little item

in the news that teaches us everything

we need to know about the universe all

right so the item is that Virginia

Governor or is a West Virginia

Virginia's governor was on video talking

about a law that's been struck down and

abortion law that's been struck down

when I saw the video I tweeted that it

was fake news and then the universe

opened up on me and started to pee on my

head and they said Scott you are always

so right about things about man or you

were wrong about this one you are so

wrong and then of course the governor's

office clarified that

I was right it was fake news but then

what did people say did they say well

you're right damn it you're right that

he didn't say what he meant to say and

that he clarified it later you called

that exactly did people say that to me

no they didn't I think they accused me

of being a baby killer mostly so let me

give you some context here and people

are saying it wasn't fake so so to those

of you who are saying it wasn't fake

we're gonna talk about what I meant and

and what you are what you're

experiencing all right so here are

several rules that I want you to keep in

mind for how to look at any situation

all right

rule number one and there's a there's a

name for this it's named after a person

I forget the person but the idea is that

when you are the one in the news if you

were the subject of the news in other

words if there's an article or a story

about you personally you get to see how

wrong the news is in a way that other

people don't so in other words when I

see a story written about me I know what

the fake parts are because it's about me

but you can't tell as far as you can

tell it all looks real so when you're

the subject of a story you can see how

amazingly unreal they are so it changes

your perspective about how real other

stories are so if you see other people's

stories you're automatically on alert if

you've been the subject of your own

stories alright so the first rule is if

you if you see a story about a famous

person a governor a cartoonist a

president there's a good chance maybe

you 60% that the story is misleading and

of context or just wrong right

most of you are the gell-mann effect

thank you yes the gell-mann effect he's

the one who came up with it so I use a

physicist I believe and when he saw

stories about physics because that was

the one thing he understood he could

tell that the news was often wrong

because that just happened to be one

thing he understood so well there you

could tell so rule number one about 60%

of everything you see in the news about

a person and their thoughts and their

thoughts is wrong let me give you an

example so here's somebody replying to

my comments yesterday so this this is

just a fresh tweet and this gentleman

who may be on the periscope right now

said to me because I have no idea why

you're willing to apply charitable

intentions in this case that didn't

happen I did not apply any charitable

intentions in fact I thought everybody

in this case need you know it's probably

worthy of criticism for one thing or

another so there were no charitable

intentions but this person sees them

clearly in other words he's imagining he

can read my mind because I never said

anything like I have charitable

intentions that was just a

misinterpretation so and then all

morning in all last night I was reading

comments to my comment that it was fake

news and he almost universally people

were complaining about something they

imagined I thought or they imagined I

said almost nobody was actually

criticizing me for something I actually

said and actually believed now actually

said in this context means interpreted

correctly so let's get to the the

situation itself so Virginia had this

proposed law which apparently was a

terrible law so terrible it's already

been rejected so rule number one of this

conversation we all agree it was a bad

law right okay we all agree it was a bad

law is there any is there anybody here

who thought that was a good law we're

all in the same side right right if

anybody here thinks that was a good law

just say so are we in a hundred percent

agreement that the law was a bad law

we're all on the same side right

now even though we're all on the same

side that the law was bad watch how

people imagine I'm thinking otherwise

and start criticizing me and it's even

gonna happen in the in the feed here

you're gonna watch people say why are

you defending this I'm not as far as I

can tell we all think it was a bad law

here's the fake part when the video of

the governor speaking first dropped and

I'm gonna I'm gonna read it to you so

the key part here here's the key part

this is what the governor said he's been

described as a moderate and he said

about this talking about what what types

of situations this wooden incorporate or

encapsulated I guess or include he said

quote it's done in cases where there may

be severe deformities there may be a

fetus that is non viable so in this

particular example if a mother is in

labor I can tell you exactly what would

happen the infant would be delivered the

infant would be kept comfortable so far

so good

the infant would be resuscitated so far

so good

if that's what the mother and family

desire what now it's giving a little

sketchy and that a discussion would

ensue between the physicians and the

mother and then here on fire

. wait a minute did this governor just

say did this governor just say in the

clearest possible terms that they would

