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A
Okay, Comma, beat Steven today.
B
Comma, you beat Steven. Good morning.
C
Good morning.
B
Let's get us turned on. Sergio, can you see YouTube yet?
D
I'm working on it. Let's see.
B
Good morning, Rumble. Good morning, locals.
D
YouTube is going.
B
Yes. Good morning, YouTube. All right. Xx I hope you're in the house with us. Okay.
C
We hope.
B
We hope so. All right, you guys, I think. Is everyone in? Did you have time to come in? I think we're good. We look good. All right, so let's get down to business and do what we got to do before everything else. Shelly, take it away.
E
Hey, everybody, come on in. Come on in. It's time. Yeah, it's time. For coffee with Scott Adams. Best time of the day. Every single time. Now I have to warn you that I'm going to miss one morning. I believe it's tomorrow morning. No, it's Thursday morning. And. Hey, Omar. Good morning. Good morning. Get in here. We got lots to talk about. But before we do, what do we do before we talk about all the fun things? It's a simultaneous step. That's right. And all you need is. Let's see. All you need is. I'm not cheating. I'm not looking at my cheat sheet. I'm not looking to the left. All you need is a cup of mug or glass tanker, cellos or dye. 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, the dopamine hit of the day. The thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous zip. It happens now. Go.
A
Perfect. Everybody's on mute now.
D
That was amazing.
B
Sergio got an extra large mute button. Show us, Sergio, what it looks like.
C
Show us your big button.
D
I'm afraid to show it because it's so big.
C
Show it.
D
Show you want me to show you my mute button? Okay, here we go.
B
Check it out, you guys. Is that impressive?
C
Does it turn red?
D
Hello. Hello. Yep.
C
And mute yourself. Mute yourself.
A
I don't think it's working perfect.
B
He tested it before the show, and he was telling us how much he loved it while on mute. It was so amazing. Okay, you guys, good morning. Welcome, everybody. My name is Erica, and I am joined today with the beautiful news crew. We have Sergio with his Scott Adams beanie. Always. And now a giant mute button. Our beautiful Marcella over there in Southern Cali. And the gorgeous voice of Owen Gregorian.
A
Good morning, everyone.
B
So I just want to give you guys a couple of quick reminders. It's the news crew. Today we're doing some news stories for you. A reminder that the 2026 Dilbert calendar is restocked on Amazon. Okay. So that you could buy on Amazon.com if you want a spare one for a friend. You didn't get one the first time around, back by popular demand. The other thing I wanted to let everybody know is that any posting from Scott Adams official X account is from Scott Adams estate and family. Okay. Like I'm not posting from there. So anything you see from Scott Adams account is from Scott Adams family and estate. Okay. I just wanted to let you know that. Also, I just wanted to say that Jesse Jackson passed away. Was he 84 or 83? I think he was 84. I could be wrong.
C
I think 84.
B
Yeah. Okay. Well, anyway, it as you guys know, but just in case. He was a civil rights leader who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. And later founded the Rainbow Coalition push. Or was it the Rainbow Push Coalition? Jackson ran for Democrat president nomination in 1984 and 1988, expanding political engagement among minority and progressive voters. Over decades, he remained a visible and sometimes controversial figure in American politics. His legacy reflects both his role in advancing civil rights and the debates that often surrounded his activism. He's been around basically my whole life and may he rest in peace, and we are sorry and our condolence go to his family. With that being said, let's toss it to the news crew. I think Marcella and Owen have come up with some great stories for us. Sergio's going to try to help me stay off the ledge with the news, and we'll look at your questions at the same time. Okay, take it away, news crew.
C
I just wanted to remind everybody before I give news that the calendar is available for purchase on Amazon, I believe.
B
Marcella.
C
Oh, did you.
A
Double reminder.
C
Double reminder for the slow people.
B
Yeah. Okay, who's starting off?
C
Starting.
A
I think Marcel is going first.
B
Okay, great.
C
Okay, my first story. So my theme of the day today is you gu is build or collapse, your choice. So it's either you want to build or you want to collapse. So every single story is connected to that. For my stories as well as Owen, I'm sure the first thing that I wanted to Talk about is JD Vance made an appearance at Fox News with Martin McCallum and we talk about the deep bench. I think it was Sergio or Owen that said that. That the. We talked before about Rubio and how wonderful his speech was. Right. And how proud we are to have him in the Republic Party representing us after we have Trump. The other one in our deep bench is J.D. vance. So he made an appearance on Martha McCollum and he talked about different subjects. I can't talk about all the subjects because I know you. We have a lot of news. One of the subjects was the midterms, which is very important for, for Trump's administration. He talked about the issue of building and collapsing. He talked about whether you want the government that burned down everything for you and collapsed it, or do you want to vote for people that want to build and construct. So, and I'm paraphrasing. So he, he did give that kind of insight in the leadership. He talked about. What he did say is do you want to double down on the president's leadership, which is Trump, which has helped to recover from some of the problems caused by Joe Biden, which the theme on Monday was that do you want to why white Trump has been strong on borders, strong within the cities is because the crime is out of control. The border is was out of control. And here we are again. Do you want to choose to go on that path to build, or do you want to choose to go and collapse? So he did talk about Minnesota. He Talked about Martha McCallum was great at interviewing him. He was like, what about the video? What do we do? There were people killed. What's going on? He talked about that the administration himself did not like it and that's it was unfortunate. But the reason that they needed to be present was because the city that they were in and the state that they were in was not enforcing the law and they needed to defend their own agents from the people. So. And he talked about Iran. He talked about negotiations. It's not, he says that it was. He talks about Iran. He says one thing about the negotiation. I will say this morning is the same ways it went well, but at the same time, he talks about how it's not going too well with Iran. So we'll see. But I'll, I'll give it to Erica, Owen and Sergio to give me what they think of what JD Van said, what they think of the deep bench of building, whether Erica wants to build or does she want to collapse to the done.
