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- [00:00]
Owen Gregorian
Good morning, everyone.
- [00:02]
Erica
Good morning.
- [00:06]
Joel Pollock
Good morning.
- [00:07]
Owen Gregorian
Me and Barry and Rick Lang is the first one.
- [00:11]
Erica
Lang is ready, man.
- [00:13]
Owen Gregorian
Patty and Steven. Hopefully Mike Bird has gotten his hex account back.
- [00:20]
Erica
Oh, yeah. He might be in a mine today. He was going back into the mine. Good morning. Look how cute everyone is. Is everyone nice and refreshed? Look who's joining us in the house today. Joel. Joel Pollock. We're so excited. But, you guys, you know, once we all file in, I see people coming in through the door. Come on in. And then we're gonna have a little simultaneity with Scott, which is the best part of the day. Always. Free Bird. What's got chunks? Love you, Bookish. Oh, my gosh. All the kids are here.
- [01:03]
Sergio
YouTube is going strong. Erica, who is YouTube?
- [01:06]
Erica
Oh, YouTube's YouTube's YouTube. Annie, you're the bomb dot com. Yep, we see YouTube. Okay, rumble. All right, you guys. Grab a vessel of any kind. It's time, Bree. Let's take it away.
- [01:23]
Bree
Special surprise. Special surprise. I've updated the introduction to the Simultaneous Sip to make it easier for you to sing along. In fact, turn it into a generic drinking toast. Are you ready? So here's the reworked introduction to the Simultaneous Sip. It goes like this. Watch the rhyming pattern. You'll be impressed. I'd like to perform this correctly. For the simultaneous sip, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tankard, chalice or stein, canteen, jug, or flask, vessel of any kind, fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee.
- [02:11]
Joel Pollock
But.
- [02:11]
Bree
But if this were a drinking game or you were doing it for a toast, everybody would get to say their own favorite liquid at the same time. So I'd be yelling, coffee. You'd be yelling, vodka. Perhaps it all works. Now, join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything. Simultaneous sip.
- [02:30]
Joel Pollock
Go. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
- [02:38]
Bree
That's good stuff.
- [02:39]
Joel Pollock
Puffing, Yelling works.
- [02:43]
Erica
That was delicious. Santa. Santa. Scott. Good morning. Here we are, day after the State of the Union, the one, the only coffee with Scott Adams. Scott Adams School. So, my name is Erica. I am your lovely host. That was hysterical. We have Sergio joining us.
- [03:10]
Sergio
Good morning.
- [03:11]
Erica
We have Owen Gregorian. Still not perfectly feeling better. So we have his voice again for today.
- [03:17]
Bree
Hello, everyone.
- [03:19]
Erica
We have beautiful Marcella in blue today. And one of our favorite guest co hosts, Joel Pollock, is in the house. Joel, first things first. We have a lot of people who are wondering how the book is coming along, and we have had questions. Do you have like a time frame of how long it'll take before we can read it.
- [03:45]
Joel Pollock
It's going very well. I'm more than halfway through the first draft. I am going to write several drafts, so it's not going to come out next week, but it will hopefully come out before the end of the year. The goal is that it would be on sale in time for the holiday shopping season. So I'm guessing maybe a target date for release of something like October.
- [04:12]
Erica
Wow.
- [04:12]
Joel Pollock
We will have to go through another draft that'll take a little bit longer to finish, probably by June or July, and then revisions and editing over the summer and then hopefully publication by the fall. So I. I know that's going to be frustrating to people who want something right away, but you'll just have to wait. It's worth wait. Yeah, but it just, it takes a long time to do this right. And it's the second biography I've worked on. The first one I worked on took about a year and a half to do and that also went through several drafts. This won't be quite as long in terms of the process or in terms of the book length because it's got to be readable above all. And also because in the earlier biography that I wrote, I wrote about my mother in law actually, who was a very prominent civil rights activist in South Africa. I wrote a long book because a lot of her writing, even though she was also famous as a writer, a lot of it hadn't been published. So I wanted to include excerpts of some of her writing. Whereas with Scott, he's written so much and he's actually told his own story so many times that we have the luxury, in a sense, or maybe the additional burden, if you want to look at it that way, of writing a shorter and more concise and direct biography. So that's what I'm working on right now. And it's going very well. And you know, as with exercise, as with just about anything you want to do, Scott's advice was you do a little bit every day. And that's how this is going as well. It's a little every day alongside all the other things I'm doing California post and raising my family or trying to be there for the family as I divide my time between two coasts, really. So hopefully I'm barely hanging on to all that and making sure that the work gets done everywhere it needs to be done. We've got Little League season coming up. You know, we're all extremely busy and you have to basically schedule time for the things that really are most important. So I usually write the biography first thing in the morning. If you have something you really want to do and you don't want it to hang over you the whole day, just get it done as soon as you possibly can. So I'm usually up really early and I'm working on Scott's biography.
- [06:28]
Erica
That's great advice. The other thing we definitely want to know about is how is the California Post going? It's newly launched. And what do you think?
- [06:38]
Joel Pollock
It's going very well. I mean, the reception's been incredible. Everywhere I go, people who are familiar with it tell me that it's really changing their media diet and also changing the political landscape, because people feel that there's finally an alternative voice within California that can reflect a variety of perspectives that isn't the usual liberal left perspective. That doesn't mean that everybody who reads or writes for the California Post is conservative or Republican. We had a opinion article a few days ago by the lead plaintiff in the case against Trump's tariffs, explaining why he had sued Trump and why he had won. And that's what we want to be. We're not trying to be straight down the middle. Nobody really can be. But the motto of the editorial page is we deserve better. We deserve better than the quality of the government services we're getting. We deserve better than the cultural snobbery of Hollywood, which persists even as the movie industry is in real trouble. And we want to work together and bring voices out of the shadows to make this a bit of a better place to live. And that's what I want for my family. And I know that that's what millions of Californians want, and that's why the California Post is doing so well.
