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- [00:00]
Scott Adams
In. Yeah, it's good to see you. And the early birds are getting the worms, but let me check your stock market. It's up. Not much, but it's up a little bit. Tesla is kind of flat. Nvidia up. Nuclear is up. Not bad. All right, let me get my comments working, and then we'll have the show that you deserve. Yeah, the one you deserve. Not the one you usually get, but the one you deserve. All right. Bom, bom, bom, bom. 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 try to take it up to levels that nobody could even understand with their tiny, shiny human brains, well, all you need for that is a copper, a mug or a glass, a tanker chalice, a side of canteen, sugar 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, and it happens right now. Go. Oh, yeah, that worked well. Let's check in with first. Elon Musk News. Because there's always some. I wouldn't call it news, but he was at some event, and he was describing how difficult it is to be useful at scale. So I agree with Elon Musk's idea of purpose. He doesn't say it that way, but I feel like that's the point. The point is, if you're not being useful to anybody, you're not reaching your full potential, and you would probably feel it. You would feel less meaning in life. So being useful to other people is sort of the best thing you can do, especially your family and those close to you, your employer. That'd be good. But Musk is talking about being useful at scale. In other words, you know, building electric cars and taking humanities on the moon or Mars. But I have to say that if you wonder what makes me do this every single day when I don't have to, and what makes me enjoy it, is that it feels useful. And if people did not say to me literally every single day that they find value in, you know, listening to the podcast, I wouldn't do it even if it paid really well. I do it because it's useful, and that's what gives me meaning. So in case you wondered. Well, CNN is reporting that the stock market has recovered all of its losses since April, and it's near an all Time high. So remember when everybody got frightened because of the tariff scare and all the smart people were saying, oh, Trump has ruined the economy with his tariff scares. And people like me said, it's a little bit early. You don't know how this is going to work out. It looks like a negotiating thing and if you just wait a few months, everything will be fine. And what happened, the people who said, hold on, just wait a few months and everything will be fine, they were right. So tariffs were a temporary scare to the economy, but they seem to be back where they belong. Well, there's some fake news that, that the fake news is that the NATO Secretary General called Trump daddy. Did you say that news? That didn't happen. So all the news and social media is reporting that NATO Secretary General called Trump affectionately Daddy. And then when Trump was asked about it, he act as if, as if that actually happened. It didn't happen. He used the word daddy, but he was talking about the metaphor or analogy or whatever it is, because Trump mentioned that Red and Israel were acting like children. And then the Secretary General said, sometimes, you know, daddy has to be stern, something like that. But he was talking about, he was talking about the, you know, the comparison. He wasn't talking about Trump, although in that and in that telling Trump would be representing the daddy. But there's a, there's a big difference between saying, you know, I often call people the Internet dads, but I'm not talking to them personally and saying, hey, Daddy. It's more of a description of being in charge and taking charge of the children. So that's fake news, but it's fun. Well, as Axios and others are reporting, the Trump administration is looking for the leaker. Whoever leaked the battle damage assessment, they said that maybe some of the Iranian nuclear program was not destroyed, but that was a very preliminary report. There was only one person involved. It was way early, had no authority, and was even self labeled as unreliable. But did that stop CNN's Natasha Bertrand from reporting it? No, it did not. She reported it. Now, how do you find the leaker? My understanding is there's a secure system in which private stuff like this can be presented to some members of Congress, but not all of them. The thinking is that in all likelihood a member of Congress leaked it. Now, how do you ever find that? Do you check everybody's messages? Do you somehow get approval to look through everybody's WhatsApp messages? And what if it were just done in person? If I were a leaker and I knew it was illegal, as in this case. You know, I think Pam Bondi says the leaker should go to jail. If I knew it was illegal, I would do it in person. In other words, I would find somebody to tell, even if the person I tell in person is the person who tells the reporter. So maybe there's a little distance there. But would the leaker be so dumb that they would leave a trail that you could find? Because you can't really ask the reporter because they can just say, hey, it's a confidential source. So I have a real question whether the FBI can find the source of the leak. But anyway, Trump is not too happy with Natasha Bertrand. He said in a truth post that she should be fired from cnn. And I'm quoting him, thrown out like a dog. Yeah, I always tell you that Trump, it's impossible for him to be uninteresting. He always brings the show. So did he really have to throw out? Did he have to include she should be thrown out like a dog. That's what makes us so sticky. If he'd only said, you know, she doesn't deserve her job or she should be fired, you know, maybe you would pay attention to it. But when he throws in that she should be thrown out like a dog, how in the world do you ignore that? It's just too funny coming from the President. But apparently, if you don't remember Natasha Bertrand's history, she was big on saying that the Hunter laptop story was Russian disinformation, which sort of makes her look like a tool of the CIA, doesn't it? She was, I think, with Politico when she did that. Brit Hume says that