B
Build, baby, build. Build that wall. Build everything. Most of you probably know or don't that, you know, I am definitely worried about immigrant illegal immigration. Worried about. I'm worried, yeah. I'm worried that if we don't get a grip and get these midterms together, it's just going to be all the same nonsense that it was before. Like they're going to try to impeach Trump for what? I don't know. It's just going to be everything's just tied up. Trump derangement syndrome goes on and on. Nothing gets done done. It's kind of a shame that when a president is getting things done that in this country, I mean, it's a blessing and a curse that you only have four years to affect that change. Because then again, I didn't want a fifth year of Biden or many other people. But you know, things are going to click into place I think down the road a little bit. Like it takes a minute to get the momentum. But I think that we have to get serious about the midterms. A lot of people are disappointed with what is going on within. I'll just call it maga. But our bench is really good. It's really good. But if we don't win the midterms and we can't pass laws and, and you know, or like the SAVE act and all the things that are coming up, it's not going to matter. We're just going to be stuck. So I think the midterms are more important than ever before. I might actually re register myself into a party so I can vote in all of the midterms because right, right now I'm not affiliated with anybody. I'm not even an independent. I'm a nothing. But it's so important. So maybe we should talk to people we know that aren't registered with a party. That could be like a way of just saying like, listen, we got to get out there. And I was listening to an episode of Scott, I think it was this morning. Every day is blending into each other where he was saying how men love pranks. So he was saying, get with your, your guy friends who don't normally vote and be like, let's do a prank and we're going to vote for, you know, the Republicans in the midterms. Like get one non voting person and make it like it's a prank and it's something fun to do with your friends and just say like, yeah, we're going to go do it. We're going to vote all Republicans. So however you have to get there because the alternative is more crime in the streets, danger, losing who we are as a country and a culture. And I'm afraid for the children in this world. It's already so dangerous and I'm afraid for them. Just, you know, I think of like my friends who have grandkids and I just imagine this world, oh, I get worried. So I want to build baby Bill.
C
Yay, Owen.
A
Well, I'm glad that. I'm glad that Trump is starting to focus on the midterms, and I think it's really important to win. The midterms, especially the House is the hardest one. Probably, I think we'll probably end up keeping the Senate, but the House is going to be an uphill battle, and I think we need to do a lot more than what they've started doing. I think they are starting from a good position financially. They have a lot more money than the Democrats do at this point. But, you know, that could change pretty quickly now that Biden has kind of faded away and the stink has gone away from that, that, you know, some of the celebrities are starting to do fundraisers. Like, I think one of the, I forget if it was Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon. One of those people was going to be doing like a $25,000 plate fundraiser for the Democrats. And so they'll probably come up with some money. But I think, you know, we are having a head start at least with that, and I just hope we make good use of it. You know, I think right now, I think on Poly Market, it's something like 83% think that we're going to switch to Democrat control of the House. That's probably about accurate, would be my guess, in terms of odds. And I think we want to change those odds. But right now it probably is well in their favor. They've done a bunch more redistricting than the Republicans have. So they've made it very unfair in terms of, you know, making it so that Republicans aren't getting all their votes counted in terms of being able to actually represent themselves in Congress. And so they've stacked the deck in their favor from that perspective. It's also been stacked the deck in their favor from all the illegal immigration that was in the last census. And so they have a lot of things structurally that just benefit them. So it's going to take a lot to convince people to come out to vote. And I think, you know, Scott told us that it's not going to be enough to talk about all your accomplishments, that you need to talk about what you're going to do. And that, to me is probably the big challenge. You have to speak to the issues that are still there, things like affordability. The economy is going to be pretty much everything. And so I think a lot is going to depend on how the economy is, you know, six to nine months from now. And, you know, just getting people out to vote in terms of real persuasion, you know, some of it might need to be fear based. Some of it might need to be just promises like Trump made when he ran. Trump's obviously not going to be on the ballot, but I think we probably want to try and treat it like he is, because it is going to probably mean that if he, if the House gets control, they're going to immediately impeach him. It's not going to go anywhere in the Senate. They may or may not have a trial, but, you know, they're just going to keep impeaching him and trying to obstruct everything, and they're going to be doing investigations of all the Trump people and pulling them in front of Congress to testify. And it's just going to be constant political theater and nothing is going to get through Congress. And I think my biggest fear about that isn't so much like the bench or 2028, because I think in some ways it might even work to our benefit to be out of control of Congress when you look at 2028, because there may be more motivation to get Vance or Rubio or somebody into office. But I think for those two years, it would make a huge difference, because all the things Trump has done by executive order are going to go away if a Democrat retakes the White House. And the only way to prevent that is to put it into law, like the save act, like the things that we're working on. And it's really difficult to get those things through. You need a majority. You need a majority in both houses, and you need everybody to be unified enough to vote for those things and to get over filibusters and things like that. So if we don't have that, then none of that's going to happen. And we're going to have all these executive orders that if, God forbid, some Democrat wins in 2028, he's immediately going to do, you know, he's just going to say, I'm rescinding all of that. Everything. Everything Trump did.
B
Yeah.
A
Executive order would just be gone.
B
And then it will have been a speed bump, as BJ Said of like, Trump's whole presidency will have been a speed bump till they could get right back to what their agenda was before, which wasn't good.
A
Yeah.
B
Yeah.
C
Look at it for the finale, Sergio. Ta Ta. Will the mute button work?
