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- [00:02]
Scott Adams
Ah.
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Guest or Co-host
Well, there you are. It's good to see you. Happy Sunday and happy birthday to me. I will stipulate that you all love me like crazy as much as I love you back. All right, let's take care of that. We've done all our happy birthdays. Let me get my comments on. It's kind of a not eventful birthday, I would say, relatively speaking. I mean, it's not like there aren't events, but you know what I mean. So last night was my stepdaughter's wedding reception, which was just a big party at the house. And, oh, my God, that was a lot of action for somebody like me. Way, way too much stimulation. But they all had a great time. We'll see if I can stay awake. There was only about two hours between the end of the party and me waking up to do this. So my stepdaughter was still up from the night before when I got up to do the show. So that tells you how much fun they had. All right, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization. It's called Coffee with Scott Adams. And you've never had a better time. But if you'd like to take this experience up to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny, shiny human brains, all you need for that is a copper and Margaret glass, a tanker, chalice or stein, a canteen jugger flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine. End of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. Could happen. Now. Go. Oh, Paul, thank you. I won't say thank you every time, but I do appreciate it every time. I think you ought to know. All right, it's summer. Can we call it summer? Yeah, let's call it summer. So let's see what kind of stories the news is serving up in the summer. Now, if you don't follow the news, you wouldn't know that all the A players take the summer off, or at least they're going for a big part of the summer. So the stories that you get in the middle of the summer are less exciting than the ones you would get normally. Let me give you an example. In Politico, there's a headline and a story that goes with it that Trump and Musk aides have spoken amid pause and hostilities. It's not even about Musk and Trump. It's about their age of spoken. Don't you think they both have About a thousand people in their circle, and the overlap is probably like 500 people. Of course, their aides are spoken. Of course they have. What kind of story is that? It has nothing to do with Musk or Trump or any decisions that they've made. That's what you call a summer story. It looks like a story, but it's not really. Not really. All right, here's another one. According to the Hill, the Atlantic has a seaweed, a seaweed blob that's going to break records, and it's going to get even bigger than it is now. It's already breaking records. So it's a seaweed blob. So I think there's something that happens in the summer that happens less the rest of the year, which is we get attacked by blobs. It's not the same blob every time. Like, it could be a hurricane blob, it could be a UFO blob, could be a meteor is heading toward the planet. But there's always some blob that's coming after us, and then we worry about it for a while, and then we move on to the next blob, I guess. All right, here's another summer story. A reporter asked Trump, are you worried that Russia, Ukraine could spiral into a nuclear conflict? What kind of question is that? He says, Trump says, I don't. I hope not. I hope not. So in case you were wondering, Trump hopes there's not a nuclear war that doesn't have to happen. So that's your summer news, in case you were wondering, you might have been wondering, I wonder what Trump thinks of nuclear war. Well, now you have your summer news answer. He's opposed to it. Doesn't like nuclear war. Surprise. All right, in other news, there's something called an ice battery, which would power a bunch of homes, according to interesting engineering. Now, when I say an ice battery, it does not hold electricity. It literally just makes ice and then that ice. So it makes the ice at night when the electricity is cheap, and then it uses the ice during the day to cool your home if you have ac. So it's a sort of idea where I said to myself, we didn't have that before. Nobody, until now, nobody thought about using cheap electricity to make blobs of ice that would cool the building. Yeah, it's weird. All right, well, we have it now. All right, ABC has a story that I call Orphan Persuasion. I want you to see if this was a real news story or is obviously propaganda against Trump. All right, real or propaganda? All right. So the story is, according to ABC News, the Trump administration's cuts to foreign aid have resulted in children in Ugandan orphanages losing access to medication, according to local workers. Now, is that a real story? Well, it might be real, but what's left out? Do we have some kind of special obligation to Ugandan orphans? Because it seems to me if you looked all over the world, you would find suffering people that were doing even worse than the Ugandan orphans. Do we owe all of them medication? You know, you can't even. You cannot evaluate whether this is a horrible thing or a good thing unless you know the context. Is it, did they cut 1% from their total charity budget? I don't know. All I know from ABC is these poor Ugandan orphans are not going to get their medication. Now, that, ladies and gentlemen, is pure propaganda because did they really need to find an orphanage? Really, they couldn't find people who were just sort of suffering because the aid had been cut. They have to find a Ugandan orphanage. Now, I feel sorry for the orphanage if they lost something that they need. But we kind of need to know, is the US Supposed to pay for everybody's medication everywhere? At what point can we draw the line and say it's a cruel, tough world, but we can't buy everybody's medication? I don't know. Well, Trump has warned Musk, allegedly, that there will be serious consequences if he funds Democratic candidates, according to just the news. Now, that's something that Musk has threatened. I think at the moment that's probably off, although he might target some specific people for specific things. I suppose that's possible, but at the moment it's off. So I don't think that's gonna be a thing. Grandpa's here.