- [07:52]
Erica
Yes, that's incredible. And very much needed in California. So I'm working, by the way, on my Gavin Newsom impersonation. I launched it yesterday, and I'm like, you know, and then I realized, like, driving the car dance, I'm like, I don't really know what you're doing, but I'm going to perfect it. So last night, President Trump said, the State of the Union is strong. So I am going to start with you, Joel, about this speech. So what do you feel this, the State of the Union speech is, right?
- [08:32]
Joel Pollock
Well, I tried to look at it in a number of different ways, and I wrote about it at the California Post from my perspective, using my tools, the way that I would write it as a political observer. And next I'll get to how Scott would have seen it, but I thought it was one of his best speeches ever. Yet it was also a very partisan speech. And so I wrestled for some time with the question of whether a partisan speech in the State of the Union could also be a great speech. And I think he pulled it off. And the way he pulled it off was he did not try to establish national unity by talking about the Republicans and the Democrats coming together. That's the old model. And I think he actually tried that a couple of times in his early State of the Union addresses. But what he did instead was he went outside of politics, and he brought heroes into the room that everybody could identify with. The hockey team, the soldiers, the National Guardsman who was wounded, the mother of the refugee who was murdered. He brought people in who could transcend the parties. So he beat up on the Democrats quite a bit, but also said, our national unity is really outside of this chamber. And he almost emphasized the point physically by bringing people into the room from outside. They weren't seated in the gallery. Almost all of his guests were people who were waiting outside in the hallway, and he would bring them in. The Olympic team, the Medal of Honor winner. There were people coming in all the time. He brought the nation into the room. And I think that was a deliberate physical gesture. And I've written about that before, how there's never been a president who has used the room itself almost as a musical instrument. You know, if you go into a church with a pipe organ, the building is the instrument, because you can actually see the pipes usually on the exterior of the building, sometimes inside as well. But the resonance that gives the organic sound is the building. And Trump is the organist in the chamber. He really uses the physical space, not just by projecting his voice, but by bringing people in and out. And then last night, a new technique he really drew attention to, which was standing versus sitting. We're used to that, right? We're used to the party in power standing and applauding the party that's in the opposition sitting and frowning. But Democrats came in and said, we're going to be silent. We're just not going to say anything or do anything. And they've done that in a few years past. But I think Trump took that as an opportunity this time and said, okay, you're going to sit there. Whatever you agree with, stand. If you disagree, sit. And so then he set up this series of questions that they had to sit for. So visually and physically, that created something that was very useful. And I'm kind of already getting into my Scott analysis Here, but that's as far as mine went. I mean, that was basically what I said. So now, how would Scott have looked at this? Well, I gave you a little hint just now. Scott always said that visual persuasion is always better. And what Trump did was he basically showed the nation visually. He even gestured, you know, look, look, look, you know, look at these people. They're sitting down. They're sitting down for American citizens come first. They're sitting down for this poor woman who was murdered. Why don't you stand up for that? You know, he. He made this visual case of the difference between the two parties. Now, that's very powerful in a midterm election year. And I think that is what many Republicans took from the speech. They took a sense of confidence, not necessarily because he talked about how successful his policies had been or the good economic news. Democrats can talk about some of the bad economic news because the economic news is never all good or all bad. But what he really did was draw a clear distinction between the two parties. And that gives the Republicans something to run on. And what the parties need on both sides is they need something to believe in, something to run on. Abigail Spanberger, who gave the response, I thought she was a terrible choice for the response if you're trying to reach the nation. On the other hand, probably a pretty good choice if you're a Democrat. Let me explain that. Abigail Spanberger ran as a moderate. She even said she would not redraw the congressional districts in Virginia. She has governed as a radical, and she's redistricting Virginia from a 6 Democrat, 5 Republican state to a 10 Democrat, 1 Republican state. It's the most egregious partisan gerrymander in the whole country. So you wouldn't have her after the president because in a way, she makes his case for him, at least to independent voters. Trump can point to her and say, listen, the Democrats are selling you some moderate candidates this year, but you're going to get radical. Look what she's doing in Virginia, raising all these taxes. Taxes on dog walking. I mean, it's nuts. As he said last night, these people are crazy. But what a Democratic leader wants to tell the Democratic Party is quietly, quietly, we're going to do all this radical stuff you really want. Just let us run the moderate candidates. Let us do this. And this is, in fact, happening in California. The California Democratic Convention just met and they nominated some candidates for Congress, and they nominated the more moderate ones, not the far left ones, because Nancy Pelosi knows that's how you win. So the message to Democrats is, you know, don't worry, don't worry. Don't make a lot of noise about it, don't get upset about it, but we're going to run some moderate candidates. Once they're in, they can do whatever you want. And the other thing that she did was she reinforced this idea that ICE is basically the Gestapo, that they're arresting citizens, that they're poorly trained, they're a bunch of thugs. They come in. I mean, it's a terrible way to talk about American law enforcement. And just. I don't know, some part of me is just repulsed by the whole thing. But that is the Democratic Party narrative. That's how they see their identity, as opposed to the Republican Party. And so it was a good speech for Democrats because she reinforced the feeling that they're standing up against tyranny in some way. Now, Scott addresses this in his. His book Win Bigley, where he talks about the absolute conviction of Trump's critics