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- [00:00]
Advertisement Voice
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- [00:27]
Erica
I thought I'd play a little gunner. Let's see. Tell me if you can hear it. Okay.
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Akira
Somebody asked me for a reframe to help them.
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Owen
We can hear it. Yeah.
- [00:37]
Akira
Out of their head and, you know, stop having ruminations.
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Owen
People hear it in the chat, and
- [00:42]
Akira
I suggested the reframe of that. I tried myself, and it worked. Where you just say, get out. Where you just say, get out, Akira. Get out. Just say, get out. Just get out of your head. Now, the frame that makes it work is to realize that you are a person who has two completely different lives. This is the key. There's a part of you that lives only in your head, where you think about the past, which literally doesn't exist. It's imaginary. It existed at one point, but now it's just the thoughts of the past. Get out.
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Marcella
Amazing.
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Akira
But you also have thoughts of, oh, what will happen in the future. I'm worried about the future, and that doesn't exist. That doesn't exist. Doesn't exist. So the life you live in your head is a completely imaginary one. Things of the history in your past that don't exist anymore. New worries about the future that doesn't exist yet. But the outside world, there's all real stuff. Stuff you can touch, breathe.
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Owen
Come on, people, dance.
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Akira
We live in both of those worlds.
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Owen
Come on, Owen, dance.
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Joel Pollock
That I had.
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Akira
That worked when I did, it was. I just said, get out.
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Erica
I love that. You guys just get out. All right, we're going right in for a sip. Is everyone ready? Bree, take us away.
- [02:29]
ASMR Host
And as you're streaming in, preparing. Do you notice the little ASMR noise I make? Some of you are only going to listen to this on audio without watching. But watch how comforting it is to hear this. This is me organizing my papers. That's right. There's a whole industry of people who listen to little sounds like that to fall asleep. True story. It's called asmr. But that's not why you're here. No, no, I know why you're here. You're here for the simultaneous sip. And all you need Is a cup or a bug or glass, a tanker, chalice or stein, A canteen, chug or 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 thing that makes everything better. A simultaneous hip go. That's hitting the spot, isn't it? All right.
- [03:37]
Erica
I love those extended arms. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Scott Adams School. My name is Erica and I'm joined today by our beautiful Sergio with the beautiful springy background there. Even more beautiful than Sergio is Marcella.
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Owen
Good morning.
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Erica
She's added lights in there. Gorgeous. We've got Owen, who's just still stoic and serious up there. Owen.
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Sergio
Good morning, everyone.
- [04:06]
Erica
And our one of our best friends ever in the whole world. We have Joel Pollock returning. He is Scott's biographer and he is also the. What?
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Advertisement Voice
What?
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Erica
Are you at the California Post?
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Joel Pollock
I am the opinion editor.
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Erica
Oh, I love opinions. That is my favorite. I have so many.
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Sergio
Does that mean you edit other people's opinions?
- [04:31]
Joel Pollock
That's correct. When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you.
- [04:33]
Sergio
All right.
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Erica
I love that. Well, so the news crew is joined by one of our favorite newsy people, Joel. So we don't have too much time with him. Just a half hour. So we're going to ask Joel to, you know, help us break down what we're seeing, how the Iran situation is progressing. What do you think we need to know? Where is it going? Are we nervous?
- [04:58]
Joel Pollock
Hi. Okay, so let's talk about the situation in Iran and with the Iran war. And I think back to the last ever show we did with Scott the day before he passed away. And I was on that show and we talked about the situation in Iran, actually. And I said that my preference was for a negotiated agreement that would include some very strong human rights components. And that obviously did not happen. I actually shopped that idea around a little bit, and I found that nobody was really interested in it, which is interesting. When I say nobody, I mean nobody in the administration was interested in it other than to say, that's kind of interesting, which is another way of saying we're not doing that. And I think that's partly because from their perspective, what they were seeing was that the Iranian regime and their negotiators were completely intransigent. They weren't going to budge on anything on the other side. There was no interest from the anti war people either. And that's curious to me because as Scott points out in LoserThink you never have an alternative in isolation. You can't just say how do I feel about X? Without considering the alternative. Why? So you can say I'm against war in Iran, but you have to have an alternative or compare it to an alternative. There's no vacuum in which you can just have one thing without considering the other alternatives or the costs. He used to call that a half pinion. So I'm against war in Iran. Great. What do you do about the fact that they are still pursuing nuclear weapons and they're still building ballistic missiles? What do you do then? Well, I don't know. I haven't thought about that. So in the real world of adults, where there are trade offs for everything, we have to consider that not going to war doesn't necessarily mean you avoid war. So the reason the human rights idea was interesting was it provided an alternative, at least interesting to me. So if you were anti war, this was something that you could have seized on and said, look, there's this idea that is out there of a diplomatic agreement that would avoid war and impose human rights conditions on Iran. It has a precedent. This happened with the Soviet Union in the 1970s and eventually we got to where we wanted to be and the Soviets at least signed on to it and got to survive another 15 years or so. So maybe this is an alternative. We can look at that and let people in Iran decide their own future rather than us playing any kind of direct role. It was interesting to me that nobody picked up on that from the anti war side. And it tells me that people weren't really thinking this through, at least in that part of the argument. And that's not necessarily a surprise. A lot of the debates that we see in social media are in fact half opinions, people not really wanting to consider the full range of possibilities. One of the things Scott said says we should do is think like economists, if we can, because economists often anticipate all kinds of different possibilities. Or scientists, for example. Scientists never fit one explanation to a bunch of different observed phenomena. They consider other explanations might be possible, other factors. So that was my attempt to provide that alternative. It didn't really go very far. And I think the reality is probably more like what the Trump administration was seeing, which is that the Iranian regime was not willing to work with us. Now I want to take another step back and say, what would Scott have thought about going to war? Generally? Scott was opposed to foreign wars and one of the reasons he supported Trump was because Trump was very keen on avoiding war and ending war and resolving war. While using military force where necessary. So Scott was, I think, generally supportive of Trump going after Qasem Soleimani, and he was supportive of the result in the 12 day war last summer when we attacked the Iranian nuclear sites. But generally, he thought the Iraq war had been a terrible idea. And he thought Trump was a refreshing antidote to the establishment politicians who always seem to want to bomb everything. So I think his attitude toward the Iran war would have been skeptical, and I want to lay out a few reasons for skepticism, even if it might turn out to have been the best alternative. Here are some reasons to be skeptical. Number one, we don't know what happens afterwards. And I don't think Trump knows what happens either, because the Iranian people, while much more coherent than the Iraqi people in the sense that Iran has been a nation and a civilization for a lot