D
It's working fine.
C
Builder collapse.
D
Builder Undefeated. Well, that's my. That's my favorite frame of the day. And you're going to build without frames. Right? So you have to Build. The decision is to build or collapse. Right? There's no nothing in the middle. I love that, putting that persuasion there. Because nobody wants to collapse. Everybody wants to build up. Positioning like that to people makes the sense to, okay, it is imperative now to do it. It is not a question of like, oh, maybe it would be nice to vote this time. Like most midterms, these 80% chances of losing. If somebody asked Trump that, what would he say? He would say, don't tell me the ads. Right. I mean, that's what I want to imagine that he will say it and he will just try to find any way to cut through that traditional historical record. That always happens. But what I love about this is that we are not aligning ourselves behind a person or a party or even Trump. We are aligning ourselves with the common sense of building instead of destruction. Right. So that's. I like how JD Said it on that interview. Instead of saying, hey, vote for us. We are so cool. We are amazing guys, you know? No, he's saying, hey, both for what is working. You've seen what is going on. It reminds me a lot of there's an episode of Versus Bear Grylls Survival Guy, and one time he separated the women and the men. He had the men in one island and the women in another island by themselves. Right. And so I'm not going to talk about the results, but those are good things to do. It's like one of them look like the last four years and the other one look like what is going on right now? I'm not going to say which one it is. You can check it out.
A
But just did save Sergio.
D
Huh?
A
What? I think you just did say it. Sergio.
B
Well, he didn't say who did what.
D
I didn't say who.
B
It's up to our imagination, okay?
D
Exactly. So that's an extreme situation. Right. But it looks like right now I'm seeing that. I'm seeing the team A in charge in making things happen right now. That's what I'm seeing right now. The team just busting through, building up, clearing the forest for construction. Right? You're clearing the field. You're getting all the pests out and taking all the weeds out. So always say that Trump is. All you have to do is read the art of the deal to understand his mindset. He's a developer. He thinks in a neighborhood. What he will do as a HOA guy. He's the HOA of America. He's the HOA Chief of America. And he's doing that all over and he wants everybody to. He does. Not trying to destroy our neighbors. Right. He's trying to build them up. He wants everybody to be strong. So that's my take on it.
B
I'd also like to say to learn more about the way Trump thinks, you can also read Winn Bigley. That's a book that I believe Scott was told by family members that, that they learned a lot more about Donald Trump by reading that book.
C
Trying to point to the book. It's behind me anyways.
D
Oh, yeah. Win Biggly is a. I think somebody has to write the Wim Bigly then too. You know, I mean, not Scott, but like somebody.
C
Somebody has to write what.
D
Somebody has to write Wim Bigly 2.
C
Number 2. Yeah.
D
No, yeah. So because not exactly Win Bigly, but what's going to happen after Trump. Right. It is going to be the next 10 years are huge and with AI, with everything that is going on and it's going to be interesting what happens because Win Bigly was a narrative of the first Trump administration and now it's like the golden age. So what's going to happen now is going to be maybe Joshua.
A
Yeah, well, Joshua just has a book out with data Republican right now. I think it's called Unelected. All right. It looks really good. I think it's on pre order so.
B
He'Ll be on tomorrow. Yeah.
C
So I think Trump, I called you Trump. Owen. I think Owen has story. I think that's what we're doing.
A
Well, I think there's a couple of things going on that I would say are wins on the Trump side. One is he is going to give the State of the Union address on time. So that's coming up on February 24th. I think there was some question about that because of the shutdown that the Democrats are defunding part of the government. But Trump saying, nope, we're going ahead, we're going to do it. I think in 2019 they delayed it because of the shutdown, but they're not going to do that this time. So I think he's going to be doing it either way and talking about things like voter ID and the SAVE act and the DHS funding and kind of exposing the Democrats for a lot of the things that they're doing. So I'm looking forward to that. That should be a good time. And then, you know, I don't know if we want to do a watch party for that. Might be fun if we did that. Maybe that's in a day for locals anyway. Don't need to Commit you to anything.
C
But just, I would love to.
A
And then there's the. There's actually a drop in student loan subsidies, which I didn't know about. Apparently that was part of the big beautiful bill that they're cutting subsidized student loan losses. I think they're getting away from the income based repayments and they're going to some sort of at least a minimum payment that you have to do. And they're extending the forgiveness period from 20 years to 30 years. I wasn't even aware that all these subsidies were there, but apparently we've been losing tons of money just by essentially forgiving student loans and letting people not pay them off completely. And so this one is mandating, I think, at least $10 a month with the 30 year forgiveness. And it also requires higher payments if you're making over $100,000. So, you know, a lot of students are complaining that it's, you know, that they, they don't ever pay off their loans. But I think that's because they don't pay off their loans. Like, they don't make any payments. And so they end up with something that might have been a $25,000 loan that they pay $100,000 on it because they just let it grow over 30 years. And, you know, my son is paying his off pretty quickly, so I'm glad about that. I had the same thing when I graduated from college and my wife did, too. So we all had student loans and paid them off as quickly as we could. And I certainly would recommend anybody do that that's in that situation. But it's good to me that we're doing less subsidies because I think that has distorted the whole education market. And I think it's all going in the pockets of the universities and it's not even going to teachers, it's going to administrators. And so I think it'll be great to have less of that happening and make, you know, put more responsibility on the students and the parents and the schools to say, if you really want that degree, you're going to have to pay for it. And it's not going to be something you can just get out of.
B
Like, like I always say, go to the school if you want to reduce it. Like, stop coming to the American taxpayer. It's your education. Your choice wasn't mine.
E
Mm.
B
Okay. We have another thing we want to follow up with on that. Or how do you guys feel any certain way about that?