that he was the new Hitler and that this horrible authoritarian regime was descending. And he said none of that was true. And when you showed people evidence that it wasn't true, they didn't react. They didn't change their minds. They were at best placed into a kind of cognitive dissonance where they would try to justify the opposite of what they were feeling or experiencing. But that's how we function. Two movies and one screen. And it's just interesting to see the reactions afterward. There was a two movies, one screen effect in the sense that you had Democrats with their talking points coming on and saying, this was a terrible speech. It was awful. He said racist. Gavin Newsom said it was boring. Now, that was probably the dumbest comment, because I think even Democrats understood it wasn't boring. I mean, it was long. He could have said that was long. Right. The joke there is. It's long. I fell, as. I'll tell you what I think about the speech, but I fell asleep. You know, whatever. I mean, there are other. You could have done something funny with that. The longest State of the Union ever. But that's not where he went. He went to boring. It definitely wasn't boring. And that's bad persuasion. It's not credible. It's not funny. I don't think any of their persuasion was funny or credible. And this is the thing. There's always this moment when Trump really does well, when the other side doesn't really know what to do, and so they go with their talking points. There is a kind of cognitive dissonance. I mean, Pete Buttigieg on CNN was talking about how it was terrible speech and the President lied, lied, lied, lied, lied, lied. That's sort of the default. Like I didn't like the speech. So he must have lied. Well, CBS News, which is normally pretty harsh to the President, maybe not since Barry Weiss took over, I don't know. But CBS News did a fact check. I just saw this on X. They fact checked his claim that murders were down to their lowest rate since 1900. Sounds crazy, right? I mean, that's like a long time ago. Fact checked. True. I mean, it's true. It's extraordinary. Now, where Democrats will disagree with Republicans is why. And President Trump said why. He said it's because we had ice on the street deporting criminal gangsters. But Democrats won't admit that. Okay, fine. But I think the two movies, one screen effect was there, but it took a little bit of a shock, a little bit, a little bit of a beating last night. For a moment at least, the Democrats didn't really know what to say. I watched Harold Ford, who's probably the most fair minded Democrat, he's on Fox and before the speech he was saying, well, we have to remember a lot of Americans are still hurting economically and that's what the President needs to talk about, all the people who are hurting. Sort of re emphasizing the idea the economy is bad. When the speech was over, his reaction was Democrats need to talk about economic issues. In response to this president, which told me that Trump was successful because Harold Ford Jr. Wasn't saying Trump failed to talk about the economy. He failed to talk about people who are working for a living. It told me that he knew Trump had really hit a home run and the Democrats were going to have to find a way to respond. So I think that's where it was. And again, visual persuasion, as Scott said, also finally about the persuasion element of it, I said to my wife, you know, Trump has done this before. I mean, how many speeches has he done where he's gone to the gallery, there's been a Medal of Honor awarded or a Medal of Freedom. And we've seen this before. We have actually seen it before. I thought Trump's speech in 2020, the one Nancy Pelosi tore up, was probably the best speech he'd ever given and nobody remembers it because she tore up the speech. That's visual persuasion for you. Right? That's what we remember about the speech. But what was different this time? And I think it was the hockey team. It was the hockey team because it allowed him to frame the Entire speech as a victory speech. It really was a victory speech, and it associated him, or he associated himself with the color gold or with the metallic gold of the medals. They came in wearing medals, another form of visual persuasion. And. And also it resonates because everybody knows Trump likes gold, right? There's gold in the Trump Tower. There's gold Mar a Lago, there's gold in the Oval Office. He's big on gold. The Nobel Prize is gold behind his desk. Everything's gold. He likes gold. It's almost a joke, you know, like, what's he going to build in Greenland? Like a giant gold tower, you know, on the ice float or whatever. But that was very powerful, the gold medals, the hockey team coming in. It also showed that he could break the opposition because half the Democrats stood up and he pointed that out. He said, look, half of them are standing. The other ones aren't. But anyway, so I think that was a way of making this speech different and better and more effective than the other ones, was basically framing it as a victory speech. I'm not trying to make the case for you that I'm better or that I'm succeeding and that you should vote for my party in November. The case I'm making is we've all already won. And that was, I think, what made it very effective. And that's why people are upbeat about it today, if they like the president, and why Democrats are trying to find a better answer for it, and they may just try to forget about it, move on, because they think they have the upper hand as the opposition party in a midterm year. But it was a very effective speech.
- [20:30]
Erica
I felt like he painted it, if I just summarized it quickly as American, anti American. And that's really how I saw the whole thing, you know, like, not stand. Like, you can't stand when he says that your number one job is to protect Americans and the country. And they were like, oh, no, we're going to sit for that. So. Oh, oh, okay. You know, so I. I felt like, you know, even like some. And some of the medals he gave out, like, I was like, he's just giving out medals and awards. He's using. And then he said he wanted the Presidential Medal of Honor. And he's like, I can't give it to myself, but if they could change that law. And I'm just like, oh, my God, he was so funny last night and animated. And like you said, the room was part of his speech. And he used the sitting and the silence as part of his speech. And Those non words and those moments and just gesturing were huge. And. And I'm glad that he also allowed so much space and time to happen for those moments. Like, he didn't just make a point and move on. Like, he let the. The Republican or the American side, I'm going to say, to applaud for. I think it was like 2 minutes and 18 seconds when he said, your first job is to protect Americans. And he let that go for well over two of them just sitting there. And that was serious, in my opinion.