deliver a healthy baby and then decide

whether they would kill it

that's fake news all right it's fake

news that they were deciding that they

would kill a healthy baby after delivery

so that's the fake news part and that's

the part that of course was clarified so

was I correct that it was fake news well

it wasn't fake news in the sense that he

said those words because I was on video

it was fake in the way that people

interpreted it they interpreted it as

him saying that you'd have a perfectly

fine baby and then for any reason to

whatsoever if the mother said yeah let's

kill it the doctor would say okay well

that's the law if you'd like to kill

this perfectly healthy baby I'll do that

for you now

twenty percent of you watching this just

mistakenly thought I came out in favor

of killing babies so let me stop again

because this is one of those topics

where we're misinterpreting is the norm

I'm not in favor of killing any babies

I'm not in favor of killing healthy ones

I'm not in favor of killing unhealthy

ones I'm not in favor of killing babies

under any under any condition all right

so don't confuse my talking about how

clear the video was and how clear the

message was I get to get rid of you for

being in so whoever accuses me of being

an apologist is not listening closely

enough so I'm just blocking those people

all right so I'm talking about the

clarity of the message I'm not talking

and now talking about the proposed bill

which we all agree was bad right nobody

here wants to kill a baby we're all the

same side right but watch how even

though we're all on the same side nobody

wants to kill a baby nobody thought that

would belong was good wall to the same

sides and at the same point people are

gonna say damn it Scott I disagree with

you while agreeing with you completely

alright now was the bill poorly written

apparently yes and and the the insane

part of the bill as it's been reported

and I'm not sure this is as accurate as

it could be but if this is true it's

just crazy that one of the reasons that

the the a healthy baby could be

terminated as if it was causing the

mother mental problems after birth after

it was born you know if the bill said

something like that of course nobody's

in favor of that but

specific case let me just say what the

governor was saying and this is not me

agreeing with him this is not me

defending him this is not me being an

apologist I'm just talking about the

message and how clear it was it seemed

clear to me when I saw the video that

the governor was talking about a

situation in which the the baby was born

technically alive but could not have

survived and the question then becomes

more of a hospice situation you know

what Hospice is right Hospice is when

let's say there's an elderly person

they've only got maybe a week to live

and at that point the people in charge

if the if the person is no longer let's

say clear thinking maybe there's a

relative who gets to decide based on the

directions that have been left you know

the directive can they can they stop

feeding them and stop stop trying to

keep them alive so the context here was

sort of a hospice social situation for a

newborn so that's that was the context

so the question was should you do heroic

things to keep a baby alive for another

few hours or not now most of you would

be correct in saying this baby this bill

is not written with the kind of

precision that you can even you could

ever agree with it right even people who

were pro-abortion

would disagree with this bill the way

it's written because it's not it just

doesn't have the kinds of protections

that any of us would want so the

governor's context which to me seemed

completely clear was that you're not

talking about a baby that could have

lived and had a you know normal life and

that the doctor would have to be

agreeing now that's essentially what

what they clarified after the fact right

so the governor's office issued a

clarification which was largely what I

said but I

better anything yeah the the part about

the mental health of the mother that's

just a that's just a part of the bill

that nobody could agree with and so it's

a good thing that got killed but that's

not what the governor was saying the

governor was not talking about the

context of the the mother's mental

health the government was talking about

specifically a baby that was not viable

meaning it wasn't going to live under

any assumptions right now how many of

you how many of you in the comments

believe that the government the governor

was saying in that video that a live

healthy baby could still be terminated

for a reason how many of you believe

that because that's what the news that's

the way it was presented on the internet

let's say so the way people received it

was the fake news a little bit more than

the news itself which was the video how

many of you believe that right on the

internet a lot of people believed it so

here's the here's the clarification

we're once again we're all on the same

side it was a bad bill we're all on the

same side you don't kill a healthy baby

we're all we're all on the same side

that if the baby could live it was some

kind of a some kind of a life nobody

wants to you know to take away that

possibility so we're all the same side

I'm just saying that the way you

received his specific message was

inaccurate and then later he clarified

it you can still hate the bill we're not

arguing about that all right

it's probably impossible to even make