longer. Iraq was sort of cobbled together by colonial powers, carved up out of the map of the Middle East. Iran has thousands of years of history. It has a fairly sophisticated economy that goes beyond just oil and gas, and it has educated people. It has advanced technology. So you would expect that Iran might have a better transition to whatever happens after this tyrannical regime. And yet we just don't know. There are other things that could happen to Iran. It also has ethnic groups, for example, just as Iraq did, and that could lead to the breakup of the country. We're starting to see perhaps some warning signs of that now. There are Iranian Kurds. There are Iranian ethnic Azerbaijanis. I think they're called Azeris. I could be wrong about that. But basically, you've got these different ethnic groups that form large portions of the Iranian population in different regions of the country. So you could see the breakup of the Iranian state. So we don't really know what's going to happen, and we also don't know if it's going to be a democracy. We don't know if the shah, or the son of the Shah, who has been making a lot of media appearances in the west lately, if he's going to come back. President Trump seemed skeptical of him, and perhaps rightly so. I don't know enough about him. Maybe he could be a transitional figure, which is what he said he would be. He would run Iran until new democracy could take shape. So we don't really know what happens afterwards, and I don't think Trump does either. Trump has basically said to the Iranian people, once we stop bombing, we'll let you know, and then you can rise up and take your destiny in your own hands. But again, we don't know what that means. And it could be chaos in Iraq. It certainly was chaos. I don't know if the same thing would happen. And Scott also warned against assuming that history would repeat itself. And in Loser Think, which is a book I'm going through right now, he says don't think like historians do. He's not disparaging historians, but he's basically using historical thinking as a model for what not to do, in the sense that history is not necessarily something that repeats itself. So don't assume that because one set of circumstances produced one result, it would necessarily produce the same result the next time through. So we might not see bombing and terrorism and all kinds of other things, especially because the ethnic groups are different, the causes are different, and we don't know what's going to happen. So that's a reason to be skeptical. It's just a big unknown. We don't know really what's going to happen. And I don't think there's a plan. And if there's a plan, nobody's telling us about it. And it seems to be that this is the kind of thing that you want to have people talking about, because running a country is something that has to be done publicly, so you'd want people talking about it already. And I just don't see that really happening just yet. That's one reason to be skeptical. Another reason to be skeptical is we don't know yet what our own military capabilities are and what the will of the other side is. So there are all kinds of reports. There were all kinds of reports in the days before the war that we don't have enough ammunition, for example, because we had sent so much ammunition to the Ukrainians that we didn't have enough to maintain our own war effort for a long time since then, Trump has said that we have basically unlimited supplies of ammunition. He could be right. We don't know. We don't know what our own military capabilities are, and our own government may not know. So that's another reason to be skeptical. And then finally, there's just the X factor of unknown events. We don't know if this could lead to terrorism. We don't know if this could lead China to attack Taiwan because we're tied down in the Middle East. We just don't know what other unknowns might emerge. And whenever you launch a war, you have the possibility of destabilizing a situation. So those are all reasons to be skeptical, reasons not to be skeptical, reasons to be more hopeful. Thus far, overwhelmingly, the story has been one of military success. The United States has taken out the regime's weaponry, the regime's leadership, and the regime did something very stupid, which was attacking all of these Arab countries in the region where the United States has bases or interests as well as Israel. And there really can't be much of a strategic goal to that other than to try to influence the media debate by saying, hey, America's war is costing you something. It's causing you some risk. But I don't think that that was the effect of what happened. I think it rather tended to rally those countries around the United States on almost proving the case that the Iranian regime was too dangerous and that it was really the common enemy of the other countries in the region, especially the Sunni countries, Sunni Arab countries. So I think the Iranians continued to make mistakes. And I said before the war, the only way I really saw war happening was if the Iranian regime miscalculated. I think they did miscalculate. I think they miscalculated the will and resolve of the Trump administration and they miscalculated the union and unity of the other countries that are allied with Trump. There's no real break in that coalition, despite Iran attacking these other countries and imposing costs on them. So I think that's going well in the sense that we are achieving military goals. We're holding a coalition together. Another reason, and this really is crucial another reason, is that we haven't seen any kind of large scale global effect yet of this war. Gas prices are rising, but they're not rising in a catastrophic way. We also haven't seen any really effective or even determined or aggressive response by Russia or China. So this is going pretty well. And it is conceivable at least, that within a week or two the Iranian regime would be gone and we would be at that day after question pretty quickly. The Iranians also don't seem to be able to kill as many people as they once hoped with their retaliation. They're firing at civilians. Just a reminder. I mean, they do target some military sites, but they're using means that almost always hurt civilians. And while Israelis are spending most of their days in bomb shelters, very few of them are being killed. So the missile defenses are holding and just reasons to look at this thus far as a success. Let me talk about China and Russia for a minute. And this is where we want to step back and look at what is really going on here. So the part of this I think that Scott might have actually thought is, I don't want to say good, but at least useful is the Chinese and Russian piece of this. Iran sells almost all of its oil to China because it's under sanctions. It can't sell a lot of its oil on the open market, and so it sells to China. And China is heavily dependent on the Middle east for oil still. So what President Trump is doing is cutting off a key supply of energy to China. He's also cutting off a key military ally. And it's clear the Chinese were supplying components to the Iranians. I've even seen reports that Iran was building missiles using components and fuel that were supplied by China. One report I saw suggested that one of the reasons Trump acted when he did was because there was a danger of reaching a point of no return. Iran can build these missiles apparently a lot faster than we can build the anti missile defenses, which are much more sophisticated. The interceptors, they call them, the, the missiles that can catch and destroy other missiles. Iran can produce about 100amonth and we can produce maybe 10amonth. So the longer this goes on, the more China can export the materials to Iran, the more Iran can reach a point of no return where they would have tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of missiles and we'd only have a few thousand interceptors and Iran could then overwhelm any attempt to stop them. So there had to be perhaps that calculation. But regardless, now we've cut that off. So we've cut off a key point of Chinese influence in the Middle east, and that could raise prices of energy for China and cause some real problems to the Chinese economy. And in fact, I've seen a report that China has now encouraged people not to export oil, or it's encouraged its own domestic oil industry not to export energy. They need all of their resources internally in China right now. The other piece of this is Russia, and Russia gets most of its drone technology from Iran. And keep in mind, Trump's been trying to drag Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. And I think that he had the Ukrainians more or less where he wanted them early in this second administration when he was able, after some arguing and some publicly embarrassing exchanges, he was able to get Zelensky to agree to accept whatever diplomacy he was going to put forward. And then Putin basically took advantage of that by going harder on the military side. I think what Trump is trying to do is force Putin to the table by saying, I'm taking away your drone supplier. So it could be that by going after Iran and getting rid of the drone supply to Russia, that you make peace more likely in Ukraine. So that could be the other piece of this. So it's possible that.