- [21:53]
Joel Pollock
You know, the remark about changing the law to give himself the Medal of Honor, it may have had to do with the fact that the gentleman who won the Medal of Honor right before he said that, whose name escapes me right now. I can look it up quickly. The centenarian who had flown in the Korean War. His name is. I have it on the other computer. Sorry. He is from San Diego or the San Diego suburbs. His name is Royce Williams. And Royce Williams had flown that mission, but it was a secret mission. And the reason that it was secret. Trump kind of alluded to the fact that it was secret was that we did not want to acknowledge that the Soviet Union had actually been in combat with our troops because it would have had massive implications for the Cold War when both countries at that point had nuclear weapons. And so the rule for the Congressional Medal of Honor is you have to be nominated for it within three years of the event that causes you to win the medal. And the only exceptions that are allowed is if there's an act of Congress that actually says, okay, this individual should get it. That's why it's the Congressional Medal of Honor. Congress actually has the final say. And so they did actually pass an amendment in the National Defense Authorization act that allowed Royce Williams to receive a Medal of Honor. So that might have been what Trump was doing. But how did they even get to that point? It was because a bunch of his neighbors in Encinitas in San Diego decided, you know what? This is our neighbor. He's never talked about this, but he's kind of a legend. We think he deserves a Medal of Honor, and we want to give it to him before he passes away. He's 100 years old. How much longer is he going to be here? So it's also a reminder that in the United States, small groups of people, neighbors, can really get things done. Might take a few years, might take a push, but you'll get things done. And I think that was a nice touch. I didn't even realize that till this morning. When I was reading the paper, reading the San Diego Union Tribune, and wow, okay, wow, that's interesting. The neighbors basically elevated this somehow to the White House and Trump reacted and Congress reacted.
- [24:05]
Erica
That's beautiful. Owen, did you want to grab Joel or Marcel? He has to go in a couple of minutes.
- [24:12]
Owen Gregorian
Well, I think I agree with a lot of your assessment. I think the. It was interesting to me that the Democrats did stand up several times, and I just thought that was interesting because I kind of expected them just to sit through the whole thing and not do anything, maybe heckle them along the way. But, you know, on the insider trading thing and the hockey team and there were probably three or four other times where at least a fair number of them stood up and clapped.
- [24:35]
Joel Pollock
Well, they stood up at one point, ironically, when he said they voted against all the tax cuts in the one big beautiful bill. And then some of them stood up to applaud themselves. Like, yeah, we did. We voted against that because, you know, they're trying to make a point, which is that they don't like the one big beautiful bill because it cuts funding to some of their favorite state programs. But that's just a sign of how much he broke their unity. I mean, it was also, you can't really control hundreds of people. Did they ever really think they were going to get everybody to sit still? I mean, Ilan Omar and her heckling and, you know, I mean, did they ever think they were going to get everyone to behave? It's hard enough to get, you know, a few of them to do the same thing. I mean, it's just. Anyway, he did very, very well. And he has this technique that Trump that Scott talks about, which is using an anchor. So he'll mention a number or a figure or an individual person. And I tried looking for a number that was an anchor in the speech. There wasn't really one because the anchors Trump usually uses are exaggerations. But in this case, the numbers were all factually accurate in core inflation is the lowest it's been in five years. All the different other numbers he uses, gas prices are the low and he gave the average national gas price. So he used these anchors that were actual real anchors. I think the anchors, in a sense, were the heroes in the room. So Trump kind of made you think of him in a heroic way because he was connecting to all these heroes. And I think there were some opportunities Democrats missed to show some unity. They did stand up a little bit. But really, I just think the country is watching. And, you know, my 10 year old was watching it this morning and he was in bed already by the time the speech happened last night. But he was watching it in the car on the way to school. And he just couldn't believe anybody would sit down for the hockey team or for the Medal of Honor winners. He was just looking at me like, why don't you sit down, dad?
- [26:41]
Erica
Or lowering taxes. But they, some of them stood about the insider trading. And that call out to Pelosi was so amazing.
- [26:49]
Joel Pollock
I loved it. Yeah, well, I think, you know, we all see these events differently through Scott's eyes. I think once, once you, once Scott sort of showed you what's behind the curtain, it's very, it's very difficult not to see it.
- [27:05]
Owen Gregorian
I also think Trump did a good job of just staying on like the 80, 20 or 90, 10 type issues where almost all Americans agree that we want these things. And so he was really painting Democrats into a corner by just focusing on all these things where they're really, really popular in terms of what he's doing or really unpopular in terms of what the Democrats are doing. And so I think he's doing a good job of focusing on the right issues going into the midterms rather than some of the more controversial things that might be more split down the middle.
- [27:33]
Joel Pollock
Can I make an observation about that? Very quickly I got an advanced copy of some of the excerpts of the speech. They circulate it to journalists five or six paragraphs. And I looked through it briefly and he went after the fraud in Minnesota. And in the excerpt that was released, it was something like fraud in the Somali community or something like that. And I kind of said, that's not going to land very well. I mean, even though it's really what happened, people don't like to hear a community singled out. He must have changed the text or he ad libbed something in the actual delivery of the speech because instead of Somalis or Somali community, he said, so Somali pirates, okay, that's like, oh, yeah, nobody likes the Somali pirates. I mean, Somalis are okay, hardworking people. Somali pirates, they're bad. You know, they're like the villains in the movie. So, yeah, we don't want Somali pirates. I thought that was very clever. And I'm not sure if that was an editing change or if he decided to do that, but he does make things up as he goes along that are often improvements on whatever's been written.
- [28:40]
Erica
Marcella, did you want to grab in a question?
- [28:45]
Marcella
I think we forget he's 79 years old. You know, it's amazing that he gave the longest State of the Union speech and he never skipped the bead. He. He was just on fire, you know, and I like the flow. Like he was hypnotizing us because, like, like Joel said, he kept on bringing people into the, the, the hockey team, the different people and. But it was like he was an orchestra director, like directing everything. The Dems not standing at the same time, go pointing as if he's. He's doing a musical, like a, like a musical piece of America. So it felt short because I tend to like, oh, I mean, I tend to get bored if it's like almost two hour speech. But for me, it felt like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And then it was over. So there's been speeches. I do have to say that Trump has gotten to me and I'm like, oh, it's still going, you know, but with this, it had momentum, it had cadence, it had like. And I don't know if Joel wants to talk about that, but.