the point I'm making without people

hearing it as a completely different

point since somebody's saying nice try

say it's impossible to actually even

have this conversation now here's some

of the some of the other things to learn

from this so we all experience the yani

and laurel illusion right so we all saw

that we can look at exactly the same

thing and have a different a different

impression of what happened

we've all watched the Trump presidency

and again we've seen that we can all

look at the same news and have

completely different impressions of what

we saw and then we saw the and then we

saw the covington situation in which

people like me said well my eyes can't

lie to me I'm looking at something right

on video I'm definitely not wrong about

that and then you see the context and

you say whoops totally wrong about that

and so I immediately immediately

clarified and apologized now I think you

know that I have no compunction no

embarrassment whatsoever about

apologizing what I'm wrong but here's

here's the thing to learn from this the

people who were most angry with me said

it can't be fake news and I can't be

fooled by this because I'm looking at it

with my own eyes I'm seeing the entire

clip I'm not just looking at a little

clip I'm seeing the entire context I'm

hearing it clearly this could not be

more clear how is this fake news if you

think that you have not learned the

lessons of last few years the last few

years should have taught you that no

matter how clear this looks it could

still be completely wrong so if you

haven't if you haven't at least allowed

for the possibility that no matter how

obvious and clear this looks it could

not be that it could be something

different you have to at least allow

that that's possible if you don't allow

that you've learned nothing in the last

few years all right which doesn't mean

doesn't mean my interpretation was the

right one I'm just saying that you have

to allow that or you've learned nothing

so here's another rule this is the Scott

Alexander rule I've talked about this a

few times if you see if you see in the

news something that's so outrageous you

seems unbelievable and then it becomes

headline news chances are and when I say

chances are probably a 90% plus

it's not true keep this rule in mind all

the time when you see a news story that

by its nature is so outrageous if you

think my god how could it be true that

we're contemplating killing a live baby

after birth the answer is usually that

it's not true so you should have seen

this video and as clear as it was to you

the the most rational thing to say was

yeah this very clearly this governor is

saying in the clearest possible terms

that they can kill a live baby after

birth because it did look like that the

way he said it was terribly muddled

right so no matter how clear that was

you still should have said to yourself

that's so outrageous there's a 90%

chance of fake now suppose you go into

the future and it turns out it was

completely real well that would be the

exception but your first instinct should

have been there's a 90% chance it's not

what you think it is and sure enough the

and sure enough the a lot of people were

calling me arrogant on this point no I

want to talk about that in a minute

so you should have had much less

confidence in your opinion even though

you saw the entire context on video

right in front of your eyes and even

though it looked to you very clear right

so here's the other here are the other

hints they should not have been so

confident about your first impression

people like me saw exactly what you saw

and didn't see what you saw I was

looking at exactly the same video the

whole video and I didn't see what you

saw so here's another rule the

hallucinations are usually positive

meaning that if you and I are standing

in a room and there's nothing else in

the room and you say do you see that

elephant and I say what elephant and you

say the elephant right in front of you

this elephant right in front of you do

you see it and I say no I do not see an

elephant there if that's the only thing

you knew about the story one person saw

it

one person did not and let's say it's

you know there's no forest involved

you're in a small room and the elephant

was either in there or not

who is usually right who is usually

right the person who doesn't see the

elephant is usually right and the reason

is that a hallucination is usually

adding something to a situation

hallucination is rarely subtracting

something so if you and I looked at the

same video and you saw a guy saying that

he was in favor of killing live babies

for whatever reason after they're born

you know as long as you don't want them

if that's what you saw but there's

anybody else who saw the same video and

said no that looks like it's out of

context he's just talking about a

hospice situation where you know you're

deciding whether to try to keep alive a

baby that was born alive but can't

possibly live for you know much longer

all right always go with the person who

doesn't see it doesn't mean you'd be

right every time but the bad bet was

that this story was true just the way

you originally thought it that was the

bad bet it is still true and tried to

hold these thoughts in your head it

could still be true that you

misinterpreted the video well it's also

true that the bill was so bad that it

did allow bad things to happen if it had

been enacted exactly the way it had been

contemplated all right so people are