she also fell for the Steele dossier, you know, the. The fake Russia collusion story as well. So imagine being somebody who had reported incorrectly the laptop story and also the fake Russia collusion story, and then you pop up with this sketchy story. Does it seem to you as if some people only exist to do the sketchy stuff? It makes me wonder, does he then say, all right, we're going to need at least one CIA asset, and I'm just making an assumption here, so I don't have any evidence that she's a CIA asset or. Or any other asset. But don't you wonder if, since I assume the CIA has some influence on armed media, do you wonder if they say, all right, you have to hire this one because that's our asset? Because it would be easier to move an asset into a company than it would be to change somebody into an asset once they're there, wouldn't it? Maybe not anyway, Molly Ebbingway points out, she said on X, I'll add that multiple knowledgeable sources tell me that the intel assessment, and that's the one that says that the nuclear program was not completely destroyed, that the intel assessment being bandaged about specifically notes it was done the day after the strike, needs weeks more analysis, and was not done in conjunction with other intel agencies and was given a low confidence rating. So why did it even exist? Don't you have a question like, why? Why would anybody put that in writing? I mean, all they're putting in writing is we have no fucking idea what happened. It's way too early. Why would you do that? So there's a question about the leak, but I would argue that there should be a question about the analyst who put together that analysis. Do you think that analyst was pro Trump? Maybe. Or does it seem more likely that the analyst who did that so hastily was maybe anti Trump? Maybe. Possibly. As I've jokingly, but not really jokingly said, the bomb damage assessment, or if you prefer battle damage assessment, is based entirely upon how much you like Trump. If you like Trump, it was obliterated. If you don't like Trump, I don't know, they may have had that, all the good stuff somewhere else. You never really know, do you? Well, Trump is reiterating that the nuclear program in Iran was totally obliterated. I've never heard that word so many times in one week. Obliterated. It's a good word. But he also says, which softens his message a little bit, you know, just, just so he's got a little wiggle room there. He also says that Iran would not dare rebuild its nuclear industry because they, they know they would be attacked again. All right, so which is it? Is it totally obliterated? It's going to take years to build it back, or did we send such a strong message that it doesn't really matter if it's totally obliterated because they know we've come back. It feels like there's a little bit of wiggle room there just in case. But here, when I watch the news and how the Trump administration is handling their messaging, I'm kind of impressed that Trump is selling the obliterated message because a lot of people are repeating, obliterated, obliterated. And he's so good at making you remember his little sound bites. And that's one of them. He just repeats it and repeats it until if somebody asked you, well, what do you know about that attack? You would just immediately think, well, obliterated. So that part is great. But I would argue that Trump is also cleverly conflating two things that you should not conflate. One is did they destroy the things they were aiming at? And I would say, especially after today's briefing, which I didn't catch all of it, but I saw some reporting on, does sound like they have a pretty good idea that they did obliterate everything they aimed at. Would you agree? There's nothing that's a hundred percent, but when, when you hear the description of, you know, the bombs and the military, people who know what they're talking about and was it Kane? Yeah, General Dan Raisin Kane, when he did his explanation, I didn't catch all of it because I was preparing for the show, so I was a little busy. But here's the one thing I learned for sure. If you thought you could do bomb damage assessment or battle damage assessment if you prefer, by looking at those satellite pictures, we're all fucking idiots. I think everything I assumed, everything, just everything I assumed by looking at these satellite pictures was wrong. Now, I didn't catch all the details, but if you follow the news today, you'll find out that I think I have this right, that the three holes we saw, people like me assumed that, oh, they must have been putting two bombs in each hole and that's the hole that the bombs went into. But apparently those are not the bomb holes. Those are the ventilation holes that show that there was an explosion from the inside from the bomb that doesn't show its own hole because it goes so deeply. I guess it gets, you know, buried behind itself. But you can see the, you know, the blast was so severe that it blew the tops off of the ventilation holes now and there was something about several of the bombs going into the same hole or something like that. So I don't, I didn't get all the details, but, but the one thing I learned for sure is I'm never going to try to do bomb damage assessment by looking at a satellite picture again. We, we had no idea what any of that meant. We, we were guessing so hard that by the time they explained what you're really looking at, you just feel like an idiot. So I do. Here's the thing that's conflated. I will accept, as of today, I, I accept that there's a really high chance that everything they aimed at got totally destroyed. And I think the iaea, whatever they are, eieio, I think they said, yeah, that stuff is so sensitive that if you consider the severity of the blast and the sensitivity of the equipment in there, it's definitely destroyed. But is that the whole story? Would you agree that if you knew that everything they aimed at they did destroy completely, if that's what you knew, Would you also conclude that they had set back the nuclear program by years? Would you conclude that? Well, you would only do that if you're conflating two things that should not be conflated. Number one, did they destroy