- [09:57]
Scott Adams
Hank's always helping out, grandpa style. Now he's treating his prostate cancer with help from xtandi. Enzalutamide. Xtandi, 40mg tablets. Treats men with prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body and responds to a medical or surgical treatment to lower testosterone. Xtandi may cause serious side effects. Seizure, a brain condition called press, allergic reactions, heart disease that can lead to death, falls and bone fractures, swallowing problems or choking that can lead to death. Stop Xtandi and get medical help at once. If your face, tongue, lip or throat start swelling, tell your doctor at once. If you faint, have a seizure, quickly worsening headache, decreased alertness, confusion, vision problems, chest pain or discomfort or shortness of breath, Xtandi can cause harm to an unborn baby or miscarriage. Use Birth control during and three months after Xtandi. Common side effects include muscle and joint pain, feeling unusually tired, hot flashes, constipation, less appetite, diarrhea, high blood pressure, bleeding, falls, fractures and headache. Talk to your doctor and visit xtandi.com.
- [10:55]
Guest or Co-host
All right, you want to have some fun? I'm going to give you a question that you can use at your next family or barbecue get together. It's going to be the most provocative, messed up question, but it will sound completely innocent. All right, the question would be this. Hypothetically, could Elon Musk and his tech bros rig an American election for their own benefit as oligarchs and not be caught? Just think about that question. Imagine asking that question of your most Democrat friend who hates Elon Musk, and you say, do you think he and his tech geniuses could throw an election? Because if they say no, then shut up. If he doesn't have any impact on elections, you know, maybe you should just leave him alone. But if he does, and I think most people would fall into the trap and they'd say, oh yeah, Elon Musk, he could use his satellites and his neuralink and his boring company and they'd come up with something and say, yes, you know, the Doge people could, you know, play with the voting records. So if you can get them to admit that Elon Musk and his tech bro helpers, hypothetically could rig an election, then how do you know 2020 was good? That's where the fun starts. And then people will say, but, but no court has found any problems. To which I'd say, but you think that Elon Musk could rig an election without leaving a trace? So there wouldn't be any court finding in that case either. But, but, but that's where the cognitive dissonance will kick in. If you get that far, they will change the subject, tell you they have to use the restroom or have some kind of weird cognitive dissonance. Because once they've admitted that somebody could rig an election if they had the right kind of technical know how and money, it kind of opens the door that there's more than one person who can do it. Like the CIA, for example. Well, according to Blaze Media does. Oh, well, here's another question related to Musk and rigging election. I saw some people say that Musk was rigging the 2024 election by adding a lot of money and mostly money. Right? Oh, but also he has control over X. We don't know if he made any changes on X, but in theory, his enemies believe he could have. So here's my question. If you believe that somebody's money could change an election and effectively rig it, what about somebody who doesn't pour in a lot of money but is really good with messaging, for example, the difference between clown genius and the golden age and common sense. Those are really strong campaign messages. And then you look at Bernie. Oh, the oligarchs. The oligarchs. And you don't even know what he's talking about. So is it fair that Bernie and his messengers are all just idiots? Oh, the oligarch. Gotta watch out for the oligarch. But the Republicans have somewhat brilliant messaging help. Mostly Trump. Trump's the number one messenger and, you know, nobody's ever been better. But Trump also has really capable message people who weigh in whenever there's something that's a little bit in a whack, and I'm one of them. So, you know, I don't control anything. But if you came out with a new message and I said, oh, that's not persuasive, wouldn't you feel a little bit of