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Erica
So many moving parts. Holy cow.
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Joel Pollock
So I'll ask for questions in a second. But, but it's just possible that this war has a much bigger geopolitical aspect to it with regard to confronting China, on the one hand, which Scott was in favor of, and bringing Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, on the other hand, which Scott was also in favor of. So I think that's a reason to look at this, at least, as potentially a positive development. A lot of it depends on what happens over the next few weeks, and we'll see. I do think that although the American public generally is skeptical of war and of this war, Trump's supporters are still on board, about 80%, according to some polls, with the war, as long as it doesn't impose huge costs on the United States and we don't see a lot of Americans dying or boots on the ground, exposing people to greater danger and that sort of thing. So I think thus far, I'm cautiously optimistic about it, although I think there are some very big risks that we talked about. So with that, happy to field any questions you might have, and just these are all my own opinions. I've infused some of what I thought Scott would think about and talk about.
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Erica
But, yeah, that's amazing. I, I think, you know, I'm learning more about it, but understanding the component of Russia and China and really, like, as everybody says, 3D 4D chess, I mean, the effects that the domino effect could be amazing. So. Yeah, Owen, I know. You definitely do. Yeah.
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Sergio
Do you think Israel's agenda is different than the United States? And do you think we're actually coordinated with them? Because I, I mean, I, I, I did make a, a note as I've been watching the coverage, that it seems like the stated objectives and the military actions being taken by the United States is primarily taking away the missiles, taking away the capability to strike. Whereas it looks to me like at least the reports are that Israel is targeting the leadership. They're, they're trying to take out down the ayatollah, they're trying to take down all the replacements, all the leadership, all the military leadership, political leadership. And do you think Israel's objectives are kind of at odds with what the United States is doing? And do you think there will come a point where we may, you know, for example, want to stop and Israel wants to keep going?
- [22:15]
Joel Pollock
I don't think so. At least not in this war. I think the United States and Israel have the same objectives, although not exactly the Same set of objectives on each side, but. But there is an overlap in Iran. I think right now both sides want to get rid of the Iranian regime, and that would be victory for both sides. For Israel, getting rid of the regime means not being under constant existential threat because the regime has vowed for many decades to get rid of Israel. So the Israelis would like to see the Iranian regime replaced. The American goal for a long time was not to replace the Iranian regime. And I actually thought a couple weeks ago that it might be better to have the regime weakened but still in place as long as they continue to become weaker over time. The President may have had better intelligence on that understanding that they were either closer to a nuclear weapon or that they were still gaining strength in conventional terms. And so they weren't going to be able to be brought to some kind of weaker position through a diplomatic agreement. I don't think there's any divergence right now. I do think that we have broader interests than the Israelis. The Israelis don't necessarily share our interests on Russia and China. They're a small country, so they don't think in those terms. There has been a sort of. I don't want to say conflict, but there's been a tension between the US And Israel for quite some time, maybe about a quarter of a century or so, over Israel's trade relationships with China and Russia. And until about a decade ago, Israel had pretty warm trade relations with China, for example. Also, a significant proportion of Israelis are former Soviet citizens. There was a huge wave of emigration from the post Soviet world to Israel over the last 30 years. So Israel had reasons to have closer relationships with Russia and China. And we have had a problem with that. We have told the Israelis, you can't trade certain things with China, you can't sell certain things to Russia. And for example, there's a big port deal in Haifa, Israel's main Mediterranean port, that we have a problem with because the Israelis, in an earlier, friendlier era, before even we took China seriously as a threat, the Israelis made a deal where China could build its own port terminal, basically in Haifa. And they've done it, and I think they've even allowed them to open another one because it was in the. The contract that they originally signed. So we've had a problem with Israel's close relations, and the Israelis trying to comply with what we want, have scrambled to try to unravel some of these relationships. But that's where I think the interests diverge. The Israelis aren't playing that same game. I think in a sense, they're glad that we are playing that game in this war because it means that our interests line up with theirs with regard to Iran. But I think if you just look at the situation in isolation in the Middle east, and I'll just be honest with you, as someone who supports Israel very strongly, I thought that Israel's interests were served by not having a war. That was my assessment of it. That because the war could go any way, it could go in any direction because of all the unknowns and because Israelis are tired of war. We sit here and I'm sitting at a dining room table talking to you. Most of my Israeli friends are in bomb shelters underground and they post cute videos online of parties in the basement and things like that. But in reality, it's pretty uncomfortable. And I think that the Israeli people are ready to move on. They want to go back to work, they want to go to school, they want to have holidays, they want to have a weekend. They don't want to endure this anymore. So they would prefer not to have a war. I think they support the war because they understand that getting rid of Iran means they would be more secure in future. But I think the gains of the last three years for Israel were so significant that you almost wouldn't want to jeopardize them by risking them on another war. So I am a little bit. I mean, I'm not surprised by it because people have conspiracy theories about everything. But I don't agree at all that Israel dragged the United States into a war. I think, if anything, this was a situation where the leaders of both countries agreed that there was an opportunity to take out the Iranian leadership, but that this was not necessarily a war that would have been in Israel's interest, at least right now, other than the fact that the United States was ready for it, that Iran had not negotiated in good faith with Trump, and that the Iranian leaders were all gathered in one place at one time. I'll just say something small about that. Apparently the Israelis had the intelligence that the Iranian leadership was all in one place at one time. And that was the same situation that happened in 2024, when all the Hezbollah leaders were together in Lebanon and Israel basically dropped a bomb on their leadership and essentially won the war in one attack. And it looks like the Iranian leadership basically made the same silly mistake.