the things they were aiming at? That looks like a yes. I'm going to say yes on that. Number two, which should not be conflated with that question is, was there anything that they should have destroyed that they didn't know about? Was anything moved that could have been used? Given that apparently they made their own equipment, the centrifuges? I don't know if they made all of it, but they made parts for it at least. Is there any possibility that they made some extras that were not yet installed and they just put them in a warehouse, somebody, someplace? That would be innocuous, maybe. So the thing we don't know and probably can't know unless spies tell us later, I guess, is whether there was anything that was moved or anything that was always in a different location. We don't really know that. So Trump and Agseth and all the admin people are trying to sell you that we got everything that matters. And that might be true. I'm not ruling it out at all. But can you automatically assume that Iran knowing that Florida would be the main target and knowing that we'd be coming after all their nuclear assets, can we assume they didn't do anything about that in advance? They didn't have any time to plan for that. There wasn't some obvious planning to make sure that at least some of that got moved to another site, or maybe they had another thing ready to go. Don't know. But don't conflate, did they hit what they wanted to and destroy it with? Does that mean we got everything? Because the second part is unknowable yet. I mean, eventually spies might tell you that we got everything, but I wouldn't conflate those. And then Trump and Hegseth are also trying to conflate the question of whether the pilots destroyed every part of the nuclear program with the question of are you respecting the skill of the pilots and the professionalism of the military? As Caitlin Collins of CNN said, everybody is impressed by the military. I would say that 100% of the public and all of the media is on the same page. That was an impressive military action. And that if you don't respect that, well, I just don't even know if you can be an observer. Of course you respect that. Of course you do. But I think Trump and Hagset are trying to have it as a little bit of suppressive fire that if you act like maybe there was something that should have been bombed, that wasn't bombed, that you're disrespecting the pilots. Nobody's disrespecting the pilots. So in case there's any confusion, I really am impressed by the job that the military did like, really, really impressed. And I'm pretty sure most, if not every single American is having that same feeling about the military. They may have all kinds of feelings about everything else, but that's not really in question. So it's offensive to me that if I ask a question about what we know about the damage, that someone would say, are you disrespecting our military? No, no, those are not the same topic. And anyway, so that's where that's at.
- [23:33]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium wireless. Better get 30, 30. Better get 30, get 20, 20, 20. Better get 20, 20. Everybody get 15, 15, 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month. So give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.
- [24:05]
Scott Adams
All right, what else? So according to Democrat, I assume, Senator Tammy Duckworth. So, you know, the Democrats have to find something bad to say about Trump. And here's Duckworth quote, if you were Iranian leadership, what this taught you was they better get nuclear weapons very quickly. Because look at how Trump treats countries that have nuclear weapons like North Korea, right? He goes and he pals around with dictators. Well, she acts like that's a mistake. Is it a mistake for Trump to pal around with Kim Jong Un so that he takes us off of his target list. She acts like that's some kind of mistake. Would it be a mistake? And first of all, you know, North Korea, you know, I would say is completely contained. They, they just don't have a reason to go after the United States. And that's a pretty darn good job by the President if he removed the reason that anybody would have a, you know, impulse to attack US nuclear. But is it true that the Iranians would now feel more. More incentivized to get nuclear fast? Well, yes and no. Yes and no. If they could do it without being caught, of course. I absolutely agree. If they could do it without being caught. But do you think Iran believes they could do it without being caught? They just executed 700 of their own citizens allegedly for suspicion of being spies. 700. Now, I have some real question about how many of them were actually spies versus, you know, people who got turned in by their neighbors who didn't like them. But if you're Iran and you believe that there were 700 spies that you could find, and that's not even counting the ones that you couldn't identify, do you think they would feel comfortable relaunching a nuclear program and think that nobody would know? It doesn't seem possible at this point. So, Duckworth, I would agree that if they could do it in, you know, total confidentiality, they would. They would definitely do it. But there's not really much of a practical possibility of that, I don't think. I think Israel's too deeply in their pockets anyway. Ex Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who's a Democrat, was on CNN and he said some crazy shit, which is always funny when Democrats are crazy. He says that the stress of being called the N word, either directly or indirectly, is why blacks suffer more from obesity and cancer. How many of you think that's true? That the reason that blacks have more obesity and cancer is because it's stressful to be directly or indirectly called the N word. Now, what would be an example of indirectly being called the N word? I guess that would be if you imagine somebody's thinking it's. But they didn't say it. Would that be a case of indirectly being called. Anyway, so that was on cnn. That was nice and crazy. I saw End Wokeness was reporting on that clip. All right, let's talk about the Supreme Leader in Iran. So was it day before yesterday? Maybe Yesterday I posted this. I said on X. I posted, I have a feeling Iran's regime already changed. All the Supreme Leader's underlings needed to do was lock him in a bunker and take away his phone, quote, for his own safety. Now remember that sentence. Okay? So I said all they had to do was lock him in a bunker, take away his phone, and say it was for his own safety. And then I said, then tell anyone who asks that the Supreme Leader isn't meeting with anyone in person. But, you know, his orders. And then I, I said, just to tie it all together, I said it worked for Joe Biden and it did. So we're still trying to figure out, you know, who was, you know, completely behind the auto pen, although we know one person now and we're trying to figure out who is influencing Biden because he wasn't quite all with it, etc. So given that the supreme leader is 86. Wait, 86. 