pressure to maybe, you know, fix that? Probably you would. So is that. Is that rigging an election? Am I rigging it because I'm better with words and with persuasion? Feels like I am, you know, in the same way that somebody putting a lot of money into it would be ringing it, I would definitely be ranking it by better messaging. Anyway, Blaze Media is pointing out that there are some recent polls that show President Trump's approval is among the best that's ever been. So Rasmussen and Insider Advantage and Trafalgar Group are all showing that his numbers are looking really, really good. Now, who knows what polls are accurate and which ones are rigged and blah, blah, blah. But those are three polls. I only know a little bit about one of them, so I don't think they made up any numbers. Here's a little tip for you. Because I used to work in data collection and data analysis when I had my corporate job. If you can boil down whatever your complicated situation is into one number, that's kind of a miracle. But it also can activate people. Because if you have a complicated story about, well, this is up and this is down and this might go sideways, but when you put it all together, you should do whatever it is I'm asking you to do. That's not going to work because there are too many numbers and it's complicated and there's variables. So if you want to persuade somebody, if possible, you want to take the message down To a know one number, as long as that number is a wisely chosen one. I'll give you an example. The one number that I care about with all these spending packages. And by the way, the latest spending package, according to Steven Miller, is not a spending package. It's just a package in which they're spending. It's so ridiculous that we're having this conversation because the public says if your package is spending money, you're a spending package. And we don't care if you use different words within Congress. Oh, it's a rescission this or that. Great. You can use your different words internally. But if you're spending my money and there's a bill involved, it's a spending bill. Sorry, I'm not going to back off from that. You're going to have to meet me halfway. It's a spending bill. All right. But if you have a spending bill in the context of a big deficit that might kill us all, what's the one number that if you could produce it, you would understand exactly what you gained from the bill, you know, beyond the details of what's in there. But in terms of the spending, the one number you need is how much does it add to or subtract from the debt? And I'm going to say over three years, because the CBO and the government, they like to do the ten year thing. The ten year thing is pure. No, nobody can purchase predict anything over 10 years. Three is a stretch. It's like a big stretch, but at least it's, you know, in the realm of something that makes sense. So I want to see one number. I want to see how much does this latest spending package add to the deficit or subtract? Now you might say to yourself, well, Scott, that's not very hard. Obviously the CBO or whoever else has, has scored it. So, you know, it's not like nobody's looking into it. So somebody has that number. Right. And our press would be reporting on that number. Now, would you agree with the fact that you generally understand that it has a lot of mega Trump things in it that you like? And that part you don't have to argue about too much if you're a Trump supporter. But don't you want to know the impact on the deficit? You kind of, you kind of need to know that, don't you? So let me give you a little taste of why you don't know that. And I don't either, by the way. I have no idea. So it'll, so it comes as a sort of A package deal. All right, let me get back to that because I've got a got a piece that fits into it perfectly. So you're looking for the 1 number and Russ vote according to the Hill. Now, Russ is. He's a budgeting guy, right? I don't know his official job, but everybody has a high opinion of Russ's vote and his budget work. But here's what he said. Well, here's what the Hill said. So this is your press trying to inform you whether the bill is adding to or subtracting from the deficit. And I swear I'm not making this up. I'm going to read the exact words because otherwise you think you just made that up. There's no way