A
Marcel?
C
Well, yeah, like if you take out a loan, you have to pay for it. Nobody should pay for. For anybody else's loan. You know, it's your responsibility. Huh?
A
Hot take, Marcella.
C
Very hot. Extremely. I'm burning. Sergio, test your.
D
Let me test it. See, it was working.
A
Good.
D
Okay, I'm winning. I'm winning. Sjv. I'm going to say that doing this is going to elevate the value of education again. I think that it just cheapened it so much, having all these loans that anybody can just get a $100,000 loan to go to college. And the only ones that made a lot of money here were the finance companies, all the ones that are allocating all these loans and all this. And the kids, they just. They just didn't care. And the parents didn't care either. Owen. And we have talked about this on the spaces many times about this, and I think that this is going to be. It's going to help really bring the value up again and get the students, everybody knowing how much really cost. The same thing with the hospitals, right? We didn't know how much were the prices of things. Now. Now we know the prices and they're lower now. The same thing should be with education, too. It should be just so. It should be more transparent. And what are the exact cost of all these loans and what is going to happen? The financial literacy is what is killing all these people. Right? They don't understand. They just take those loans and they do that. So I don't know. It's a great. I think we're in. It's a good path to do this.
B
So good.
C
And my second story, unless Erica has more things to say, I'm good.
B
I'd love to hear your next story.
C
My next story. And a lot of you were posting about it. Posting. What am I saying? Typing in the chat. The SAVE Act. That's my next story. We need the SAVE act to pass in the Senate and that will lead us to less election. It would be election reform. Basically, what we're asking for hot take here is for US Citizens to only be allowed. Only US citizens to be allowed to vote. Whoa. Imagine that in some states and in some, in federal elections, people can vote without showing identification. But to do anything, I think, I think even X, in order to prove who you are, needs your identification, your ID card, your California license. Well, obviously your license. But the SAVE act, so I give you a background. Is federal legislation aimed at election integrity, which was needed, which is we won't go into the details of why we need it. I think all of you know why. And basically it's to prove US Citizenship either with your birth certificate, if you were naturalized, with your passport, so on and so forth. And it started the first original SAVE act, it was in 2025, however, that didn't, that passed Congress but never made it into the Senate. It made it to the Senate but it never made it to the floor. So right now on February 11, the save that passed in Congress and now again it's in the Senate, stuck there, right there with 50 senators that are supporting it. And as you know, the tiebreaker vote would be J.D. vance, the Vice President. And the issue that we face now is the filibuster, where in order to avoid a filibuster, there'll be a test later on too. So make sure you're listening. Okay. In order to pass the filibuster, in order not to have a filibuster, you have to have a 60 vote threshold. They don't have that, they're 10 votes away from that. So that's going to happen. The filibuster is going to happen. And what Senator Mike Lee is proposing to everybody, he was on Glenn Beck's show and he was proposing there to right now, what he, what, what he explains is that the zombie filibuster is what's on right now. Basically, you don't have to do anything. You can just say filibuster.
B
Yeah, that's it. No, easy. Right.
C
And so he is pushing the talking filibuster where hey, you want a filibuster, go stand in the Senate floor for how many hours you can without leaving and talk and talk and talk in order to filibuster. And that's what he's pushing. He is indicating, he's citing the 1964 Civil Rights act, which was pretty much agreed by the Dems that that is good law. So he is citing law that they themselves support in order to do the talking. Filibuster. I know that there was Representative Pauline Anna Paulina, Help me out here, Luna. Sorry, sorry. Representative Luna. So she indicated in a Fox News show that she is against the filibuster and she wants to end it. And I know that Scott would talk about whether to end it and not. And so again the question is save act, do you want to build or collapse? Do you want to make sure that your elections have integrity or do you want to allow just free flowing elections like an anarchist or whatever you want, like whoever wants to vote. And so I put it to the floor here, unless you're filibustering me today. Sergio, Owen, Erica, whoever has Opinions on it. Let me know.
D
Well, okay, Owen, you want to do.
A
I mean, I'm certainly for the SAVE Act. I want to see it get through Congress. I want to see it get to Trump's desk. So I'm all for Mike Lee's proposal of saying make him do the talking filibuster and push him until it fails. I really hope they do it. And, you know, I'm probably somewhat skeptical that they will just because that's been the history is that a lot of these leadership Republicans don't seem to ever follow through from anything or do anything controversial. But I'd love to see it happen. So I think we should pressure the leadership, you know, thune and all the rest to make it happen. So do you have any opinion on.
C
The designated liars like Chuck Schumer?
A
Well, I mean, they're going to do what they're going to do. I think Chuck Schumer isn't going to be able to filibuster for very long. So, you know, let's try Cory Booker.
B
Put on that dydi.
A
Yeah, I mean, let him. But, you know, I think at some point they're going to run out of gas, I think. And that is what happened with the Civil Rights Act, I think, and that's what that was referring to is that they tried to filibuster it and it didn't work. And, you know, I think. I think we'd probably hopefully see that again this time. So to me, that would be some political theater that I'd get behind and say, yeah, let's have that filibuster. See what they can do. See how long they can keep it up and run it to the end and make it happen.
B
Like, what's the point? I mean, honestly, can we just be adults and move on and do what's best for this country already?
C
Okay, it's. It. It's like, follow the money. It's like, why are you not supporting integrity in voting? Then it makes you think like, oh, there's a reason why. I mean, they cite the gym that it's like Jim Crow laws if you. But that to me as Hispanic, I hate to bring my identity up is racist. Like, oh, Marcela, oh, she can't get a license.