- [27:29]
Erica
Does this seem suspicious to you?
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Joel Pollock
No, because I think the Israelis have done such a good job of penetrating the communications networks in these places that I think the Iranians, like the Lebanese terrorists, were convinced that only face to face meeting would work. They couldn't talk like we're talking now because it would be intercepted by somebody. And so that's just a result of a kind of relentless covert espionage and war over time. I was a little surprised that the Iranian leadership would do that. But the other thing that they've said is that, or I've seen reports of this, that they assume the Israelis wouldn't attack during the day because it's more typical for Israel to launch air attacks at night than during the day in broad daylight when you can see the planes. And so I think they just assumed they were going to be safer. So I think some of this might just have been triggered by opportunity. In other words, all of these costs and benefits to various different plans and options might have been on the table before President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and all of that might have been worth whatever it was worth. But then all of a sudden they knew this event was going to happen, that all of these people were going to be in one place at one time. And they might have only known with a few hours advance notice. And that might have changed the calculation altogether because if you can take out the entire leadership at once, maybe the costs of the war are a lot lower and that changes everything. So that might have been what triggered it rather than all these other broader decision making items.
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Sergio
Right.
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Erica
Interesting.
- [28:58]
Sergio
So what's your reaction to the comments from the Iranian foreign minister? He's talking a strong game. Like we were planning for this for decades and we actually lulled the United States into thinking they could do this and we wanted them to do it. And we're going to fight forever and we have this capability that can go on forever. And he's talking almost like he thinks they're winning and that, that we're doing exactly what he wanted us to do. It all seems like BS to me, but I just wanted to get your take on it.
- [29:29]
Joel Pollock
Well, I think it probably is bs, but we can't know. I mean, the reason we can't know is because of the unknowns that remain. And what we're seeing right now is that the Iranian regime, the core of the regime, is still intact. We're not seeing, at least not yet. We're not seeing defections. We're not seeing people break away. We're not seeing the Iranian military turn on the leadership of the country. I think there's a strong conviction among our enemies that we just don't have the staying power for this thing. I mean, they'll look at things like the bad jobs report that came out today. 92,000 jobs lost in February. It's one thing to miss expectations. It's another thing to be in the red, to be negative. And they'll say, oh, Trump's got political problems at home. He's got the economy to worry about. He can't stay in this for longer. All we have to do is hold out for long enough, and that means we win the war. If we survive the war, we win. And look, they have recent history to look at. I mean, the Israelis wanted to destroy Hamas entirely, and Trump, to end the war, said, no, we're just ending this, and you're going to have to deal with Hamas on the other side. And I think Trump understands that Hamas is not really someone you can deal with. But the Iranians look at the same situation and say, look, if you just stay around long enough, eventually you survive. These Western countries, they don't have the stomach for this. They don't want to deal with casualties, and they don't want to suffer in any way. They don't want to pay any price. We're willing to force our people to pay the price of war, and we're just going to stick around. So he might be right. I mean, they might have drawn us into a situation where we have all the negatives of a war, including hurting our international reputation and domestic political problems in a midterm election year while they get to survive. And then if they survive, they come back stronger. And. And then maybe they race to a nuclear weapon, if they can still build one, assuming we haven't taken out their capacity entirely. And then they'll use it at the first opportunity, because they'll say, look, we have no choice. We have to defend ourselves. The only way to do this is to blow our enemies up now, because otherwise we're just going to get attacked again. So I think we don't know. I do think that the stronger probability is that he's just lying. And because this is what we see totalitarian regimes do all. All the way to the end. Is that, Jack, this false sense of strength, but we don't know.
- [31:43]
Erica
Yeah. And how do the people in Israel feel about this?
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Joel Pollock
I think they're cautiously optimistic, and I think the reason they feel that way is that there are fewer and fewer missile attacks. So even though people are still in the shelters, a lot of the time, the attacks are less frequent, they're less deadly. The worst ones were in the first 48 hours of the war, and also the attacks from Iran's terrorist proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas haven't been as bad as they would have been a few years ago. Hezbollah has no capacity to fire at Israel the way it once did. So I think people feel like over time, this is getting better in the sense that the defense position in Israel is getting stronger. Again, though, I think Israelis, if you talk to Israelis, what they just want is to be safe. And they have felt unsafe for a long time. They felt safe during the first Trump administration. The Biden years were pretty terrible because Israel's enemies felt emboldened to attack them. And I think Trump is restoring a sense of security, but it takes so much more work to do once you've lost that sense of security and you've emboldened the enemies to do all kinds of horrible things. And so I think that it's going to take a while to get there. But once Iran folds, and I do think it's more likely that it will than that it'll survive, I think you could see things happen fairly quickly. It's possible the outcomes could be really, really good, but we just don't know. So, again, the big risk for Trump in all of this is just how many unknowns there are. And you have to think that, given his aversion to war in general, he had to see a pretty big set of payoffs down the line to do this. And I guess skeptics have been wrong so often when it comes to analyzing what Trump's doing that you almost want to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I think we have to just wait and see what happens.
- [33:38]
Erica
Before we let you go. Do you want to give us a quick, quick update on your loser governor? I see you railing at him hard lately. I love it.