saying to me Scott you're being arrogant

I'm arrogant and talking down to people

let me I have to look up the definition

of arrogant before I govern that all

right a definition of arrogant and by

the way I'm not saying that I'm not

arrogant

exaggerating were disposed to exaggerate

one's own worth okay I don't think I've

done that have I I mean no more than

anybody on television is trying to say

that their opinions are good ones

so doesn't put that one ones own Worth

or importance now I mean I'm a person

that you come to watch on a regular

basis to give my opinions so if I give

my opinions that's just sort of what I

do right that's not exaggerating my

importance in an overbearing manner

alright or having an offensive attitude

of superiority offensive is one of those

things that you can't argue with so I

will agree I will agree that if it seems

offensive to you since that's subjective

you know it's I don't really control I

can't control how you feel so if you

feel it's offensive that would fit the

definition of of arrogant so I would

have to agree with you on that and then

showing an offensive attitude of

superiority all right the topic that

we're talking about which is persuasion

and and had it had a view reality the

reason that you come here is because you

think I have something to add that's the

whole reason anybody is here if you

didn't think I had something to add you

know within this field nobody would be

listening so how could I hide my feeling

of superiority what would that even mean

you know should I do you think these do

you think coffee with Scott Adams would

be better if I didn't act like I

believed anything I said I kind of have

to believe what I'm saying or the whole

thing doesn't work right now my

suspicion is that a lot of people got

got caught with the fake news and and

they don't like it all right

so yeah I can't make a generalization

about every every person who's

commenting but for some of you you got

caught in the fake news you really

believed that there was a law saying

that you could kill a perfectly healthy

baby just because you know and then once

you found out that it was a much more

limited thing still something you hated

still something that needed to be

defeated but not quite what you thought

it was and and and you're sort of taking

that down on me a little bit which is

okay all right so I will acknowledge

that if you felt offended by my air of

superiority on this narrow point of fake

news which I happen to be fairly

qualified to speak about but if you were

offended then it would be fair for you

to say that my attitude was arrogant

because it meets the definition alright

let's talk about climate splaining how

many of you have first of all Perl

probably every person here understands I

hope by now that today's weather doesn't

say anything about whether climate

change is is a problem or not right can

we agree everybody here that 100% of us

understand that today's weather no

matter how cold or warm it is doesn't

tell you anything about the long-term

climate implications right at the same

time at the same time we're all

explaining that to each other

haven't you seen is it my imagination or

do I explain this to people about five

times a week and then people explain it

back to me like I've never heard it it's

the damndest thing are you all

experience is the same thing if you're

having the same conversations are you

experiencing the same thing where where

you'll say to somebody you know don't

make a big thing about this weather

whether it's hot or cold because that's

just weather that's not the climate and

then two days later somebody will

explain that same thing to you like you

didn't just explain it to them

like I'm having this weird situation so

the president of course made things

worse with his tweet about global

whamming or warming I guess it was a

typo in there and he of course mocked

the climate alarmists

because it's unusually cold and where's

my where's where's my climate stuff now

here's the thing we don't know what the

president is thinking just in general e

should always say you don't really know

what people are thinking we know what he

did we know that he sent a tweet that

anybody who understands the topic would

know was ridiculous right so it's

ridiculous to say that the weather today

tells you something about the climate it

is not ridiculous to use it in a

persuasive humorous way which is how I

interpreted it that he was trying to

persuade because and here's the here's

the fun part because the other side is

making the same stupid argument correct

me if I'm wrong but when we had all the

forest fires in Northern California

wasn't the news telling us that that was

strong evidence of global warming right

when we had the lot of hurricanes not

this year but the year before wasn't

wasn't the news telling us that that was

probably because of global warming none

of those things are true those are just

things that might be as a bad year for

hurricanes but that's all you could

really say about them so both sides are

trying to have it both ways

both sides of the climate debate are

trying to claim the anecdotal stuff

things were seeing today are actually

solid evidence of their point of view

mmm it's not true either way so we're

explaining to each other that that

weather and climate aren't the same even

though I think everybody understands

that all right let's talk about

President Trump

I guess he tweeted some negative things