B
Yeah, that was like Kamala saying they can't get to a photocopy machine. Like, what? And then there's that video, you guys, of the guy. There's like this black guy with a laptop on the floor. And after she said that, and he's looking at it like, what is this. And he's touching the computer like, I'm a black guy. I've never seen a computer before. I mean, like, how disgusting, how demeaning. And I can imagine if someone was saying this about white people, you know, I would be equally as offended. You know, my God, like, everything you do, and I think it's illegal, by the way, to not have identification. So everything you do in this world, you need an id.
C
Like, better yet, if Trump said it, how would they take it?
B
They flip out. But, like, let's just stop this nonsense. Sergio, what are you thinking?
D
Well, Erica, I think that now they're talking about women. They're making videos of women not being able to get an idiot. So they're like, you guys don't have the capabilities to get IDs now. So that's the problem. It's not the black people now. It's women. So let's think of the.
B
Should women be allowed to vote anymore? Let's just end it with the women, okay? Women, just stop voting, okay? We're just gonna let the men vote. Everybody can just zip it. I'm all in favor for that.
A
That's a whole different issue, Erica.
B
But it'll solve some problems.
A
Yeah, but no, I think the lie they're telling about that is that they think married women who change their name aren't going to be able to vote, and that's not true. And so they're hoaxing it on that.
D
Let me ask you, the Philly Boston role, the filibuster rule is not in the Constitution. Right. It's just made up.
A
So, yeah, it's just a Senate rule that they made up.
D
Got it. So in Trump solution was to nuke it. Right. He wanted to nuke the rule in order to pass everything. Right. So you know what? Let's just take advantage right now. Let's make this happen and let's just do it. So I like that this forcing them, Mike Lee's resolution to force them to actually do the filibuster, which was traditionally. Right. Speak without stopping. Right. And that's maybe in the middle. We'll see what happens. But I think that I'm pro nuking the rule 100% and just face the consequences and go build. Go build ahead and stop the collapse that is going on because we're still collapsing. Really? The collapse hasn't stopped. We see a lot of demolition crews out there trying to destroy us.
A
So I'm with you there, too, on nuke and the filibuster, because I think at this point, it's pretty much guaranteed that that's going to happen as soon as Democrats get control of the Senate.
C
I'm against it.
A
Just a matter of time. They're not going to say, oh, you didn't do it, so we're not going to do it because they've already, I mean, look at what James Carville was saying about packing the Supreme Court and all this. I mean, like they're, they're ready to just rip the government to shreds to destroy the whole thing. They're going to pack the Supreme Court, they're going to do all their redistricting. They're going to, I mean, it's just everything they can possibly do. They're going to rage against the machine and do whatever they have to to try and regain power. And so I think once they do have control of the Senate, I think it's pretty much guaranteed that they're going to nuke the filibuster. So as far as I'm concerned, we just take advantage of it now and, and have, have it while we have control of Congress or while control of the Senate and just get things passed.
B
Yeah. Time's ticking.
C
Yeah.
A
Why are you.
C
I'm for the filibuster. It's been used in order by Republicans in order to stop Democrats from doing crazy legislation. So I, I see your point, but I think what Mike Lee is trying to find is like a medium and then, and also I don't believe they have the numbers in order to nuke it, but I could be wrong. Owen.
B
Sergio, there's no numbers for anything anywhere. Everything.
A
I think, I think soon can just change the rules whenever he wants.
B
Oh, yeah, he's not cooperating anyway.
C
He, he actually said he, he doesn't want to put the Save act on the floor because he's worried about the timing. He has other bills that are more important because other bills are more important than having no fraud in elections.
B
Yeah. Fair elections, not a big deal. Yeah. No.
D
He looks so weak.
B
Yeah, he does.
D
Soon. Soon. Senator Tune, the whole persuasion wise, every time you see them, they seem just no action. They don't seem like part of the A team like Trump's team. So that's my take on that.
B
All right, let's go to another story.
A
Okay. Well, Steve Moore is an economist and he told Trump that the data shows that his policies have worked on the economy despite 22 Nobel winning economist warnings. So median income is up about $2,400 last year. Tax cuts are giving the average family about $1,400 of relief inflation's only at 2.4%. There were 130,000 jobs added in January, which I think was much higher than expected. So he essentially made a statement saying he's done something no one else has done. He's proven 22 Nobel Prize scientists wrong on the economy. I think it is interesting to me that all these Nobel Prize winning economists just happen to be left leaning people and they were all forecasting doom with the tariffs and everything else and they've been completely proven wrong. I think for a long time we were like, well, let's wait a couple more months. It's going to hit, prices are going to go up and it never happened. Our inflation has remained low. It's been what, like a year? I mean, it's plenty of time that I think for a little while it was reasonable to say, well, people kind of accelerated their shipments and got everything in before the tariffs hit. So now once they've run out of inventory, they're going to have to raise prices. But they didn't. I mean, that inventory is all gone now and they're still shipping things here. And I think we're doing fine in terms of inflation, at least in terms of the rate of inflation. There certainly are still affordability issues. Food is really expensive, so I'm not minimizing that. A lot of things, housing, healthcare, are way too expensive for the average family. But you know, it isn't getting worse like it was under Biden and it is getting better. You know, the real wages are going up and, and prices aren't going up as high. So I think we're gaining ground, moving things in the right direction. But here's, and I think that was just contrary to all these supposed Nobel Prize winning economists that clearly don't know what they're talking about.