- [30:05]
Joel Pollock
Well, I think your impression was widely shared because my wife who watched the whole thing said she couldn't believe it was two hours long. It didn't feel that long. That's what she said. So I think a lot of people felt that way. And yes, I think the variety helps. If you're listening to somebody talk, it doesn't matter how interesting they are, if they're just talking, it does eventually get to you. But changing the camera angles, the characters, he brought in all. And I like to. I like your metaphor. He was like conductor conducting an orchestra. But I don't know how he is going to top that performance next year. I mean, are people going to, you know, descend through trap doors in the ceiling and, you know, swing in on ropes? I mean, I don't know. It's. It's. But one of one other thing they did at the White House YouTube channel. I'm not sure they were doing this live, live, but when I watched the replay this morning, they had already added this in, so maybe it was done live as the President was speaking. If you watched on the White House YouTube, they would do a split screen every time he mentioned a fact, and they would highlight the fact with a chart or a, like, large type so that they drove home the point. Like they were basically giving you the talking points while you're watching the President talk about them. I thought that was.
- [31:19]
Sergio
Yeah, Trump loves charts, right?
- [31:21]
Joel Pollock
Yeah.
- [31:23]
Sergio
To save his life. I have a question for you, Joe. You mentioned the room, how he used it. He used it as a theater, Right? It's like one of those live action theaters. You're in there in your city and you don't know where people are going to come out from. Right. Even he uses own enemies as props. Right. Even I Green, like, getting him all angry is like the WWE almost getting all the energy onto him and getting him out of there. Right. And with the sign. So all that got into the spirit of the people waiting for something to happen. So my question is, if you were the president and somebody came to you and said, like, okay, Mr. President, we don't have a space, we don't have sitting space for the hockey players. Where can we put him to maximize the power of them? And do you think that Tron came up with that idea of that, doing that? Is that something that gets.
- [32:26]
Joel Pollock
Yeah, I do.
- [32:26]
Sergio
I mean, that contrast was amazing.
- [32:30]
Joel Pollock
I think that's him. And I just say that because he's done certain things like that in the past. In 2020, again, the speech, nobody remembers because Nancy Pelosi tore it up. There was a soldier who came home from Afghanistan who was waiting outside, and his. His wife was in the gallery and she thought she was being honored as a representative of military spouses, which she was. But then the door opens and in comes the soldier. And people cried. You know, it's. I just think he's done it before. He understands how it works. I'll say one other thing about how he gets his enemies or his opponents to participate, even if they don't want to. It's not always by getting them angry. I don't know if you remember the first State of the Union after Democrats took the House in 2018, when Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was there for the first time and they were all wearing white to honor the suffragettes. It was a tense atmosphere. People were expecting a confrontation between the Republican president, the new Democratic House, and Trump said, I want to congratulate the American people in Congress for having the most female members ever elected to the House. And Ocasio Cortez stands up and gives him a standing ovation. You know, I mean, so it's also. He knows how to get them to do positive things as well if he wants to. Now that was no longer an election year. In an election year, you want to draw a contrast. So he gets them angry, but he can do both.
- [34:09]
Erica
Can we shout out to. I mean, also the other thing he did last night was. I'm sorry, I forget the whole story. But Enrique, who came in, he's like, you know, and here's Enrique behind, like, door number two, I am obsessed watching JD behind Trump all the time because JD. JD's, like, no way. Like, you can see his face.
- [34:32]
Marcella
Oh, my God.
- [34:33]
Erica
He's.
- [34:34]
Owen Gregorian
He is.
- [34:35]
Joel Pollock
He's the epic man to Johnny Carson. Yeah.
- [34:38]
Erica
Yeah. Just as surprised about everything. It was so sweet. I love watching JJ so much, and I. I didn't.
- [34:47]
Owen Gregorian
I didn't miss that. He said he's appointing Vance to do the fraud stuff. Like, that's his thing now, so.
- [34:54]
Joel Pollock
Yeah. Yeah.
- [34:55]
Owen Gregorian
I think he's actually moving Vance into the. Into the spotlight.
- [34:59]
Joel Pollock
Yeah, that was announced a few weeks ago. I tried. I got in touch with Vance's office and said, can you do an interview about that? And they said, let him get a handle on the job first. You know, like, it. Like, it was too new, so. But we'll be talking to him about it soon.
- [35:12]
Erica
Oh, that'll be great. Do you have to jet, Joel? I don't want to keep you.
- [35:15]
Joel Pollock
Yeah, I've got. We're in the middle of an editorial meeting. That's why I can only do these half hours. But I spent. I spent a few extra minutes with you because I love you.
- [35:23]
Erica
We see that. We appreciate it so much, Joel. We'll be. We'll be looking for your interview with Vance's office with Vance soon. And thank you, by the way. Thank you so much for always offering to come on, and that is, like, the kindest, sweetest thing. And I just want you to know that we all collectively appreciate that so much.
- [35:43]
Joel Pollock
Oh, it's a lot of fun to come on my favorite community.
- [35:47]
Erica
Oh, thank you. All right, Joel, then we'll see you soon, I hope.
- [35:51]
Joel Pollock
All right, see you guys.
- [35:52]
Erica
Have a good meeting.
- [35:53]
Joel Pollock
Take care.
- [35:54]
Erica
Bye.
- [35:56]
Owen Gregorian
Yes.
- [35:56]
Erica
Cheers to Joel. All right, you guys, I think we're. We're alone now, so I just want to give you an update. I said, you know, Marcella asked me yesterday what my predictions are for me watching the State of the Union, and I said, it might be a shot every minute of vodka, but you'll be happy to know I did not need to drink. I did not have a shot of anything because it was epic. I loved it.
- [36:28]
Joel Pollock
I.
- [36:28]
Erica
Listen, I grew up in the theater. I come from a show business family and a business family, so. And New Yorkers and blah, blah, blah. So Trump is the ultimate New York mogul showman. He understands how to put on a show, how to involve everybody, and he sucked me right in. And I loved his timing and pacing. I loved the visuals. I love the silence. I love them sitting. I loved everything about it. I Love the metals flying, all of it. I love J.D. even Johnson, he's. He could never get Botox. He's got that good face. Like when he burrows his brow.