about his Intel heads and so he he had

some disagreement with Dan Coates in

particular I guess Dan Coates said

something along the lines of to Congress

he said it's unlikely that North Korea

will ever give up their nukes so that so

dan coates what's his job ahead of I

don't some top Intel guy I forget the

exact title said it's unlikely that

North Korea will give up its nukes he

should be fired for that dan coates

should be fired for saying that

absolutely you should be fired now the

president had every right to tear him a

new a-hole in public for saying that

because we're still in a negotiation

what's the worst thing you can say if

you're in a negotiation the very very

very worst thing they're probably a lot

of bad things you can say when you're in

a negotiation but the worst thing you

can say is we don't expect to get the

thing that we're asking for there's

nothing worse than that because what did

North Korea say when they saw that the

head of the Intel said they're never

going to give up their nukes if they're

smart and I believe they are North Korea

said oh they don't even expect us to

give up our nukes why should we even try

why would we even put that on the table

they're not even expecting it

dan coates should have been fired for

saying that in public now more

importantly as I'm saying in the

comments you're prompting me more

importantly it's a mind-reading opinion

the worst of the worst the fact is we

don't know if he was sticking with the

facts he would have said we're asking

North Korea to give up this stuff the

history history suggests this is going

to be a tough fight we don't know how

this will

and well we're definitely going to push

Lord as hard as we can those would just

be facts right facts are fine if dan

coates had said facts that disagreed

with the president I would say no no I'd

rather see the facts the exception would

be if there's some persuasion kind of

thing that's that's important so Kim

jong-un has generals to say similar

things because they're on the North

Korean side yes maybe you're agreeing

with me I may have misinterpreted that

here's another one they were I guess the

Intel Chiefs I forget which one was

disagreeing with Trump that Isis is

beaten disagreeing with Trump the ISIS

is beaten whoever said that should be

fired tell me why in the comments

whoever whoever disagreed with the

president and said that Isis is not

beaten

whatever beaten means everybody agrees

that it's a it's a permanent problem but

whoever said Isis is not beaten should

be fired why here's why here's why do

you know what's good for recruiting to

say that they're they might win to say

that they have a chance do you know

what's bad for Isis recruiting they're

so beaten down there's nothing left them

yeah there's remnants but basically

they're beaten the smart way to play

this is to say they're beaten while

acknowledging that it's a permanent

ongoing smaller problem the last thing

you want to do is to say that the

biggest military in the world has been

fighting them for however many years and

they're not beaten you need to get fired

for that stuff that's like one of the

biggest mistakes you could ever say in

public those are terrible now what was

the other thing something

better ran above and so the president

also was trying to keep maximum pressure

on Iran by saying that there you know a

maximum problem how is our negotiation

helped by the Intel people acting like

Iran isn't that big of a problem

compared to what the president is saying

you should get fired for that you should

be fired for disagreeing with the

negotiating position of the

commander-in-chief you should give fired

for that weird word all the comments go

all right so given that the Intel Chiefs

made some of the biggest mistakes I've I

can't even conceive of in public

was it acceptable or problem or is it a

problem that the president called the

mail fairly immediately and in public

was it a problem to me and not a problem

to me

I love the transparency the transparency

is part of what we like about this

president that's what it's a feature

it's not a bug if somebody makes those

that kind of mistake I mean these are

monumental mistakes these are the kind

of mistakes that cause Wars and this is

a war sized set of mistakes by his Intel

chips yes he should call them out yes

you should do it in public in public

absolutely in public yes it should be

immediate and yes you should tweet it

so absolutely he should have called them

out for that he should have embarrassed

them in public and he should make sure

that nobody is dumb enough to do it

again all right I don't even think he

was hard enough on him I think those

were firing the firing mistakes all

right let's talk about Howard Schultz

so I've been getting to watch a little

bit more of Howard Schultz doing

interviews so he's doing the tour and

he's selling a book he's doing a great

job to selling his book I'll bet because

he's getting all kinds of attention and

I'm starting to form an opinion about

him that I didn't have before so here's

my opinion number one in a normal world

where we didn't have these these weird

parties you know the Republicans and the

Democrats were not you know worlds apart

in a normal world he'd be a pretty solid

candidate he he has charisma he's got

the look he's he's tall he's got good

hair he's got a good back story

he got health care and and in college

benefits for his employees long before

before that was popular or even

practical his story is great seems