B
I can hear Sergio's brain, brain right now saying trust in Trump. But I, I think that we're going to have a big messaging problem because, okay, maybe us here and like you said, you know, a lot of people are hurting. So how do you convince people who are in despair that things are actually getting better? Although it could be too late for them. They might have lost their home, their job, you never know. They can't afford food. They're now going to food banks. So how do we convince those people? Listen, don't abandon the plan that Trump is putting forward. Things are getting better. It's just going to take a minute to catch up when they hear like Mayor Moron Mandami saying like free stuff, free groceries, free rent, free buses. So I, you know, I think that could sound like a life raft for these people. And I. I would love to really come up with a way to message to people that are really hurting to try to hang in there. And if anyone has good ideas about that, I think we need a framing for that, because times are tough. If anyone wants to give that a shot, I'll take it.
D
I think that. Marelas, what you said at the beginning with JD Presenting the option to America. What do you want to do now? Where do we go from here? Right. So it's going to be hard. This is a transition year. We are going through it, and it's going to be hard. So we can. I think that most of the immigrants that I know, I'm an immigrant, too. I moved here in 93, and I fell in love with this country. I picked it. I said, like, I want this country, and I'm here now, and I fell in love in the 80s with this country, Right. So I want this country back to be that glory that we had back then. And as long as people start slowly seeing that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I think that we can make it. That's all we need. We need hope, and there's hope now. And I don't know what is the exact frame for it. That's a good question, Erika. We need that, and we need to work on that. But it's going to be a sunny day in America.
B
I think there's more sun coming out, maybe pointing out. I mean, it's hard to say. Like, you know, all right, so I think most of us here know that we're really avoiding a massive crash with our economy and this country with the things that are happening now. So there is an improvement. But I keep using, like, the ship and the iceberg because, you know, it takes a long time to turn a ship, right? So it's turning, but it still looks like we're going to hit the iceberg, even though it is turning. So, I mean, do we reframe it by letting people know what could have happened and what was about to happen and what we avoided? Maybe that's the way to look at it, because, I don't know, like, I'm thinking about people I know and how desperate they feel and, you know, they're looking at the Democrats, you know, as radical as they are, like, well, they'll. They'll save us somehow. Like, they'll just give us stuff, not thinking about the consequences of the rest of the country and the economy and everything. Collapsing. So I think maybe coming up with a good frame for them of picturing what we avoided happening, that although it does look bad, it was almost over.
C
You know, those videos, are they living? But are they living. Sorry, Sergio, are the people you're mentioning, Erica, are they living in New Jersey or in. Maybe you don't have to give away, like their location, but are they living in a Democrat run state? You're on mute. You did the. Sergio.
B
I thought I clicked it. These are people from all over the country. So it's just, it just depends. I mean, luckily, you know, I won't get too into it. But anyway, you know, there's just people that are hurting and they're just like, you know, my kid can't buy a house and my kid can't find a job and, you know, now my kid had to move out of state because they can't live in the state they grew up in. Like, they've been priced out of it. And then a lot of people are not having families because they can't afford it, so they're trying to find jobs. So, like, everything's getting put off. But I, I do see that things are turning, like, personally, I do see it, but I mean, I see it because I'm aware of what we avoided and I don't think most people are. So it depends, like, where you're getting your news, I guess. So I think we need to get the messaging straight that people need to know what we avoided and that we are steering in the right direction. But just saying, like, oh, here's the numbers, here's the stats here, here's the percentages. Does nothing to put money in their bank and food on their table. So that's what I'm worried about for midterms is that people are desperate and we're asking them to just trust in Trump or trust the process when they're like, well, I can't eat, you know, so that's, that's the messaging I'm worried about.
C
You lose weight, I've tried you. Sorry.
D
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Nobody cares about those numbers. When, if Trump comes out and says, like, hey, we are making all this much more money, they don't care. Right. We care about how much we can get at the supermarket. So the only way is going to be when people start making more money and there's more jobs and more opportunities in the left. Even the left start seeing that everything is going to start changing faster. So it's not about trusting in Trump anymore, really. It's in Trusting in the, in the plan, in the building plan that we have. It's a build plan. You have to do all this preparation work, demolition, we talk about and all these things, and it's going to be very intrusive. Construction is intrusive, right? You're building a ballroom, you have to move people around. It's a mess. We have talked about this a lot about this crash that is supposed to have happened already. We're supposed to be in a crash already. We are supposed to be in a war already, and we're not in any of those things. So whoever is navigating the ship is doing a good job balancing things, so it's not a complete crash. So trying to reduce prices of houses, right, or increase affordability of houses without crashing the real estate market is a very difficult thing to do. And who do you trust to do that right now? Who is the most qualified person to do that? Right? So, yeah, like Marcela was saying, right, the contrast. So that's as far as persuasion, contrast is what works the best. So going back to that island thing, showing the islands side by side, it was like super easy to see the difference between those things. So maybe somebody can make that, right, Create those contrasts of the four years on Biden, what was happening and then what is happening right now, which is messy too. There's a lot of, you know, you need to evict people, right? You need to evict people from houses and you need to send them out, you know, and then reconstruct the house and build it for a nice family that is waiting to take it, you know, or kids.
A
So the one thing I would add to that, though is like, I actually would be for Trump sending out a check to people. You know, he's been proposing doing like.
C
A tariff rebate check that would make inflation happen again.