that's true. But here's what it says. According to the Hill, President Trump's tariffs will take a major bite out of U.S. deficit levels. Oh, okay. Well, that's pretty good. And Russ vote also said the same thing. So I'm like, okay, Russ said it would reduce the deficit. We don't know how much yet. And the Hill says it will reduce the deficit. So far, so good. Is there a number? Yes, $2.5 trillion over the next decade. Now, I'd like to see that over three years because it's less crazy. But we're really close. We're really close. Now, having read that, what Russ Vogt said and what the Hill said, I'm going to read you the next paragraph that's also in the Hill and the same story. You ready for this? And this is from the CBO. The deficit reduction is almost, remember, 2, $2.5 trillion deficit reduction. It says the deficit reduction is almost exactly the same size as the deficit addition. Wait, what? What? There's a deficit reduction, but there's also a deficit addition? Who in the world doesn't net those two things out and just tell you what the bottom line is? So if you didn't read that far, you would not know that the CBO found that the bill would add $2.4 trillion to deficits through 2034. So does it add to the deficit or does it subtract? And how many of you knew that when you're talking about the deficit, there are additions to it and there are subtractions from it and they track them separately. How many of you knew that? I didn't know it. This is the most absurd thing. It's absolutely crazy.
- [24:25]
Scott Adams
Anyway, are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted. If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nielsen report, Russ Votes also.
- [24:59]
Guest or Co-host
Thinks the tariffs we'll take a big bite out of the deficit. But that's what I think that was calculated in those numbers I gave you. I was asking myself as I was playing with GROK this morning, what is it about the United States that could ever increase our revenue enough that we could take a bite out of the deficit? I started with insurance. What if the government became the insurer of everybody instead of taxes? But then you look at the total amount that the country spends on insurance. It's a big number, but it's not deficit big. So you think, oh, that's not really big enough. Even if the government took a slice of that business, not really big enough to make a difference. The only thing I know of that's big enough is the energy market. The energy market in the U.S. according to Grok, is about for 1.55 trillion per year. That would include electricity, oil, natural gas, renewables, et cetera. Now, I don't have an idea of how to use the fact that that's a gigantic market to reduce our deficit, but there's only one thing that's gigantic besides the deficit, and you're not going to be able to take care of the deficit with something small. You're going to need something gigantic. So I feel like there's some kind of pressure in the world mounting that the energy market, if we could somehow really get a hold of that, maybe sell it to other countries who want to run their own AI, that if we, if we got some kind of government, I don't know, partnership, we might be able to make just, you know, shit ton of money and maybe take a debt. But anything short of the energy market, they're just not really big enough. You could look at cutting things like social services, but nobody's going to say yes to that. If you were going to try some clever workaround that wasn't about cutting, the energy market's the only one. Now, I wouldn't just tax it because that would be bad for business, but I'll bet there is some way to monetize it. Either the nuclear stuff or geothermal or something so that we're, you know, don't you think we could prop up a government slash private industry that made 100 billion a year in energy profits. Probably again, that wouldn't be nearly enough, but maybe you could grow it from there. Well, the proud boys have a lawsuit related to their arrest on January 6. The capital was called the Capitol riot by some people and they're claiming a wrongful prosecution. And that's sparking debates, of course, about the fact that they got pardoned. I'll bet they have a case without knowing anything about their case. I'll bet they do because the proud boys are not idiots. So they're not just going