totally qualified and he's he's moderate

in that middle area where it's easy to

imagine he could even get crossover

votes so in a normal world he would be a

really strong candidate really strong I

have to say but there is no home for him

in the Democratic Party and never will

be because he is a white male right so

yeah he's a white male and he looks sort

of traditionally like you know the white

male CEO the white male you know good

hair candidate sort of thing so I don't

think there's any chance that he could

ever be the standard-bearer for the

Democrats and of course he's too liberal

to to be with the Republicans and but

what's interesting is we're seeing him

frame the Democrats as being crazy which

is actually quite a public service it's

I would consider this a legitimate

public service that he's coming out as

you know more liberal than not kind of a

person he would say centrist and and

he's calling out the side that people

associate him with even if he doesn't

associate himself with it calling them

out for their math not working now at

the same time apparently Bloomberg has

done the same thing

so Bloomberg who I have a sort of a

love/hate feeling about there there are

things that Bloomberg likes that that I

probably don't like so in terms of

policies I don't I wouldn't say I would

agree with him on and everything but I

gotta say that plucky little Bloomberg

guy he does he does seem honest in terms

of you know his public stuff he does

seem sincere he does seem capable he

does seem to have a control of the

issues there's a lot to like about him

all right except these policies are not

the ones you want which of course

matters but in terms of a candidate as

an individual it's got a lot going for

him I don't think he can win but what

would happen I'm just gonna throw this

out there what would happen if Bloomberg

and Howard Schultz decided to run as you

know president vice-president package as

as independence as independence they'd

be a pretty strong package and but the

you know the way the media is organized

nobody can win outside of the the major

parties at this point because they don't

have a they don't have a media platform

to support him yeah yes white male

Bloomberg also could not be candidate on

the Democrat side he doesn't have the

doesn't have the required skill which is

to be not a white male so I've told you

how when I watch the news I have a

different experience than many of you do

which is which is that quite often

you're just watching the news whereas I

become the news have you noticed that

there are there are cases where I think

I'm just watching the news and talking

about it but then I become the news

because the news is about had the news

is covered so with that Covington

Catholic school thing being one of the

first people to reverse courses I became

part of the national news because they

were making news about people who change

that are their opinion of it when they

saw the full video and I was one of the

first Politico did an article yesterday

in which they were talking about how

there were prominent Trump supporters

who were noticing that a OC had the same

skill set as Trump lately I've been

calling her a blue Trump blue for

Democrat and Trump for her skill set as

a persuader

and sure enough Politico has now made

the aoc story partly about me so I

mentioned in the story prominently as as

one of the people would called that her

skill set for persuasion Mike Serna

in there

Steve been and I think is mentioned and

yeah they always lumped me with what

they consider alright but other people

do not consider alright so what we're

all mislabeled in this now somebody says

really don't see it yeah so I will just

say it's weird to watch the news and

then be absorbed into it and then when

I'm watching the news the news is partly

about me which is weird

somebody says that's not a good group

bait over Trump never happened yeah bado

won't be the candidate for president you

don't have to worry about that mega hat

attack I don't know what that's about

it's not weird it's false modesty

because I love the attention I didn't

say I didn't love the attention

oh my god if anybody loves attention

it's me the one the one thing I'll never

say is that I don't I don't like

attention if you ever hear me say I

don't like attention

you should just never watch me again

because then you would know I'm a liar

we'll talk about a hoaxed on another

another thing I want to I want to finish

it before I talk about it

somebody's asking for another

simultaneous sip and here we go so

there's a story about some actor from

Empire whose name I can't remember

Smollett I guess he is reportedly is he

does he does he self-identify his gay

that's what somebody saying well let's

let's say he does and there's some

question about whether he was really

attacked by somebody wearing a

hat and apparently it's hard to confirm

that it happened I would say I'm gonna

put this in the category of things that

it's sort of a wait-and-see you know it

probably they're just things we'll never

know about what happened there I'm not

sure we'll ever have an answer so it's

hard to have an opinion about that

oh the stone read yeah you know a lot

has been said about the Roger stone raid

and I don't think that I don't think

that I would have anything to add to

that I'm doing I think we all have the

same impression which is why in the

world would you need to raid a guy who

of course says he knows he's been the