- [33:50]
Joel Pollock
Yeah. So Newsom is doing very unhelpful things. So one thing, for example, I'm involved in the effort to try to rebuild Pacific Palisades in my town. And one of the things that's helpful is if local leaders say to the president, who's offering to help, thank you, Mr. President. We may not agree on ice and we may not agree on Iran, and we may not agree on, on all this other stuff, but we want to work with you, and we want to rebuild the town in time for the Olympics and all of that. So Mayor Bass, who I thought should have resigned after the fire, is actually doing that. She's actually saying, hey, we'll work with the Trump administration. Okay. That's the mayor that's like the left wing, borderline communist mayor. Sort of like Zoran Mamdani is saying, hey, I'LL work with Trump if he's going to deliver housing. Okay? And maybe that's because they are running for reelection or newly elected. They have a political future ahead of them in the offices they currently hold. Newsom, who is termed out of office and now looking ahead to president and is competing with all these other rabid Democrats, may have a different set of incentives, but either way, he's just being a jerk. And if you'll, I won't use the word because I don't want to get, I don't want you guys to get demonetized if that's a thing on Rumble. But you know, he put up on X a post yesterday that said Donald Trump is a piece of. You know what? That's not helpful. You know, if you're trying to get Trump to help your state, saying the most crude and offensive thing you possibly can is not helpful. And again, Scott pointed this out a lot. Democrats seem to have done some kind of focus group where they decided that swearing was good. But you know, Trump doesn't just wear for no reason. I think I might have recommended this to you before, but there's a scene in Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood where he's trying to teach one of these young guys how to talk like a man. And he models the right kind of conversation and it involves some profanity. And he's talking to the barber with, you know, some four letter words and whatever. And then the young guy tries to imitate Clint Eastwood's character and instead of being cool about all the swear words, he just walks right in and insults the guy and calls him horrible things and Clint Eastwood. Like, you don't, you don't come in and insult the man. That's not how you talk. And the young guy says, but that's what you said. And Eastwood's like, no, no, no, that's not how I said it. And I think, I think Newsom and the Democrats and Swalwell, these other people, they don't get how Trump uses profanity to emphasize a point, not just to insult people. The other thing about, about Newsom is he called Israel an apartheid state, which it isn't. And that's the standard line on the far left, like Zoran Mamdani left. And it's really shocking. A lot of the Jewish community is really upset about it because they thought Newsom was kind of a moderate and he's now trying to be a left wing radical. And aside from irritating, moderates and Jewish, Democratic voters tend to be moderate. The other thing, it's doing is it's showing all voters, including ones on the left, who are supposed to be impressed by this display. It's showing people that Newsom has no principles and that he's not a leader. Because what people see is that he's just stuck his finger in the wind and he's decided he's following where the base is going. Now that might please some people in the base, but it's not going to make him look like a leader. He is a follower, not a leader. And so I actually think this trip into Zoran Mamdani territory makes him look a lot worse, not just to people who don't like him and people who like Israel, but to people who he's trying to impress. You know, pandering doesn't really work in the way that maybe politicians think it does. And so I think Newsom is starting to circle the drain a little bit. I don't see a lot of strength there right now. Yeah, he's got a best selling book, his memoir, Young man in a Hurry. I mean, it's kind of false advertising because he's not that young. But you know, I think he's selling a book. He's getting big audiences. He can't show his face in my town in California. He won't appear in public. He'll talk to people privately, but he won't appear in public in my town. So he's appealing to Democrats who just are excited about the upcoming presidential primary. They can't wait to vote against whoever's going to replace Trump as the Republican nominee or whatever. But I think he's basically circling the drain and you're going to start to see some other, maybe more viable Democratic candidates come out Democrats who can win votes from the African American community. I mean, Newsom's ridiculous comment about low SAT scores being a way to relate to black voters. I mean, has anyone ever self destructed as hard as he just did? So I mean, you know, I think he's circling the drain, but that doesn't mean it's not going to be fun to watch.
- [38:44]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com
- [39:02]
Erica
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate, first 3 months only, then full price plan plan options available. Taxes and fees, extra fee, full terms@mintmobile.com. oh, yeah, I agree. Oh, Joel, thank you so, so much. You gave us so much time today. We love you, we appreciate you. We enjoy you. Thank you again from all of us. And we'll. We'll be following you on the. On the X and at the California Post. And what else can I say? The great Joel Pollock.
- [39:37]
Joel Pollock
Thank you so much. I love you guys.
- [39:39]
Erica
We love you. Thanks, Joel.
- [39:41]
Marcella
Thank you, Joe.
- [39:44]
Erica
You guys, I love Joel. He's so great. I mean, that was some serious Iran talk. And I, I'm glad that that's behind us for this part of the day because it's. It's a lot to take in. And Owen and Marcella also picked some other stories for us, and so we'll see what else we can cover. And Owen, just make sure you save time for my very important story for, for my well being.
- [40:12]
Sergio
You want me to do that last?
- [40:14]
Erica
Okay.
- [40:15]
Sergio
I can do it first if you want.
- [40:17]
Erica
No, do it last.
- [40:18]
Joel Pollock
All right.
- [40:20]
Owen
You sure? We can. We need a. Is it a pick me up story?
- [40:23]
Erica
It's. It could.
- [40:24]
Owen
We need some pick me up.