A
Yeah, I mean, economically speaking, I'm against it, but if it means that we keep control of the house, the optics, I just think it might move the needle on a lot of people. If they get an actual check from President Trump saying, here's a couple thousand dollars to put in your pocket and pay for groceries, it might convince a lot of people that would not be convinced just by messaging or rallies or other things on tv, because the media is never going to put it out there for us. So you're not going to get to any Democrats, you're not going to get to probably very many independents, you know, the. Unless. Unless they're the hyper aware ones that are reading X and things like that. But in order to really reach them, I think the message has to come in a tangible way. You need to see the dollars. You need to see that things are getting more affordable. I mean, we have seen several things. Gas prices are way down. Certain aspects of food, like eggs are way down. You know, they're like 80 or 80 or 85% lower than they were before. But, you know, beef is still at record high prices, and I think even chicken is somewhat expensive. And, you know, that may be recovering, too. I know Trump's trying to go after that, but I'm not sure if he'll be able to do it in time. And I just think some tangible thing like that that said, hey, those tariffs I did that everyone was saying were so terrible, well, here's your share of it. Here's your payment. I understand that it would be another stimulus and it probably would create some inflation, but it might be worth it in the short term to do a little bit of that. I'm saying this even knowing I'm not going to get one of those checks. I've never gotten any of those checks in the past when they've done those stimulus things, and I'm not going to get them in the future. So it's not about me wanting a check. Think it might make a difference for the midterms if they did it.
B
And I just want to point out that chunks over there in locals, he blames the chickens for the high chicken prices. I like that. Chunks. I. I like that rationale.
C
That's a good take.
B
It is a good take, right? The damn chickens.
C
And our next story, it's Building Collapse with Nick Shirley. He is out in California. How amazing. He needs to go to every state. He was in California. You know, he did the. Minnesota. He's 23 years old. He had. Some of. You might not know who he is. So he's Nick Shirley. He has a YouTube channel. He's on X on YouTube. He did the leering. What was it called?
B
Leering school or daycare or something. Daycare in Minnesota.
D
Delirium Center. Right. The Excellence Learning center of Excellence.
C
Is it. Put it in the chat if you know it. I know my people.
B
Independent journalist.
C
Independent journalist. Amazing man. And basically he discovered that in California, he. In Minnesota, it was about the daycare, the. The health care fraud that was going on, allegedly, because nobody's been convicted. And right now in California, what he's focusing on, I'm sure he'll focus on different. There's so much fraud to pick from. It's like going to a store and Looking up and going, I want this fraud. Oh, I want that fraud. That's how it is here. But anyways, so he went and focused on the election fraud, the voting fraud in California. He went to go to the look at the voting rules and he discovered that dogs can vote. A dog voted. 125-year-old woman voted. He actually went through the voting rolls. You really have to watch the video because I don't make any justice for it. Nick, I'm sorry, but I have to summarize it for you. And basically he went to different places where the person was supposed to be registered to vote. And in California, we don't, we don't require an id. All you require is an address and your signature to match the signature they have on record when you first register to vote. And basically what he did is he went through the voting rolls, looked at the actual address of where these people voted, like, oh, public storage. There's a storage place. There is a hundred people that voted here. Let's go to it and see where these people are living in the storage facility. And he went there and he was very good. He came in and he's like, where's Anna? Where's Deanna? Where's this? Where's that? He was, he's amazing. And the person was like, what are you talking about? What are you saying? And so they, they obviously, you know, there was nobody living at the storage facility because you're not allowed to live at a storage facility. And very important to the story. In California law, in order to register to vote, you have to register your domicile address. That means where you reside, where you actually live. So having the storage facility as your voting place is illegal anyways. So he went to UPS store. He was looking for Lori or Linda. He was like, linda, are you here? And then he, he was, they didn't let him in. So he was outside and he was asking, have you seen Linda or Gloria? I'm sorry, I think it was Gloria. Have you seen Gloria before? She's lived here for 10 years inside a box. And then people are like, don't use me, you MAGA supporter, or something like that. And he told them, I'm not maga. I'm just trying to correct the fraud that there is in voting. And so he went all over the place. But you know, going back to Scott's takes is the sign is destiny. The, the system here in California is designed to have this occur. And this is also in federal elections that people are voting for. The dog part, that was interesting. I'm sure some of you can talk about it, but my dog wants to vote and she wants to vote Republican.
D
So how do you find a dog's house to, you know, if you're looking for that dog to ask him if he really voted for what he voted for. Did anybody do that? And can cats do it too? That'd be great if I can get my cat because she doesn't agree with me yet, but I can get her to agree to vote for Trump too. I think that this is the, I heard of the dog no barking and this is like the dog voting or no voting. So that's it.
B
That's it. I, I really respect Nick Shirley. I hope you guys take a look at his account and consider even making a small donation to him. He is in his 20s and he', fearless and he's fighting for this country and its integrity, which is shot right now. I'm sure his life is in danger. He gets threats all the time. People know who he is. But please, please take a look at him. I'm going to see if he'll come on the show. We'll see. But you know, he's interesting and I think anyone out there who feels ambitious or angry or excited and you want to do what he's doing, do it. Like, if you have a suspicion about an area where you live, it's so easy to just like, start digging through things, especially for like the younger generation. You're so crafty with computers and, and tech and knowing how to, you know, navigate your way. I suggest doing it and expose it all because it's your future, it's your money. If you're, you know, working and contributing, it's your tax dollars and the younger people, you have the most skin in the game. And you will be so madly respected, like become famous for exposing fraud and not for like, you know, a tick tock dance, you know, be useful and, you know, that's a, that's a way to contribute and, and make a living. And make a living. So I would encourage people to do that. So Nick is not going to stop and I'm sure people are helping with his funding now. And, and it goes back to the.
C
Reason why we need the SAVE Act.
B
Yes. In the first place. Right. And he's exposing all the fraud. So we know, I mean, come on, everything has fraud except for our elections. That just doesn't even make sense. So I, you know, I want to be hopeful for the country. I saw someone say, oh, Erica looks like the type of person who like, wakes up and is Mad right away. I'm passionate. It's like, I'm not mad. I. I'm the one that, like, I'm like the. I always say I'm like an Italian grandmother. I worry, I'm worried. And I feel like, you know, times are serious right now, so that's, you know, maybe it comes off as like some kind of anger and I'll try to work on that for you guys. But I am a lot of fun and I'm just worried. So when I'm talking about newsy things in the future, I have to, like, take a deep breath. That's why I try to have everybody talk me off the ledge. Okay. Oh, and do you have a take on this?