- [37:13]
Marcella
He looks so young.
- [37:14]
Erica
They're like all characters in this multi dimensional play that we watched last night. And I loved every freaking minute of it. And I loved watching, watching Ilhan Ill. Ill Han Omar. You know, you, I mean, she did the meme. Yeah, she did the point. And I'm like, oh, you only get upset when we're talking about the land. You love Somalia, because it's not America. And a lot of them really showed their disdain for our country and for their constituents. And I was like, there's all the advertising you need and so forth. For me, I went to bed like, I'm proud of people that are pro America and put Americans first. And I can clearly see by their own demeanor and their own inactions who hates this country and does not care about us. So that being said, like, I'm going to toss to you first, Owen, what was your grand takeaway from last night?
- [38:16]
Owen Gregorian
Well, I thought it was a great speech. It sounded kind of like a rally speech to me, which I, I say that is a good thing because I think that's what gets people really going. I think he definitely was appealing to his base. I think he, he did appeal to independence, I think, and, and call for unity in many ways. I think it probably would be appealing to anyone who actually is open minded that, you know, I don't know if it's 2% or 5% that'll actually swing one way or the other. But, you know, he was just taking victory lap after victory lap and I don't, I don't think the Democrats were prepared for that. I think they were expecting him to come in like wounded from Epstein files and all these other, you know, the Supreme Court ruling against him and all these other things. And instead it was just all positive. It was just we, we fixed everything, we turned everything around. We've, you know, everything's going in the right direction now. And so I think it was great. You know, I did post a story about some of the political strategists that gave grades and some of them were like a plus plus, and some of them were F. I'm sure those are the Democrats. So I do think it's going to be very much two movies on one screen that I'm sure anyone who's Democrat aligned would have just hated everything coming out of his mouth. But I think anybody who is an independent probably would have Liked it. I think they would have said this is the right type of messaging and the right type of things, and also that he didn't make it all about himself. You know, when Trump does his rallies, it's usually all about what he's going to do and all his plans and how he's so important to fixing everything. And in this case, he brought in all these other heroes and all these other victims and all these other people, but he also gave credit to Rubio and he gave credit to all these other people in his administration. And so I think it was very much like, we've got a great team and we're all doing things in the right direction and we're trying to push these things that are really important to move things forward in the right way. So I loved it.
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Joel Pollock
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Owen Gregorian
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- [40:36]
Erica
Awesome. Marcela, what's your takeaway?
- [40:38]
Marcella
That's interesting that you say that, Owen, because he didn't make it about himself. He made it about America. The speech. And you know, you just hit on it very well, because his speech was about showcasing the wonderful wins that America has, but also giving us a vision of the future. Because he talked about at the very end of the speech is very inspiring. He said, there's no challenge an American cannot, Americans cannot overcome. There's no horizon too distant for us to claim. And he talked about the golden age of America is upon us. And that's how he closed. And he also indicated the revolution that began in 1776 has not ended at all and it's still going. And I think that's what could grab independence, because it wasn't something where it's like, oh, me or Republicans. It was, no, it's America. And I think Erica touched on it. It's America and anti America. And I think the way that he made that happen, where we were thinking he was going to go, very, very party oriented, like us Republicans, we do everything and you Democrats suck, you know, so he didn't do it in that manner. He did it in this Beautiful way of doing it, you know, sort of, you know, but it was more about, hey, this unites us. And. And then he went on with litany of the 8020
- [42:24]
Erica
issues. Yeah.
- [42:25]
Marcella
Issues like the save act like, hey, have an ID to vote. No driver's license for illegals because it can cause people to die. $11,000 for every child, insider TRA and insider trading, which I love because I thought of Erica, because he called out. I don't know if this is when he called out Nancy. Did she stand up for this?
- [42:47]
Erica
Yeah, that was. That was it. Yeah.
- [42:49]
Marcella
Yeah. So I found it great. But so did people, because the CNN poll that came out said that there was 63% of. Of the, of whoever was polled. I'm not sure exactly the, the polling range, but 63 found it really positive speech, and 36, not 25 found it negative.
- [43:12]
Joel Pollock
So.
- [43:12]
Erica
Oh, and I think. I don't think Trump did that to the Democrats. I think the Democrats did that to themselves by their behavior. So I think he was just spitting facts and truths and their reaction and him just saying, like, really, like that was on them.
- [43:29]
Marcella
He showed his evidence.
- [43:30]
Erica
Yeah. Like, he brought the receipts and they were just sitting in their chairs. Sergio, what is your takeaway?
- [43:37]
Sergio
Well, that was amazing. This analysis by Joel, first of all, I love how he broke it down that way and he understands that the show is the show. That's what Scott always told us that people. Somebody was asking me yesterday, well, let me see when he's gonna get to the policy part. It's like, there's no policy. Like, everything is the policy, all of it. And like you, Erika, you were so right about that. You know, the showmanship. And nobody can do it better than he does because at the end, Marcela says it all the time. Facts don't matter. What matters is how people feels today, this morning, and the people that watched it, which is only the ones that, you know, are not independent even. I don't think it's going to be a lot of independence. You know, I'm going to spend tonight watching this. It's going to be. It's his base. This is a pep rally. Right. Owen is right. It's like a rally for the base first to show, you know, this is how we're going to start the year and we're going strong here. We're not going to. We're not. I was going to say a word, but, you know, we're not very cat putting, you know, very careful walking through this. So we're going. He's Bold. He said at the beginning of the speech. He said, america, our nation is bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before. He said that, right? So those are the first words he didn't say, like, okay, let me tell you some things. You know, he just went for it. That feeling that everybody has right now that. So the rally can. Can be transmitted to other people. And that's the effect. It's not going to be about. There's no effect for the Democrats today on this speech. You know, just. They're going to use it for their own purposes. With good editing. They can make Al Green look like a hero, right? They can do it. They can totally do it. They're gonna make him do that. He's gonna look like a hero in their eyes, right? But that base that they have, I think is going down and down. Like Owen was saying, some independence. I'm going to be like, you know what? Why do these guys look so happy all the time? Everybody's so excited on the right. You know, they're like so positive. And over here. So everybody's miserable again. When he put the hockey players next to the press, right? The most miserable people some of the times, you know, and one of them had a mask on, right? That took a screenshot. He had a mask on and he didn't even want to look at them, right? He was just these guys with gold medals, wonderful men, beautiful looking man. And this guy was like this, looking at his monitor, right? This. That was it, right? That was the. That was teaching you what was the last four years and what we have ahead of us. So that's. That was the best speech I've ever seen in. Not the text itself, the whole show of it.