- [40:28]
Sergio
All right, well, I, I hope I can present it in a positive way. It was an article I posted about Punch the Monkey, and it's asking, you know, why did Punch's mother abandon him? Because most macaques don't do that. And it talks about how, you know, in the wild at least, it's a very communal, group oriented thing. And I read in a different article that it's like, for the adult population or for the overall population, it's like 35% adult females and 15% adult males, and that the females kind of all work together and learn from each other in terms of mothering and things like that. But, um, this article points out that they do kind of learn how to be a mother from each other. And so being in a zoo might kind of mess with that. And that may be part of it that, you know, they notice that sometimes new mothers in this macaque community would, like, hold their infant upside down or become distracted when their infant is in trouble. And so it's not uncommon that it takes a while for a mother to figure out how to take care of their babies. And so the theory, I guess, is that it might be that being in captivity is what led to this, that maybe there isn't the same instinct and they don't necessarily have all the other females to learn from. And it points out that something like 7.7% of the time this infant abandonment happens in captivity. But it also does end on a positive note, saying it's a behaviorally flexible species. And so the good news is that, you know, monkeys can learn from the monkeys around them, and that Punch is starting to learn to communicate with the other monkeys and find his place in the group. And, you know, he. He may have got off on a wrong foot initially by kind of communicating somehow a signal of like, I'm afraid of you or I'm dominant over you. But I think the more time Punch spends with the other monkeys, the more he's going to learn how to behave and he'll be able to integrate into his group. And I think we're already seeing he's
- [42:33]
Erica
just a baby and he doesn't have his mommy and he's scared. And so it. I can't. I can't clearly understand, like, what date certain posts are on because everything's fake. But I feel like he might still have his stuffy. I'm not sure, but somebody bullied him again yesterday, and he ran off and ran to the stuff stuffy and laid down on top of it and put its arm around him. And I'm like, he needs to.
- [43:01]
Marcella
He needs to fight back. Yet again. He needs to fight back. He needs to learn how to fight back.
- [43:05]
Erica
But he's so little.
- [43:06]
Marcella
He's okay. He can fight back.
- [43:08]
Erica
All right, well, thank you for that. That was our. Our Intermezzo story. Can we talk about my other favorite story?
- [43:17]
Owen
Oh, okay. The New Jersey one or no.
- [43:20]
Erica
Christy Gnome.
- [43:22]
Owen
Okay, okay. Ice Barbie is out, you guys. I'm sorry. Homeland Security Secretary Christine Ohm is out and plans to replace her with Oklahoma center Mark Wayne Mullen. I say his name right. The decision came after Noam faced intense grilling in a combative Senate hearing this week where criticism from both parties focused on her leadership of immigration enforcement and a couple costly ad campaign that she said Trump approved. And Trump actually made statements that she. That he did not approve that. And hopefully she's not facing any kind of false statements that she made at the hearing. And she will be moving on still with the administration. She'll transition in a new role. The. We still don't know what that new role entails until this weekend. It's called a special envoy for the Shield of. Of the Americas. It's 13 countries.
- [44:23]
Erica
Okay. Yeah.
- [44:24]
Owen
A freshly created position focused on new security initiatives in the Western Hemisphere with details set to be unveiled this weekend. I hear. We heard from Marco Rubio either yesterday or this morning that he's happy to have her under him.
- [44:43]
Erica
And. Whoa, that could mean a lot. Never mind.
- [44:47]
Owen
And. And in another very sexual story, she. There is allegations that Corey Lewandowski, which worked for dhs, was having an affair with her. And that's what's the reasons why Trump got rid of her. But anyways, I moved forward, Senator Mullen. I did not know too much about him. I think Erica said, he's awesome. He's actually an MMA fighter. So just that alone, I was like, whoa, that's great.
- [45:21]
Sergio
He.
- [45:22]
Owen
He was funny and he's very smart, and you'd be proud of him. Owen. He was. The press came up to him while he was walking, you know, in by the Capitol, and he was like, I just heard about this, like a, like a few moments before you guys got the news, but I have to ask my wife before I make any decisions. And that was like a awesome way of him saying it. And he also was very gracious with Ice Barbie. He said that she was a. He didn't call her Ice Barbie, people. He. He called her secretary gnome and how he worked well with her. And he's, you know, I'm assuming he will go for it. So. Any, Any, any comments?
- [46:14]
Erica
Yeah, the only thing, Kevin, etf, I. I feel your frustration in the chat today, so I want to shout you out. And yes, I, too, hope Bondi is next, because I think Bondi is horrible. I. I think she's. I can't even believe she was put in Attorney Barbie. Oh, I can't with her. Useless. That's my only comment.
- [46:34]
Owen
Is that your only comment?
- [46:37]
Sergio
Sexist would say, right?
- [46:39]
Erica
Yeah, if I were a sexist, which apparently I am.
- [46:43]
Marcella
My comment is that I didn't see it coming. I didn't think that she was gonna get fired like this. You know what?
- [46:49]
Erica
How did you not see that coming?
- [46:51]
Marcella
Well, the pattern was that all these women are around Trump doing amazing jobs, right? You got Susie Wild, and then you have Kelly, and you have other ladies there, you know, very strong, doing a lot of things right. But I don't know the details.
- [47:09]
Erica
Not all women are the same, Sergio.
- [47:12]
Marcella
Well, Marcella is the only one that said. I heard saying that she was going to be out, and I was like, okay, you didn't tell me, but, like, I didn't know.
- [47:22]
Erica
I'm going to tell you everything from now on.
- [47:23]
Marcella
Yeah, tell me every time now. So now I'm thinking like, okay, who's next? Is it for you guys? Monty, do you think it's Going to
- [47:30]
Erica
be the next one, I'm hoping.
- [47:32]
Marcella
Okay. I think that you might be right, but Trump knows how to work with. He know. He knows how to work with the look with the women that are. He wants to push, right? Yes. Well, I mean, it's for the men, too, right?
- [47:50]
Ryan Reynolds
You know, he wants to.
- [47:52]
Marcella
He wants to.
- [47:53]
Owen
Ash Patel is next.
- [47:55]
Sergio
Do you think it is just because of this bad performance in front of Congress, or do you think there was more to it and it was set
- [48:03]
Marcella
up is the result. Right. She created a lot of hate, unnecessary to do this. So it helps sometimes to have that extreme. Like that guy that was sent to Minnesota, too, and he was, like, very rough. He had, like, an Italian name, maybe, you know, Erica. He had, like, a guy. So this guy, he was, like, super strong, and they took him out because he was being too, too strong. So Christy, you know she killed a dog, right? She shot a dog one time. Just because.
- [48:39]
Owen
Allegedly.
- [48:43]
Erica
This is my favorite story we've ever done. This is so funny.