86 is the number where you get rid of stuff. I Wonder if they 86 the 86 year old. It's kind of a weird simulation coincidence, but there was a new report I saw in Mario Noel's post. And by the way, I do know that the Supreme Leader did some posting today and he made a video today. So I'll get to that in a moment. But before I saw that, I saw a report from Iranian State TV in the New York Times. Mario Novel was reporting on it on ax. And the report is that the Supreme Leader was reportedly missing for a week and that there's a power struggle going on. Now, this is unconfirmed, of course, but these are the reports. And as Mario said, the Iran Supreme Leader hasn't been seen publicly since before the strikes. And there was a nationwide concern and political infighting, apparently a state TV in Iran. A host asked an official from the Supreme Leader's office what millions of people were wondering. He said, people are very worried about the Supreme Leader. Can you tell us how he is? So even the media and Iran was saying, I wonder what's up with him? And then officials said that Khamenei was sheltering in a bunker. Does that sound familiar? He was sheltering in a bunker, but we knew that. Right. And he was without electronic communication to avoid assassination. So they literally took his phone away and told him it was for his own safety, which it was. Legitimately, it was for his own safety. But was that the only reason they took his phone away? And his absence during the ceasefire negotiations raised questions about who was running it. I guess the President, who does not have nearly as much power as the Supreme Leader, of course, he called the current situation a, quote, golden opportunity for change. Really? The President of Iran is saying that the war and all the destruction is a golden opportunity for change. Does that sound like something that the Supreme Leader would say? It doesn't, does it? That sounds like something you would say. If the Supreme Leader was already pushed aside, then in that case, yes, that might be a golden opportunity for change. So that would be an interesting framing of the situation from Iran's President unless the 86 year old Supreme Leader had already been nudged to the sidelines. But let's go on. And four senior officials confirmed that there are rival factions battling for control in Iran. And then I saw separately that, that the Supreme Leader was being guarded. And the guarding part is really the key part of the story by the Valley Amer Special Forces unit of the Revolutionary Guards. And they would be, you know, the most loyal, effective security you could have unless they got flipped or they were taken down by some other military unit. So do we know for sure that they're the ones guarding him? I don't know. But there was a new video message and a number of posts on Access today which sounded like they were in response to people saying where the hell is the Supreme Leader? So it looks like the Supreme Leader wanted to make sure that people knew he was still alive and in charge. Or, or was it like Joe Biden where there would occasionally be a recorded message because they needed to make sure he didn't say anything that wasn't approved by his captors. Or does he think he's still in charge? And the people who allowed him to do the video, presumably from the bunker, did he think he was doing, you know, Supreme Leader stuff? And the people who allowed him to do it and facilitated getting the cameras in there and everything, is it possible that they're just sort of leading him on and pretending that he's still in charge both for public consumption and also for his consumption? So he thinks that he's still relevant while they battle it out behind the scenes for who's. Who's really going to run the country? Maybe. But. So Khamenei, or is that Khamenei? I just know you have to clear your mouth after you say it. So he's claiming victory over Israel. And he said he, quote, delivered a hand slap to America's faces. He said that Iran was victorious in their 12 day war. And he said the Islamic Republic was victorious and in retaliation delivered a hand slap to America's face. So that would be the, the attacks that they warned the US about and killed or injured no Americans. So that would be the hand slap. And he said the US Hit nuclear sites but couldn't achieve much. Well, and he said US President Trump needed to do showmanship. With all the commotion and all the claims, the Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic. Now that all is pretty generic. Isn't does show that he made it recently because it was after the attacks on the American base that were kind of weak. But does it show that he's in charge? Well, I don't know. It could be that there's a lot of, you know, maneuvering behind the scenes and he might end up in charge again. He might stay in charge. Or it's entirely possible, entirely possible that they're, they're Joe Bidening him, they are putting him forward as if he's in charge. Will they really make all the important decisions? Because at 86, you know, how much capacity does he even have? So they probably were already making a lot of decisions without him and he was just involved in the real high, high level stuff like Biden. So I think there's still the possibility that, you know, leadership has changed or it might change even though he's doing some public stuff now.