A
Well, I. I have a lot of respect for what Nick's doing. I think he's taking a lot of personal risk and I think he's made a huge difference in terms of totally embarrassing Minnesota. And now I think he's taking a good crack at California. So I applaud everything he's doing. I support it. I do think I would be careful if you're thinking of doing it just because you might end up with death threats and depending on where you are, it might be a pretty dangerous thing. But, you know, wherever possible, if you can expose the fraud, people like Data Republican and Nick Shirley and others, all the Doge people have made a big difference and they've uncovered some incredible things. I think there was some other story I saw about how there was some van that was making Medicaid claims, and it was like millions of dollars of claims in a year. And it was all supposedly out of some medical van like that. They were claiming they had just done many, many visits or something every day. And that was a direct result of people pouring over that DOGE data that came out about Medicaid that was kind of open sourced and now people can find the fraud. And so I think the more transparency, the better. And let's get this all out on the open and expose it all so it can go away. Because I think that's the only way is to embarrass people and hopefully prosecute people for all this fraud like they are in Minnesota.
B
Okay, Sergeant.
D
I think I already talk on this one, but Yeah, I agree 100% that the better we can do about amplifying Nick's message. You can hear me, right? So I'm checking my button.
C
We can hear you.
D
You scare me there. You scare me.
C
Marcela, I'll just tell you if I can hear you.
D
I want to emphasize what Marcela said to get people to understand that that's a path, that instead of just whining and complaining, you can just go out there and get information. If you don't want to go out there and knock on people's doors, you can do it online. Just go online and find out as much as you can. A beautiful example of that is the lady Data Republican. Right? Data Republican is somebody that has made such a huge impact just from her office. Right. She was working on it.
C
Bring her up. Because tomorrow might be a special day for Joshua, who co wrote the I want to.
D
That would be great, because we want to learn. I want to learn more about that, and I want to buy that book. I want to learn more. That's it, Erica.
B
Thanks, you guys. All right, well, this was a fun time. I'll work on my smile tomorrow, I promise. You guys bring your books tomorrow. Bring your reframe your brain book. Marcel is going to do a reframe for us. We're going to discuss it. We'll see which one she picks in the morning. Joshua Lysac will be here for the hour with us. He wants to teach us a new lesson, too, that he took from what he's learned from Scott. So that'll be fun. From us. And I say, let's go out there and be useful, you guys. Honestly, thank you so much for showing up here, especially without saying Scott being here. We just want to keep us together and keep Scott's wishes intact. And you guys are so cute. I'm not offended, I promise. I. Everyone's like, stay you, be you. It's all good. You guys. I. I really, truly love everybody here. Okay, so we're gonna go be useful. You guys. Go be useful. We will see you in the morning with Joshua Lysk. Bring your reframe books, and we'll see you. And a sip. To Scott and to Shelly. Go be useful to Scott.
Date: February 18, 2026
This episode features the news crew's spirited discussion of current political and societal events through the "persuasion filter" lens, a key hallmark of Scott Adams' commentary. With Scott Adams temporarily away, the team—led by Erica with Marcella, Owen, and Sergio—analyzes topics like election integrity, the upcoming midterms, economic changes, and the state of political persuasion, all while emphasizing the central theme: "Build or Collapse."
[04:03–04:25]
[05:57–09:31]
[09:31–16:30]
Discusses tactics such as motivating non-voters by making it a "prank" or personal mission.
Owen points out the structural Democratic advantages (redistricting, census changes, celebrity fundraising).
Quote – Owen:
“Right now, on PolyMarket, it’s something like 83% think that we’re going to switch to Democrat control of the House.”
[12:41]
The importance of concrete promises and speaking to economic pain is underscored: "You have to speak to the issues that are still there, things like affordability. The economy is going to be pretty much everything." (Owen, 13:47)
[16:31–19:59]
[22:13–26:14]
[26:25–37:55]
[37:57–49:39]
Erika and Sergio discuss persuasion strategies, including contrasting "what America avoided" versus "what America is suffering now"—to increase voter patience and hope.
Sergio suggests the narrative of “construction” is important:
Quote – Sergio:
"Construction is intrusive, right?...but whoever is navigating the ship is doing a good job balancing things, so it's not a complete crash."
[45:19]
Owen floats the idea (rhetorically) of a Trump-backed “tariff rebate check” directly to voters—a tangible sign of progress, despite potential for renewed inflation.
[49:51–58:54]
| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------|-------------| | Jesse Jackson Tribute | 04:03–04:25 | | Build vs. Collapse Theme Introduced | 05:57–09:31 | | Midterms & Voter Mobilization | 09:31–16:30 | | Persuasion Framing: Building vs Collapse | 16:31–19:59 | | Student Loan Reform Discussed | 22:13–26:14 | | The SAVE Act & Filibuster Debate | 26:25–37:55 | | Economic Progress & Messaging | 37:57–49:39 | | Nick Shirley Exposes Election Fraud | 49:51–58:54 |
The episode offers a vivid snapshot of grassroots conservative strategy and concerns in 2026, blending analysis, persuasion, personal stories, and calls to action. With Scott Adams’ direct presence missing, the panel maintains his tradition of looking at news through a “persuasion” lens—asking listeners, in all things, whether they want to build or collapse, and urging them to engage productively to secure America's future.