to start some lawsuit. That's ridiculous. I've got a feeling the proud boys might have the last laugh here. So we'll see. Rahm Emanuel, Democrat I was looking at his messaging skills. All right, so here's an example. He was talking to White House bureau chief Dasha Burns and, you know, I think he was asked, why should Democrats do differently? You know what, what they're all being asked. And he said Democrats should, quote, stop talking about bathrooms and locker rooms and start talking about the classroom. Is that good? Do you think that's good persuasion? No, it's not good persuasion. It's just sort of a rhymey kind of catchy thing. It's not going to make you act in a specific, different way. And this is what I see Cory Booker and a lot of the Democrats do. You could probably come up with 10 different Democrats who come up with rhymes. They're thinking, all right, we're getting our ass kicked on this policy stuff. What should we do? Well, have we tried rhyming or have we tried being clever with words? Oh, no, we don't need the bathrooms or the locker rooms. We need to talk about the classrooms. That is so weak and empty that you can't imagine Trump ever saying it, can you? Have you ever heard Trump say something as lame as bathrooms and locker rooms, but we should be talking about classrooms? He's never said anything that lame in his entire life. So what Trump knows is that what makes these things powerful is messaging is if he's provocative. So where RAM is going for a clever word play like an LLM, you know, AI Trump goes for the jugular. He doesn't do the, he doesn't do the word play. He tells you, if you don't do this, criminals will come across the border and slay your family. Which one of those are you going to remember? Oh, got to talk. Don't talk about the bathrooms and locker rooms. Talk about the classroom versus trend. Nicua is going to Come across the border and slay your entire family. There's no, there's no comparison. The Democrats don't have the slightest grasp of persuasion. It's like they've never been introduced to it as a skill. Whereas Trump is, you know, the best of all time anyway, rhyming without policy ideas, it's not going to work. And then lastly, you're wondering, is Rahm Emanuel somebody who could run for office and win? Well, I mixed feelings. Number one, he's smart enough to alter his approach. I don't know if he would alter it the way I think he should, but he's definitely smart enough to say, did that work? Does that not work? Change his approach? He's very smart and he's experienced, but unfortunately, he has crime boss eyes, and I don't know that he can fix that. Now, I'm not saying he's a crime boss. I'm saying his eyes look like he just murdered somebody. And how are you gonna, how are you gonna ignore that? You can't really ignore that. So the way I always think of it is, if you were a director and you were. You were casting for your movie and you needed a crime boss, would Rahm Emanuel look like a crime boss would be good in your movie? Yeah, he would be. And that's not true of everybody. Right. Adam Schiff would not look like he could be a crime boss. You know, Swalwell? Not really. Schumer? No, not really. It's. It's kind of unique to Rahm Emanuel. His eyes just say, I just killed somebody and I could kill you next. So, no, I don't know how he gets past that. Well, it's my favorite season, and by that, I mean fake protest season. So has it been every year that these NGOs and fake organizations, Soros funds and various Democrat rich guys fund? It's every summer. Right. And they put their muscle on the street, and it's. Some of them are antifa or antifa connected. Some of them are communists, literally communists. But they might have names that don't sound too communist. And so here are the things you can kind of expect. Number one, if you're a Republican and you want to get a jump on things, I would start referring to the Democrat protests as chaos, because that's a word that they think works. It doesn't make much difference, really. But I would steal it because they're going to use it as something that, you know, maybe the Trump administration doesn't know how to respond. They've got chaos. So I would say it Looks like the Democrats and the NGOs and the protests are designed to bring chaos. Because they are. They're designed to bring chaos.