- [37:23]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [37:57]
Scott Adams
And let's see, speaking of that, Jill Biden's, quote, work husband has decided he will not testify to the House Oversight Committee even though they asked him to. But he hasn't been subpoenaed yet, so I suppose they'll do that next. But Anthony Burnell, so he was the former advisor to the first lady. Jill was sometimes called her work husband. And some people say that he was the most influential person in the administration because he could influence her and then she could influence him. Biden, and that he was actually one of the powers behind the curtain. I don't know about that, but I'd love to hear him explain it. Then weirdly, here's something I didn't expect. Trump did a very lengthy truth social post calling for Israel to cancel the court proceedings against Netanyahu. So apparently Netanyahu has some major legal issues he has to work on. I don't know the details and I don't know if any of the charges are legitimate, but Trump is calling it a ridiculous witch hunt. And, you know, just mention what a great job Netanyahu did working with Trump. That's Trump's current public opinion, is that Netanyahu was an amazing partner. He was just amazing, and they did so well together. That may have not been true every minute of their working together, because there is a reporting that Trump had a stern phone call with Netanyahu about a ceasefire. But at the moment, he would like you to believe that the charges against Netanyahu are fake and they're lawfare and political and they should be dropped because he's such a good leader and did such a good job. Now, do you think that Trump did that on his own? Do you think he was just looking at the news and of Israel and thought, you know what, I'm going to weigh in there and, you know, really try to support him? Because is there any chance at all that Israel is going to pay attention to Trump's preference for what their court should do? I don't think so. So why would he even say it? I don't know, but it looks like maybe there was an arrangement. It looks like maybe Israel did something for Trump or maybe Netanyahu specifically, and maybe Trump is returning the favor, even even though he knows it won't make a difference. But it makes a difference in how we think about Netanyahu. So that's a little bit of a difference. Anyway. In other news, Trump is reportedly, according to the Wall Street Journal, he's considering naming the new Fed chair before the end of the term of Powell. And I guess Powell's term would run out in May. And normally you, apparently, normally you nominate the new person a few months before the old person's term is up so that the new person has time to, you know, get acclimated to the job and learn what's what. But Trump is considering maybe naming the new person way ahead of time, like any moment now, because that person would be like a backseat driver. So we put a little pressure on Powell maybe to quit early because he'd have a backseat driver saying, well, you know, if I were in charge already, and I will be in charge in a few months, but if I were in charge already, I'd be lowering those interest rates. So that would be a little extra public pressure on Powell. And if it happened to you, if you were in that job, wouldn't you at least think about quitting early? Because it would just be so annoying and humiliating and just, it just wouldn't feel right to have that backseat driver. So it's kind of a clever plan. I don't know if it'd work, but I could see why they might try. Well, let's talk about this New York City socialist. So there's a Lot of comments on the guy who looks like he's going to win the general election and become the new mayor of New York City. Zoran Mandani. Now, I don't hate the fact that his first name, Zoran, sounds like Superman's nemesis. Doesn't Zoran sound like he came from the same planet as Superman? And, you know, there's going to be a fight Anyway, I like his first name. And he was born in where? Uganda. He was born in Africa. And he's a Muslim and a socialist. Some are calling him a communist, but he's not technically a communist, but he's definitely a socialist. John Fetterman, who's on the same team, allegedly, you know, a Democrat, he said that, mom, Donnie's win, which is so far only in the primaries, but he'll probably win the general if the polls are correct. He goes, quote, I describe it as Christmas in July for the gop. So Fetterman, who is not a socialist and sometimes agrees with the framing of the Republicans, like now, believes that it's basically suicide for the. The Democrats because you got a midterm coming up, and wouldn't it be convenient if the Republicans who had to run in the midterms could refer to New York City hiring a socialist as, you know, a cautionary tale? It's like, oh, don't be like that. So, yes, Fetterman is correct. The Republicans will probably be pretty happy if he gets elected, at least in terms of how it would affect the midterms. And let's see, what else. Bill Clinton just congratulated Mamdani, acted like there was nothing unusual about it. So that was unusual. And mom, Dominique has pledged to, quote, root out bigotry across New York city with an 800% increase in funding for hate crime prevention programs. So that sounds good on paper. We, of course, yeah, we of course, would need to know the details on that. James Carville, as