- [46:41]
Erica
Like, I think in all fairness, the press is not supposed to react during the State of the Union. So there's that. But I mean, how do you not react to them? I mean, that's.
- [46:53]
Sergio
I mean, you have a mask on is the perfect excuse not to do anything, right? Oh, yeah, here's this, right?
- [46:59]
Erica
Here's see him on the bottom with the mask.
- [47:05]
Sergio
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [47:07]
Marcella
She looks like she's barfing then.
- [47:09]
Owen Gregorian
For anyone who is an independent who might have been flipping back and forth between the State of the Union and the counter programming that the Democrats put on. I don't. I assume all of you have seen all the people in the frog suits.
- [47:21]
Sergio
It was a joke.
- [47:22]
Marcella
Oh, my gosh.
- [47:22]
Owen Gregorian
I mean, it just looked like a clown show. I couldn't even watch it. Like, I was just like, what the hell is that? Like I can't imagine anybody who's taking politics seriously, you would ask him, people at a campus and say, yeah, let's listen to this. This must be good.
- [47:37]
Sergio
You know, yesterday they were asking people at a campus students what they thought about the State of the Union the day before, which hadn't happened yet. And they were already saying that it was horrible, that he was divisive. The point is that the left is not watching this at all. They're all going to be watching because I used to date somebody in the left and I didn't have even permission.
- [47:59]
Marcella
Dated the enemy. You dated the enemy?
- [48:03]
Sergio
I dated the enemy. And I was the enemy. Part of the enemy. Right. And we never sat down like, oh, baby, let's watch Trump. Never happened. Right. So the only information I got about Trump was through other sources and it was all lies. Right. So only until I started watching it myself, I, my, my. You know, I was able to see. So anybody's out there that cannot watch them live, I feel sorry for you, you know?
- [48:28]
Marcella
You know, Robbie, Robbie Starbuck talked about the frogs.
- [48:32]
Erica
Someone else, Sergio.
- [48:34]
Sergio
Oh, nice.
- [48:35]
Erica
From our locals,
- [48:38]
Marcella
Ravi Starbuck talked about the frogs and he was like, this reminds me of Batman where like the evil Joker press or what? Like crazy outfits. The Joker style. Yeah. And then there's the good guys and then there's the bad guys. And it was funny because it does remind me of that. And, and like, who would think, like, dogs are cool.
- [49:04]
Erica
This is his rebuttal. He's like, oh, look at me, I'm tearing up one piece of big strong man did not like it. It's so stupid.
- [49:13]
Marcella
Is that Gavin? That's not Gavin.
- [49:15]
Erica
No, it's Nate. Balloon or blueing for Utah? My State of the Union response. He tore up a piece of paper like Nani.
- [49:25]
Marcella
Well, I found the Dem Democrats response boring. I mean, I have to say that I, you know, I don't know. I know, Erica, I watched it for you. Thank you. It was not exciting at all. I don't know, Owen, if you have
- [49:39]
Owen Gregorian
comments like, I know they talked about affordability. I didn't watch the whole thing, but. Marcela, did they, like, talk about how they would make things more affordable?
- [49:47]
Marcella
No, they just talked about what they hate about Trump.
- [49:52]
Owen Gregorian
Yeah, it doesn't seem like they ever have any ideas about. Here's what we're going to do. That's better.
- [49:59]
Erica
They never do.
- [50:00]
Marcella
No.
- [50:02]
Erica
Was Sergio showing us. You're on mute. I love that you're on mute so much.
- [50:08]
Sergio
I did it.
- [50:09]
Joel Pollock
All right.
- [50:13]
Sergio
This man right here, right look at this man. So he can be like the Jim Cavasel, you know, Superman. He is the face of America now, right? This is the guy that we want to. He can be president someday. He stood up. He was in crotches.
- [50:28]
Marcella
Didn't you make Joel president today, too?
- [50:31]
Sergio
Did I? So, yeah, this guy, he stood up, you know, he was standing or sitting, right? He was stood up, looking at the eyes of the president.
- [50:39]
Erica
Yeah.
- [50:40]
Sergio
And that was beautiful. So how did that make you feel? Right?
- [50:42]
Erica
Oh, my God. What a guy. What a guy. What a story. I mean, all those people. I mean, all of those people, like, pulled at your heart or made you proud or you just felt like the red, white, and blue running through your veins, you know? And you're like, these are our people. These are Americans. This is. This is a. A little snapshot of America all here in this room. And it was so. I mean, look, I put on my red, white, and blue, you guys, I'm wearing red, white, and blue socks under my slippers. I was like, yes. I pulled out all these baseball hats that I have, and I'm like, no, I have headphones on. I can't do it. But I mean, I just felt so much pride after that, and I was like, oh, my God, he's gonna end this speech, and it's gonna start young, man. I was like, if he plays the YMCA at the end, it's on. So, you know, I guess the next one, maybe we'll have some music and pyrotechnics. But, I mean, all of it just felt so American and, like, I don't even want to, you know, focus so much on the Democrats because they're just, like I said, like, big sour pusses, and it's just not fun. And it's like, why can't we rally together and be like, yeah, f. Yeah. Like, this is America. We are. We are exceptional. And, like, let's just throw it forward and keep going.