- [35:19]
Scott Adams
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- [35:49]
Guest or Co-host
So here's the things. Here are the things which I think you're going to find out about during the protests. So the protests will probably last a while. They're mostly against, I think all against the ICE roundups. So they're opposed to rounding people up, ICE and sending them back. But here are the things I expect you will see. Number one, you'll start seeing evidence dribbling out about which entities are involved and you'll say to yourself, oh, wow, that's very artificial. Now, it starts out, people look at the news, they see people running around, they say, wow, there's a pretty big movement against these deportations. But is there really, Is there a big movement against deportations? Probably not. It's probably people who are paid to protest and then some of them get out of control, some of them are true believers. But you're not seeing anything that would tell you the, you know, the sizing of the protest. It's probably minuscule, honestly. Or let's put it another way, if, if they were not being paid, how many of the protesters would have picked this issue, the ICE stuff, as the thing that they think most needs to get fixed? Don't you think they'd be doing something with climate change or, you know, income distribution or stopping war? Yeah, the fact that they've randomly. Not randomly, because it's all fake protests. The fact that they've latched on this one issue is pretty much all the evidence you need that is fake and it's paid for and you're not seeing anything like a natural response. So I think you'll see stuff dribble on about that. I think you'll see stories about somebody staging bricks near the events. Have we seen that yet? It's just so obvious. There'll always be a story about why was there a pile of bricks in this place where they knew there would be protesters. So that's probably coming. We know that Antifa will be implicated. We know the Communists will be implicated. We know that there will be lots of printed signs that are sort of a dead giveaway that they have funding and organization. And of course, they'll be trying to unmask the ICE agents. So it's sort of a summer fake protest season in which you can kind of, you know in advance pretty much everything that's going to happen. So it's coming. According to the Post millennial senator Chris Van Holland, he's the one who went down to try to free that Maryland dad, but. So he's the one who traveled to El Salvador to do that. But now he says the Trump administration needs to apologize to Garcia for deporting him. Now, if he didn't know Garcia has been returned. But he's probably not happy about it because he's returning because there's a very long list of charges against him which will probably put him in jail forever. So did he win? Did the lawyers score a victory? Did the people who wanted more process, did they get what they wanted? So here's what I think. I think that every time a Democrat asks Republicans or the Trump administration to apologize to anyone for anything, I think they should do it. But it should be hilarious. It should all be wife apologies. You know, the kind where the husband does the apology. But if you were listening to it, you would know for sure that it was insincere. I don't think anything could be funnier than Republicans agreeing to always apologize. Yes, I apologize for letting them in the country as long as we did. All right. I think there's probably always a funny solution to all this. Meanwhile, according to the Defense Post, the the US Is unveiling a new project. Will they give you a $20 million prize for developing the best fast track drone innovations? So next generation of drones. So does that tell you that anybody in their garage can make a drone? I'm kind of wondering, have we reached a point where the hardware pretty much does everything you want it to do, but the only thing that's different is the software? Because then if it's the software, then it would allow lots of people to compete for the, you know, the better drone? Because the software will be easy, but if they had to invent, I don't know, a more efficient motor or something, there'd be a lot less, a lot fewer people doing that. Although probably by now there are 20, probably 20 different companies who are trying to make more efficient drone engines. I'll betcha. Meanwhile, over In Ukraine, the Ukrainians have invented. This is also, according to the Defense Post, a anti drone pistol. So if it's the kind of drone that can be jammed, which would not include the ones that are tethered by optical cable, which are the main ones being used right now, but you could just point your little anti drone weapon at it and would give you 50 watts and take out that drone. I don't know if I would depend on the anti drone pistol. I've got a feeling that's not going to be nearly as effective as they hope. I don't know. According to the BBC, the pandemic generation of kids, they're damaged permanently or could be. Could be permanently. But here's what one teacher said. Now, this is not based on a study. This is based on one teacher's observations. Rebecca Underwood, she said there is something different about class of 2023. For the kids between 5 and 6 years old, they're physically more cautious. And then this, this quote caught my eye. Quote, many kids are not able to roll, not able to jump on two feet. They are very hesitant to climb. And I thought to myself, really, we have 6 year olds who cannot be taught to jump on both feet. Really, that's way worse than I imagined it would be, but I don't believe it. I think if you did a bigger study, this is just anecdotal, so I think she might have some weird kids in her class. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for today. So Sunday, it's time for you all to go do your Sunday things. I'm going to say hi to the people on locals privately. But the rest of you, I'll see you tomorrow, same time, same place. I hope you like that the shows are a little bit shorter. I'd hate for you to be hating that, but sometimes there's just not that much to say.