you know, one of the Democrat strategists of. Of old, he was talking about Mamdanis, and he said he's not walked back some of the things that he's posted about in the past that were more controversial, such as globalize the into Fada because the pro Israel people say that that's a call for violence and against Israel, whereas the anti Israel people say it's merely a call for a struggle against oppression. But that'd be a pretty damaging thing to have hanging out there. And Republicans would certainly make it sound like he's anti Israel. And they could, they could sell that. Yeah, they could Sell that. According to Axios, there's a guy that's a president and strategist of Bianco research who wrote on a post on X quote, it appears in New York City is elected to commit suicide by mayor instead of suicide by cop. Suicide by mayor and let's see what else. And then of course there's some fear that a lot of the businesses will want to escape from the socialist taxation and, and other problems that will come with New York City if he's elected and that they might escape like Ken Griffin did. He's already relocated to Miami and there's, there's a warning that New York could go the direction of, you know, Detroit and Baltimore and some of these other places. But Bill Ackman, investor Bill Ackman, who's been a lot more involved in political stuff in the last year or two, he had a very long post and he's optimistic that Mamdani could be defeated even though it would be too late for somebody to enter the race in the normal way. But he says that if somebody is qualified and a superstar and they want to run as a write in now what are the odds that a write in candidate would get elected in New York City? Well, not very high. Right. A right in candidate. When was the last time a right in candidate won any kind of major election in the U.S. i've never actually heard of it. But Bill Ackman says that if such a superstar candidate wanted to run as a write in that he will, quote, take care of the fundraising and he could definitely take care of the fundraising. So he would have all the money he needed, he or she, and they'd be writing. Does that sound like it might work? I don't know. I would have to know if it's ever worked in the history of elections in the United States. Maybe in a small town. But for something as big as the mayor of New York, could that ever work? I don't know. I'm skeptical.
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Tyler Winklevoss
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- [50:00]
Scott Adams
And then Tyler Winklevoss, one of the Wingovoss Twins, who's I believe they're both billionaires at this point in crypto. And he said, a lot of people have asked me if I will get involved in the New York State New York City mayor race by supporting some other candidate. And he says I'm torn and undecided. He said, like every other city run by Democrats, New York City is a broken kleptocracy. Taxes are astronomical and services are pathetic to non existent. Anarchy and socialism are the next logical steps in this story arc. He goes on saying is what the people of New York City have been asking for for years. It looks like it's what they're about to get. He says trying to fight against this tide seems like throwing good money after bad. And then he said some more. But then he said it appears things will have to get worse in New York City before they get better. So one point of view is that the only way New York City is going to get better is you have to let socialism try and fail and then people will be willing to try something else. Others would deeply disagree with that because if you let it go too far, it might be just too hard to save it. Mike Cernovich was disagreeing with giving an inch and would prefer fighting to maintain as much territory as you can. But I'm going to go with Winklevoss. It's not that I want a failure in New York City, it's just that I don't know that any democratic city has ever climbed out of it in recent years. I don't know if they can. My best assumption about the real world is that it could only go in one direction at this point. And I think the big Democrat run cities are essentially just criminal enterprises and the odds of a socialist coming in and fixing it are close to zero, it feels like. So it doesn't feel like they have a plan and it looks like it's pretty dire. And I would go with if you can get out of any Democrat run city unless it's in a Republican state because some of the Democrat cities in Republican states are doing okay. But if you're a Democrat city in a Democratic state and you're about ready to elect a socialist, I would say leave. That would be, that would be my advice. Get out of there. Now I realize that losing New York City would be just the worst thing for America, but it might not be, you know, it might be time to, to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. You know, there's a. Yeah, I'm seeing in the comments a Lot of people say that Giuliani did in fact save the city. Now I will give you that, that Giuliani did in fact, you know, turned around New York City, but I don't know that that's still possible. Maybe you just need somebody who's that popular. Wasn't. Didn't Giuliani get elected? No, he got elected before 9 11. So do you, do you believe that a Republican or even just a non insane Democrat could get elected in, in any upcoming year? I