subject of investigation if there were

if there were any evidence laying around

he certainly would have gotten

but more importantly as somebody joked I

wish I could give credit but somebody

joked recently if you wanted to catch

Roger stone all you had to do is say CNN

wants to talk to you and he would come

running out of his house and that's

completely true right if you wanted to

catch Roger stone just say hey we got an

interview on the front lawn once you

come out here and then then put the

handcuffs on them so one has to ask what

was the purpose what was the purpose of

the the major raid and I want to suggest

that there's a reason that has not been

considered and the reason that hasn't

been considered is there's a reason that

we just don't know what it is one of the

things I'm writing about my new book

which you'll see in a few months is that

sometimes we we draw conclusions based

on our own lack of imagination so if you

say to me Scott

imagine all the reasons that you can

think of that the FBI would have such a

show of force to pick up Roger stone

when all of us believe we can't think of

any reason that would be necessary

unless they were just you know being

being jerks or they were overreaching or

or something like that

yeah or maybe they were sending a

message somebody says etc now maybe

maybe maybe those are the reasons but

did they do they pass the sniff test

do you think there was somebody at the

FBI who said this will be a good look

for us I think this will be good for the

FBI if we send way too many people to

pick up Roger stone I don't quite get

how they thought that was the way to go

so here's what I'm going to suggest by

far the most likely explanation of why

they sent so many people to pick him up

and in such a dramatic fashion was that

there's something

we don't know now I know you don't like

to hear that because you like to think

you've seen it all but by far the most

likely explanation this is some day you

know maybe it's the head of the FBI will

say okay what we didn't tell you is that

we had this other concern and there was

a reason we did it the way we did it or

they might say it was simply let me give

you a I'll just brainstorm here alright

so this is just brainstorming imagine

that they decided to pick them up and

originally they're just go send three or

four people and if you saw three or four

people show up you'd say oh that looks

about right three or four people you

know wouldn't that feel about right to

you and let's say the words got out the

three or four people we're gonna go do

this job is it possible that other

people said well maybe we'll be back up

for you just just in case and then maybe

you just sort of drifted into too many

people showed up and then they all had

to act like they were doing something so

they all stood around looking menacing

and it was just way too many people so

it's possible that the FBI is like any

big organization where you call a

meeting and you say alright I've invited

six people and and twelve people show up

have you ever been in a business meeting

where you're sure that only six people

were invited but you sit down and there

are 12 people there because each of them

invited two other people

all right so it's possible that there's

just nothing to it there was just a big

administrative situation where just too

many people showed up yeah now I'm not

saying that that's likely I'm saying

that you always have to assume that when

you have these hard-to-explain

situations that maybe just maybe the

explanation is something you don't know

something you haven't considered

so keep that in mind that's why I don't

have a firm opinion about whether this

was the worst thing in the world or

or just some weird mistake that the FBI

did they wanted to be there for historic

mm-hmm yeah it's entirely possible that

people in the FBI just wanted to be

there because it was gonna be a good

show you know just wanted to be part of

history that's possible and and then

maybe nobody stopped them yeah okay well

you're here anyway

that's not how law enforcement works

yeah I'm not suggesting that that what

I'm brainstorming with no thought

whatsoever is what actually happened I'm

just saying that in general you can't

always know all the things that went

into these into the back backstory razor

carefully planned people don't show up

well you called it a raid what if it was

never arraigned what if it was always

for people who were gonna knock on the

door and the other FBI agents in the

neighborhood knew that was going to

happen maybe maybe maybe the FBI heard

that the well how about this what if the

FBI heard that CNN had cameras there if

you heard the CNN had cameras would you

bring extra people just to make sure

that the media was controlled away from

the away from the working situation I

think you would right if you knew that

there was a camera crew outside of Roger

Stone's home would you bring more FBI

agents or fewer

I think you'd bring more because you'd

have an extra population to control so

consider all the possibilities but I

think we can we're all on firm ground

and saying we do need an explanation I

think the public needs an explanation

but don't assume it's going to be some

some evil intention

it could be just don't know

Star Trek STD are you watching is

anybody watching the new Star Trek

on CBS I it got bad reviews but I think

it's the best one actually

I love the new Star Trek all right

that's all for now I'll talk to you

later bye