- [52:01]
Sergio
But drama, kids, right, Erica? The drama kids.
- [52:04]
Erica
Drama.
- [52:06]
Sergio
Al Green is a legend now, right? He's going to try to go, what is he going to do next year? That's what I'm telling.
- [52:12]
Erica
Pathetic. I mean, he's. Him and his cane. And he's like, oh, you know, and it's like, okay, you're holding up. You're. You're still mad about the fake hoax from, like, two weeks ago that everyone forgot. And, you know, and I'm like, just don't even bother coming. But I'm glad he left early because, you know, he's unsightly oh, shout out to Federman in a suit, hands with the president.
- [52:36]
Bree
Right.
- [52:37]
Erica
We love that.
- [52:38]
Sergio
That's good. That's a. That's a very important sign to have to see people dressing up for Trump. Like,
- [52:46]
Erica
and they caught a few people sleeping. Few of the Dems were asleep. And is it true only a few of these Supreme Court.
- [52:55]
Marcella
Yeah, only four.
- [52:56]
Erica
Is that normal?
- [52:59]
Marcella
There is few of them that don't go. Like, Alito is known never to go, and he's Republican. But Sotomayor has always gone. Sonia Sotomayor, and she wasn't there. It was just Kagan, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett that were there. And, you know, Kagan is a liberal judge, liberal justice. So, I mean, she was still there. The rest were not. Five others were not.
- [53:33]
Erica
The other one was probably in a theater play that night because she just wants to be a celebrity.
- [53:39]
Marcella
You know, they don't like being too public. That's just. That's just their general demeanor. And I think the cameras caught Chief Justice Roberts. Like, I don't know if, if. If he was, like, paying attention or what, but they caught him, like, looking down or something. You know, it is what it is. But Trump still greeted them, and then in his speech, he still went after them. So he, you know, he is Trump after all.
- [54:09]
Erica
He is Trump. Yes, Owen?
- [54:11]
Owen Gregorian
Well, the story I read said he snubbed Barrett, that he didn't shake her hand or something. So I didn't. I didn't watch that part of it before the speech started, but I did hear that he. He turned away from her or something and didn't greet her.
- [54:26]
Erica
But I noticed she worked on her expression this year because, remember the last time everyone's like, did you see her face looking at him? And she needs a little bit more work. She looks a little bit like she hates his guts, but it was a little bit softer than the time before, in my opinion. Allegedly.
- [54:45]
Owen Gregorian
I'm guessing he'd love to take that pick back and go with someone else.
- [54:48]
Erica
Oh, yeah, go ahead, Marcella.
- [54:51]
Marcella
I don't know about that because she's favored him in the past. You know, it's hit or miss. You know, she's not a Thomas, so Thomas wasn't there either. They just, you know, they. They have their ways of looking at the law. And, you know, Trump was asked if he would take her back, and he didn't say he would. He just said no comment or whatever. But I, I really think he. She's favored him the past on certain rulings. So it's. It's A mixed bag because who would have appointed somebody just the same, right?
- [55:28]
Joel Pollock
I don't know. Yeah.
- [55:29]
Owen Gregorian
That canon seems like a potential pick for the future.
- [55:35]
Marcella
Yeah, we'll see. That's the. That's the other thing is that that's coming up. Some of them are getting older. Thomas himself is getting older. So there'll probably be somebody. I know I want nine Thomases. But who else was there? Mark, Marco Ruvia was there sitting there. And I think. I don't know if Sergio was saying this. He was working.
- [56:02]
Sergio
Yeah, he was texting at one point, and I took a screenshot of it and I sent it to you guys. Like, look at him. He's always working. And like, the camera panned out and Trump was speaking and he was on the phone.
- [56:15]
Erica
So we had a group chat going last night and Owen was missing from it, so we made him our designated survivor last night. So the three of us were taking one for the team and then Owen would have come in and save the day if something happened to us. So he was ours.
- [56:32]
Marcella
But.
- [56:32]
Erica
All right, you guys. Well, I, I think this was a great show. We have a few minutes, but we'll. We'll just end a little bit early so everyone can get on their way. Tomorrow. We have a special guest. We have Corey DeAngelis coming in. And I'll post a bit about him after the show because I really want you guys to get familiar with he. With who he is a little bit, if you don't know already, because he is very pro school choice, pro student, pro parent. He's someone that is fighting the good fight to protect the. The future of our children. And I think that we're really lucky that he agreed to come on. And you're gonna love him. So look for a post. I'll repost this show after and I'll put information about questions Corey in there so you could take a peek before you meet him tomorrow morning if you haven't met him yet. And Owen, Sergio and Marcella, I love you guys and we love all of the simultaneous zippers. And I know a couple of people were coming back today for the first time, and I want to say thank you for coming back. And we miss Scott, too. And there would have been nothing better than to have Scott's take on the State of the Union. So I know it's not the same, but we're all here together, and that's what's important right now. And I wouldn't want to be anywhere else talking about this today than with every single person on here. On all the platforms. So thank you for being here with us. And we'll be back tomorrow morning bright and early with another cup of coffee. And, Bri, thanks for hosting us today. And let's give a final sip to our beloved and super, super Ms. Scott Adams. Scott, I hope we're. We're doing you proud. And the, the chat, the sippers, the beloved, they're so smart. And we're watching, everybody. So you guys have a very, very useful day, and we love you so much, and thank you. And to Scott.
- [58:33]
Sergio
To Scott. Golden Age Scott.
- [58:35]
Erica
Golden Age America.