- [48:46]
Sergio
I'm not really sure she did kill
- [48:47]
Marcella
her dog, but I don't believe it now. I don't believe it. I don't think she was too ruthless as enough to. To shoot a dog.
- [48:55]
Owen
Could I hold the gun?
- [48:57]
Erica
Right. Anyway,
- [49:02]
Sergio
a woman would go out and take the dog out back with a rifle or a pistol and shoot it.
- [49:07]
Marcella
No. Maybe. Maybe. Marcella.
- [49:10]
Owen
What?
- [49:13]
Sergio
Could you do that?
- [49:14]
Marcella
Yeah, I get it.
- [49:15]
Sergio
Me?
- [49:15]
Marcella
Yes. Oh, yeah.
- [49:17]
Sergio
No, I'm talking to Erica and Marcel.
- [49:21]
Owen
Yeah, I. I mean, if it was needed, I could do that.
- [49:24]
Erica
Not me. Nope.
- [49:27]
Owen
I have no problems.
- [49:28]
Erica
I would try to convince it that it can change. Be loving and sweet.
- [49:32]
Sergio
Like, wouldn't you take it to a vat and have it put being put down humanely or depending.
- [49:37]
Marcella
How far is the.
- [49:38]
Sergio
Can you tell your husband you got to go do this?
- [49:40]
Marcella
How far is the drive?
- [49:42]
Erica
Oh, my God.
- [49:44]
Owen
Well, I mean, yeah, technically, you would have, like, a vet do it. Yeah.
- [49:50]
Erica
Listen, I want to bring a Mackie monkey to my house. I am not killing anything.
- [49:55]
Advertisement Voice
It's gonna eat your face.
- [49:57]
Owen
What are you talking about? They're not. Yeah, they're scary.
- [50:01]
Erica
I could convince it. All right, enough with these people. But let's go. Bondi on deck.
- [50:09]
Owen
Okay. I think, Owen, you have another story.
- [50:13]
Sergio
Well, on the psychology front, Karina Petrova from Psypost is talking about how there's a study or a set of studies about how American issue Polarization surged after 2008 as the left moved further left. I think Scott would definitely say you could have just asked Me, you didn't need to spend money on this study. But it is interesting that they point out that between I think it was 1988 and 2008, there really wasn't much of a drift, that it was pretty stable through that period in terms of how different people thought about things on the left versus the right. And that there was a 64% increase from 2008 to 2020. Now what happened in 2008?
- [50:55]
Marcella
Obama. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, Obama. Isn't that the time the racism also picked up?
- [51:03]
Erica
Yes,
- [51:05]
Sergio
it was the birth of DEI and CRT and all this other stuff that he brought into this. So I think, you know, they don't mention Obama in the article, but I think it is kind of pointing in that direction. And I think certainly it probably got inflamed even further once Trump got elected in 2016. But I think 2008 is when it really kicked off. And they'd point out that they did another study globally and they found out that that didn't happen anywhere else, only in America. They did point out that less developed countries tend to be majority conservative and more developed countries tend to be more liberal. I think we probably all knew that too, that countries tend to be a little more liberal once they're more wealthy. But they said, you know, the differences didn't increase the way they did in the United States. So I did think that was interesting.
- [51:58]
Owen
Good times make weak men.
- [52:01]
Sergio
But you also have your scientific backing. Now, if anyone wants to dispute that the left move further left, that's exactly what happened. They basically found that the conservatives didn't really change very much, but the left went super far to the left.
- [52:13]
Erica
Yeah, I mean, look at the Democrat friends you guys might have, you know, back, back when Bill Clinton was president, they, if they, if they kept thinking and saying who they were back when Clinton was president, they'd be Republicans now. So it's very weak minded to watch all these people just be like, oh, just sticking with the party. Any insane thing they put in front of me, I will sign off on it. And it's like, wow, how much can you change as a person? Like you're believing things you would have thought were completely batshit crazy, you know, eight years ago. And now you're like, yeah, like more of that. So the party changed and a lot of weak people went with it.
- [52:57]
Marcella
That suicidal empathy that some of we have talked about before, I think Gatsad mentioned that or somebody else and, and that started there, right? Like people say, like, you know what, let's give this a Chance, not you, Erica, or. But many people in the middle, they were saying, you know what? Obama had an amazing propaganda game. All his photos were always showing these young, vibrant men ready to take on anything. Right. It really showed hope, right? The hope. The hope. I was one of those people that fell into it. I was Republican before that, actually. I was pro Bush and even McCain at some point. But with Obama, I started drifting. So I can totally understand how that happened. And was surrounded by people that also believed that Obama was the next messiah.
- [53:49]
Erica
Well, he was very persuasive.
- [53:51]
Marcella
I mean, a lot of me, I was a big fan of his personal photographer. He's the White House photographer. His name is Pete Sousa and award winning guy.
- [54:02]
Sergio
And.
- [54:03]
Marcella
And so it was all manufactured, you know, it was all like put together, you know, and they will duplicate scenes, you know, basically to show him to be like the black jfk, basically. You know, they wanted to be like that.
- [54:15]
Akira
So.
- [54:16]
Erica
Yeah, yeah.
- [54:17]
Marcella
Good story. When?
- [54:20]
Erica
Okay, next up then.
- [54:22]
Owen
Congress votes overwhelmingly to keep sexual misconduct reports secret. Oh, my gosh. Shocking, shocking news. The U.S. house Representatives has overwhelmingly voted to reject a push for greater transparency on sexual misconduct in Congress. According to Multiple reports, including NBC and political lawmakers voted 357 to 65 on March 4 to refer a resolution by Representative Nancy Mays to the Ethics Committee, effectively killing the measure that would have forced the public release of investigative records on allegations of sexual harassment, unwelcome advances, or improper relationship involving members and staff. With victim information redacted, it was introduced amid fresh scrutiny over allegations against Representative Tony Gonzalez and other cases. The resolution drew bipartisan opposition for the Ethics Committee in regards to Representative Tony Gonzalez. He actually is no longer running because he did come out and say that he did have a love affair with a staff member who then that staff member then killed themselves, set herself on fire. Well, that would be an odd way to commit suicide, saying, but. So what are your thoughts on this? It's, it's.