don't know. I, I feel like the, the window in which a Giuliani could get elected probably is closed. So my feeling is that some of these might not be fixable. I mean, I don't see Baltimore getting fixed. I don't see Detroit getting fixed and New York City might be joining it. I don't want that to happen. So unlike, you know, unlike those who say you got to let it fail before it gets better. I only think it might fail. I don't really foresee the it failed and therefore people got smarter and elected better leadership and fixed it. I don't really see a way that this gets fixed. And I'm pretty optimistic. You know, if you've watched me for a while, I generally think everything can get fixed. But there's, there's a systemic problem with some of these cities and there's. Nobody suggested any fix for the systemic problems. And one is that they're all criminal enterprises. It would be sort of like, well, you're, I guess this is bad analogy, but I won't, I'm not going to say that New York City is like the Mexican cartels. They're not the same. But I will say that if you were expecting the Mexican cartels to fix themselves because they got better leadership and then they got out of the drug business and turned to legitimate businesses and started helping Mexico be a good, good country, would you think, well, that could happen? Yeah. Yeah. The cartels just need a Giuliani. If they get a better leadership, then they would stop selling drugs and killing people and they would just turn to, you know, legal enterprise. And the answer is nobody expects that's possible. No matter how much of an optimist you are, nobody says themselves. Well, I think those Mexican cartels can turn around. So at what point does New York City and the kleptocracy, as Tyler Winklevoss calls it, at what point does the system become something you could plop a Giuliani into it and fix it? I feel like they've passed that point, but that's Just my feeling. I'd love to be wrong. So if I'm wrong, that would be just the best thing to be wrong about. Trump is doing a little branding of the Democrats. He's referring to Jasmine Crockett as low IQ Jasmine Crockett. And he thinks that Jasmine Crockett and AOC and what he calls Communist Mayor Zoran Mamdani should be the leadership of the Democrats. So basically, he's mocking them for having leaders that are completely impractical. Bad idea. And it should make, you know, normal Democrats just give up. Because if that's who's representing them, good luck with that. Well, in other news, the House Republicans are trying to get some testimony from ActBlue. That's the big money gathering enterprise that funds the Democrat races everywhere. And at the same time, the Department of Justice is doing a probe because there are allegations that ActBlue was involved in widespread donation fraud. So we'll find out if any of that's true. I don't know how long it takes the DOJ to do its job, but maybe Congress can get to the bottom of it first. Well, there's a story here from Bloomberg and UNODC that says Australia has the highest cocaine use on Earth and New Zealand is right behind it. So the biggest per capita cocaine users are Australia and New Zealand. Now, the reason I bring that up is because by complete coincidence, I was watching a real is it called a reel on Instagram in which there was some guy going around and asking people if they knew which country had the highest body count. Now, body count refers to how many people you've had sex with in your life. So he kept asking people, and they would say, you know, Brazil. And he'd say, no, the U.S. no. And I thought it was actually Iceland, but Iceland was third, it turns out. But number one and two were Australia and New Zealand. And then the very next day, after finding out that Australia and New Zealand has the most number of sexual partners, I find out that they also have the highest cocaine cocaine use per person. And I'm wondering, is that a coincidence or could it be that the highest cocaine use gets you the highest body count? I don't know. Or could it be that they just really like to party? I don't know. Don't know. Well, Trump is back from his NATO meeting. He's back in the US and but while he was there, he said that the Ukraine war is, quote, totally out of control. He did meet with Zelensky at the NATO summit, and he said that Zelensky, quote, couldn't have been nicer. And he says he believes Zelensky wants to end the war, but he's got to meet with Putin to see if they can get it ended. Other things that Trump said suggests that he doesn't really have a, you know, he doesn't have any traction on ending this one, but he's still trying. I do like the fact that the way he, he characterizes Zelensky is how nice Zelensky was to Trump. He could not have been nicer. And it's so Trumpian that he can hate you, you know, one day and then praise you the next, depending on how nice you were to him. Which, which I've always told you is good persuasion because you want to have the greatest penalty for people who are doing what you don't want, which is what Trump does, gives them the biggest penalty, but also the biggest reward if you're doing what he does want. So here he is saying he couldn't have been nicer. So here he is getting the reward for playing things the way Trump wanted to play it. But I don't see really much odds that Putin wants to end any wars. He seems to be sort of winning a