Episode 150 Scott Adams - The Next Putin Summit

bum bum bum bum bum BA bum bum bum guess what I've got it all better more than a few of you have this new it's a little thing I call coffee it's in another little thing I call a coffee bug and it's gonna be some good drinking or sipping as I like to say are you ready for this simultaneous sip the highlight of your day and coffee with Scott Adams grab your cup grab your vessel grab your mug it's time for the simultaneous mmm so I hope you saw my periscope from last night that could not have been more fun you'd have to see it to know what I'm talking about but it's my pin tweet so if you can't get enough of me that one would be a good one to watch if you only had to watch one if you never watched more than one that would be the one to watch not this one this one's going to be terrible no I'll try to I'll try to elevate I'll try to try to make it better every time so the big story since the last time I spoke with you is that president Trump has agreed to host Putin in October and what did the media say when they heard that he was going to host Putin in the United States it went a little something like this this is either a hair on fire or hair standing straight up you can interpret it either way now one of the things that I hate to keep referring to this I refer to this as my last periscope Chris Cuomo referred to what we're seeing as something like a movie and he made that reference several times that the Trump Russia saga is like a movie and if it's a movie you just saw the third act so the third act of any movie is well let me start from the first the first act somebody's life changes in some way in this case the president became president and then there's a bunch of fun and games where he's acting presidential and people are fighting him but he comes out okay all the time and then there's that thing that kept that was foreshadowed because anything Russian seemed to have been foreshadowed right and then when the he summit with Putin happened it felt like everybody thought oh there it is the worst of our fears he likes Putin more than he likes our country nothing like that happened of course but in one of the movies that people are running in their heads that's exactly what happened so it looks like things could not be worse things could not be worse we've got a president who cares more about a Russian Russian strongman who has done many bad things than he does about his own intelligence service and I'm watching and watching all that happen and then Trump invites Putin to another meeting this time in in the States now probably this will be something like a third act a third act is when things look the worst like oh my god it's the end of the world and that's how it will be reported right up to and including during the summit the second summit in October but there are a few things that you need to know about it number one the president has now had practice practice makes everything better right it's hard to think of anything that doesn't get better with practice so the president Trump has had one summit with Putin in which he saw how people reacted to all the elements of it what did people get excited about what did people like about it etc now he's gonna get ready you'll have plenty of time to get ready for a second one does the president like to lose he does not does he prepare as much as he as people think he should for big events he does not if you give him a little bit of practice does he elevate his game oh yeah he does you saw that in the campaign when his his debate performances seemed to get better and I would argue that his whole presidential thing is also improving with practice so the second Trump summit is likely to go much better even if all the even if the only thing that changes is how he manages the optics of the press conference and that sort of thing it will just be way better so the odds are this is a good thing now what I love about it is that when people's hair were hair was already on fire and before the before the hair had burned down to their skull they were still running around the hair is on fire every hair was on fire he takes control of the narrative by doubling down and saying hey once you come to the United States Putin and we'll have another meeting and then everybody's like what ah double ah so he has once again completely controlled the narrative and now we're going to be talking about the future because the past were all are already exhausted with the past and when I say the past I mean this past week one week but we're already exhausted with it and he's given us new fresh stuff to talk about which is the upcoming summit so that part is good the experts are saying no no you should not meet with him you should not invite him to the United States but what what was one of the big problems with the summit it would seem to be that the president seemed to not have the status that his critics thought he seemed like he had actually put himself at you know such a conciliatory place that it actually elevated Putin almost like he was a little higher than Trump that's that's at least some of the impressions that people were getting I didn't see that but a lot of people saw that when they watch it and so when you invite Putin to your country who has the situational advantage who has the advantage Putin who is visiting or Trump who actually lives in the you know lives and works in the White House right Putin is going to be on Trump's home turf Trump will absolutely have the visual advantage because you know blah blah white White House flag symbols and all those things and what will Putin have his suit Putin will show up with the clothes on his back in terms of what we see so we're gonna see Putin and Putin's clothing that's it that's all will see a Putin but we're gonna see the White House the flags we're gonna see them the military we're gonna see you're gonna see so much America surrounding Putin that the the visual persuasion game will be one before it starts so I think it's a and let me ask you this in the business world if you're the one who goes to someone else's office who is the Alpha is the Alpha person the person who goes to visit the other person or the person who waits for the person to visit them it's always the host so Trump has won before he starts the second summit because the set up is just so favorable to Trump that that it would be hard for that to go wrong visually now you also have the advantage of low expectations people thought people thought that the first summit when so poorly whether or not that's true the impression is that it did that trumps bar that he asked across to look like he's getting better at this or things are moving in the right direction it's very low also a perfect situation so he's got practice with lots of feedback and criticisms lots of things to work with he might have progress by then meaning that presumably the meeting won't even happen unless unless rush is delivered at least a little bit right so or at least has something to plan to announce at the summit so it's very likely he'll have something