- [55:50]
Sergio
Again, I think Scott might have said that this is okay or that, you know, at least that he wasn't surprised by it.
- [56:01]
Owen
No surprise there.
- [56:02]
Sergio
No, I'll make the case to defend it and you can then criticize me. So first of all, these women, I'm assuming they're mostly women, but there probably are some men in there too. You know, the victims, they agreed to these settlements. Right. And part of the deal was to say that they get this money in exchange for not talking about it. And the other piece of it is, especially in the wake of all this Epstein stuff, you don't know how many of these claims were legitimate. It could have been that somebody made a claim and they just said, you know what, it's better to just settle this rather than having a lawsuit and having all this bad publicity for Congress. And so let's just give this person some money and make them be quiet and keep the, you know, gears of government moving. And so some of these things may have been BS claims. And if you just release all this information against the alleged perpetrators who were never given a trial. Right. Then you, you, you don't know how many of these things are true, but they're going to be assumed to be true if you release this information. Right.
- [57:09]
Erica
Whose money are they getting?
- [57:11]
Owen
Our money?
- [57:12]
Sergio
Well, I, I, okay, that's a legitimate claim and I, I accept that that's the other side of it, that if this is taxpayer money, but then, you know, my argument there would be if, if the whole point of it was to keep this quiet, then there just shouldn't be this fund they want to keep quiet.
- [57:32]
Erica
Okay? So if they don't do it, well, that or you has to come out of your own pocket and they all have the freaking money. They're all skimming off of all the nos and everybody else off. Yeah, you, why are you using our money? It's just disgusting. I, I, you know, or show us the names and the amount, don't tell us what it was. Be like, here's the person's name and here's how much of your tax dollars went to that person. And then let the constituents know what they're dealing with. So somebody that has to have our taxpayer money, get them out of trouble. And what, and what's the incentive not to do these things if you're just going to have it kept quiet and our money is going to pay to make it go away. It's just very strange. And Nancy May said she tried to subpoena, what, Ilhan Omar's immigration record. She said all the Republicans block that, that the Republicans and the Democrats are protecting her. And they're like, no, no, we're not giving a deal. Yeah, her, her brother, husband, allegedly. But, you know, like, what's up with that?
- [58:34]
Owen
Like, you know, I was gonna bring up point though, that Owen was talking about. In California, if you do sue somebody for sexual misconduct and you do settle out of court, you're not allowed to in the settlement. It's illegal to not to basically not allow you to talk about it. You're allowed to talk about it and there is no NDA clause. You can have in it. So I'm, I'm sure that in D.C. it might be the same. So you, you are able. It's not a secret. So if the victims wanted to come out and talk about it, they probably could.
- [59:12]
Erica
Yeah. I just feel like if you're going to take my money to pay someone off, like, well, could you just fill me in on where it's going? Maybe like, we're.
- [59:19]
Sergio
But the whole point of paying them off is to not have them talk about it. Right.
- [59:22]
Erica
And use your own money.
- [59:24]
Owen
No, it's to pay for their pain and suffering.
- [59:27]
Erica
So legally, I didn't do it legally.
- [59:31]
Sergio
But I'm saying, like, if, if, if they didn't. I mean, maybe there is another motive of saying, let's keep these things out of criminal trials. But, you know, assuming that someone was raped, for example, I would hope that the victims in some cases at least, would have the courage to just charge the person with rape or whatever the sexual assault charge would be. And I would think most of these, if not all of them, are not that way because they didn't go through any kind of criminal.
- [59:58]
Erica
These are our lawmakers.
- [60:02]
Marcella
How would you fix it, though? You know, that's the thing. You know, how will. What would you do to fix it?
- [60:08]
Sergio
I think the fix would be to say you're not allowed to use taxpayer funds for this.
- [60:11]
Owen
That's it.
- [60:11]
Erica
That's what I'm saying.
- [60:12]
Joel Pollock
Good.
- [60:13]
Erica
That's all I'm saying. Use your own money.
- [60:15]
Marcella
Like, for example, the same thing with, like, with the college loans. You know, that people is irresponsible anytime you do it.
- [60:24]
Erica
Yeah, yeah.
- [60:25]
Sergio
But I'll throw in another thing that Scott has said before. Every famous person has been accused of sexual misconduct of some way, in some way.
- [60:32]
Erica
Figure it out. Get a lawyer just like you would have.
- [60:35]
Marcella
But. Okay, so to make it illegal. But how do you get all the votes, Vote to people to, to do this now?
- [60:42]
Owen
Yeah. They wouldn't vote for it, would they?
- [60:44]
Marcella
Yeah. How. How would you get them to vote?
- [60:47]
Erica
Oh, we can make this happen. I'm wrapping it up. But the last thing I want to show you is from Dr. Deborah Fauci on Twitter on X. She wins. So she shows. Here's Oprah and Gail.
- [61:02]
Owen
Oh, my gosh, Oprah. I mean.
- [61:05]
Erica
Yeah, you know, whatever. So she. Look at them. So anyway, she wrote, here's Oprah and Gail, who I am now calling Okra and Kale. I freaking love that. Oprah and Kale. I love it so much as she was pointing out how Gail's always walking two steps behind her. But I just think that's amazing. So you guys, thank you so, so, so much for being here. Oh and tell us what you're doing tomorrow.
- [61:35]
Sergio
I'll some news and talk about the news tomorrow.
- [61:41]
Erica
Okay, so if he was glitchy for you, he has his after party tomorrow on spaces at 7 Pacific 10 Eastern. He'll be with Sergio and SJV talking news all day long. Please go over there and participate. We'll be back on Monday. I love you guys. I the chat, the sippers, the beloves. X, we love you. Please don't forget to give us a thumbs up like subscribe all those good things and let's have a very, very useful weekend and don't forget tell those negative thoughts and everything else to just get out and reinvent yourselves if you need to. Okay? Love you guys. Be useful. To Scott.
- [62:23]
Sergio
To Scott.
- [62:28]
Ryan Reynolds
Thanks.