little bit. I think. Russia is still gaining territory, albeit slowly, and their drones are doing a lot of damage. So. But in related news, I guess the Sky News is reporting that the UK is going to buy a bunch of F35s from the US and those can carry nuclear weapons and that will make the UK a stronger partner in, in NATO because their, their nuclear capabilities would be enhanced by that. And Starmer over in the UK calls it a response to radical uncertainty. So that's kind of a big deal. They've never had that capability before. And in other news, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Orange County, California Registrar of Voters for concealing unlawful registration of non citizen voters, according to the Gateway Pundit. So apparently what this means is that the Justice Department had asked for records that would show how many voters were non citizens and Orange county did not want to provide that. So there's going to be a court case there. And I saw also in the same article, the Gateway pundit that Orange county had an unusual outcome because it's sort of the most conservative part of the state and it didn't go the way that people expected it to. So even though Trump made California and everyplace else a little bit redder, Orange county turned blue at the same time that almost everything else was turning a little redder. So we have questions. Why do we this non predictable result in this one place. And it might be because of who they have that voted. Maybe we'll find out. According to the New York Post, the Trump White House says that the big beautiful bill would reduce the deficit by more than $2 trillion over 10 years because of all the economic stimulus and therefore the added, you know, tax revenue that comes in because the economy is doing well. Do you believe that? Do you believe that anyone? And I guess who did this, it was members of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. So they did their own analysis. Do you believe that anybody could do a 10 year analysis of our tax collections based on one bill? I don't think so. But if it helps them sell it, I suppose that's a good idea. In hard to understand events in the Sean Diddy Combs trial, apparently there were a whole bunch of different charges and the prosecution decided to drop several of the horrible charges against Diddy before it goes to a verdict. So they're dropping attempted kidnapping, attempted arson, and aiding and abetting sex trafficking. But that still leaves them with some serious charges that will be part of the jury deliberations. And the reason given for why they would have all these charges and then drop them is that dropping them would allow them to simplify the jury instructions. And I have questions. Has that ever happened before? Has a prosecution ever dropped charges for the express purpose of simplifying jury instructions for the other charges? Maybe. Or does it mean that they didn't make their case and they, they don't want to have a bunch of things that the jury says, well, you didn't make your case on this thing and that thing, so maybe we don't trust the other stuff too. I don't know. So I guess I'll have to rely on people who have more experience with the courts to explain that to me. But is that a good idea from the perspective of the prosecution? Does that really improve their odds of getting a conviction? It might. I mean, I could see why you don't want to confuse the jury with the instructions, but I've never heard of this before. And then over in Virginia, Governor Youngkin is going to sign into law a ban on using phones in schools, which, according to just the news, is something that 31 states are already doing. A bunch of states, but from the beginning of school to the end, you would not be allowed to use your phone, as other states have already decided. Now, don't you think that's a good idea? That's probably one of the unambiguously good ideas that you'll ever see. But what happens when AI becomes wrapped into your lesson plan, which is going to happen? You know, kids will learn AI to do math, AI to write things, AI to look at history. Do you think that they'll reverse that and say that you have to bring your phone? Because all the tests will involve you knowing how to use AI to get the answer? Maybe it's possible that will get reversed at some point. I don't know. Anyway, that's what. That's what I got for today. I'm going to talk to the Locals people, my beloved Locals members, privately, and the rest of you, thanks for joining. I hear from a lot of people that they don't care so much what I talk about. They just like listening to my voice and falling asleep to it. Do you have any idea how many people have told me, you know, I love falling asleep to your voice? And I say to myself, I don't know if that's good. It's sort of a compliment, but I guess I've slept with quite a few of you, so we'll keep doing that. If listening to my voice makes you sleepy and that works for you, I'm all for it. Because as I started out by saying, I'm all about being useful. And if I can be useful at scale, as Musk says, it's the hardest thing, I'm all in. So if a lot of you were finding it relaxing to listen to me before you fall asleep, that's what I'll do. So we'll keep doing that. All right, I'll see the rest of you tomorrow, same time, same place. And in the meantime, in 30 seconds, we'll go private for the Locals subscriber.