that he can at least at least show as progress he'll have practice he'll have the home-field advantage and have low expectations so things are set up for Trump to have a good meeting now of course the news will find new new things to obsess about but as I was talking in my periscope last night the news is totally lost in the weeds Trump and the White House are trying to make sure that the risk of nuclear war is lowered in all the hot spots around the world he's trying to calm down the Middle East and maybe actually make something work North Korea denuclearization so Trump is up here working on the very top priorities and his his enemy press if we can say that is talking about well did he say water wouldn't he say no and then there's a new one down in the weeds the unimportant stuff the the new one is that apparently this summit with Putin the second one was in the news and announced when dan coates who's the Director of National Intelligence I believe was on stage of some event being interviewed and he learned of it by somebody reading it off their phone in public while he was in front of the crowd now if he didn't see it Coates was very funny because he did a sort of a comedic double-take with what do you say and made it clear that he didn't know anything about it now the media reported this says he was on fire how can how can Trump make such a decision and not even inform you know his his Director of National Intelligence who has to learn about it while he's giving a speech it's the worst thing in the world it was Andrea Mitchell was interviewing him and told him about it so here's my here's my feedback on that so that's that's my that's my feedback to the entire story that Coates wasn't in the loop so here's the thing whose decision wasn't Trump's what if Trump had talked to everybody and and gotten all their feedback what would they have said they would have said I think don't do it because that last one went so poorly do you know who says don't do it because the last one went so poorly people who believe history repeats do you know what history never does it never repeats it can't because the situation changes the fact that we observed something happening in the first summit changes what can happen in the second summit Trump got practiced Trump learned what works and what doesn't Trump's putting him you know taking the home-field advantage Trump's going to make sure probably that that there's some kind of progress or something to announce the bar is lower because of the lesson so nothing is the same what do you think Trump's advisers would have told them to do that would have told them not to do it did he need to ask them for their advice when he already knew what they would say and it wasn't going to be what he decided to do there's only one person who needs to make the decision wasn't dan comes and it doesn't really matter how he found out because Trump made the decision people probably should have told dan coates a little sooner I assume somebody in his organization you know might have heard wind of it before the media and you know what even if even if Trump I don't know if this happened but even if Trump had told the media before he told even one person am i okay with that yep totally okay with that whose decision is it Trump's decision alone his decision alone what does everybody else have to do with that decision they find out about it after he makes it so the end codes found out about it after he makes it is that ideal no probably not wouldn't it yeah it looked better if everybody knew and they were on the same page but does it matter no it does not - remember that disastrous summit that President Trump had with Putin he said things about our intelligence agencies that most people agree with but he said it while he was standing next to Putin and so it's the worst thing in the world and so I read about the end of the world and I saw about stories about the end of the world because of that horrible horrible tragedy at the summit that Trump said something that shocked people because he's never done that before has Trump ever done anything that shocked people I'm so surprised and then the next day after that terrible tragedy at the summit I woke up and I got myself some coffee and I thought to myself this coffee will be ruined now how can I go on because of that awkward thing that happened at that summit in another country let me tentatively taste my coffee wait a minute this coffee tastes exactly the same as yesterday my clothes are not on fire and I still have my job I'm pretty sure it was the end of the world this week why is everything looked the same am I already dead am I in heaven why is nothing worse CNN told me things were worse but my coffee tastes exactly the same it's not even dripping out of the bottom of the cup how could this be how can I explain my world my world doesn't make sense so the president's critics have some good points to make they're not necessarily completely making up news and there are criticisms of what happened at the first summit are not completely off base they just are completely unimportant did he say would or wouldn't it doesn't really matter did he say know about putin's meddling and cyber cyber cyber ways it doesn't really matter we know what he thinks we know what the government thinks we know what his strategy is it's a good strategy and seems to be heading in the right direction do we care that Dan Coates was surprised about the information and that he was not consulted on something that his opinion would not have mattered in any way nope coffee still tastes the same now if President Trump and Putin succeed in calming the Middle East getting a good result in North Korea maybe even taking down their nuclear threats toward each other is anybody goo remember any of this will the will the historians say just imagine think of the future it's a year from now and there's tremendous progress on everything nuclear from you know Iran to North Korea to the US and and Russian stockpiles will the historians say yeah they made tremendous progress working together but we can't get over that wood and wooden thing and we were shocked that dan coates was surprised about something at an event somewhere no historians will not remember any of that they will not care so what do we expect out of this upcoming summit first of all it's classic Trump to media once he has all of this energy yeah there was so much hair on fire and reporting and yeah and explaining that he took all of this energy and then he refocused it as he does I've told you the 50% of persuasion is just keeping your attention because whatever your attention is on you will eventually convince yourself is more credible more important than whatever else you were thinking of because you're just focused on so now we're focused on this summit and the president has has brought into focus well let me yeah let me tell you something else that connects a few dots remember I kept telling I keep telling you for two years now or so that the president likes to shake the box whenever the variables are not lined up in a way that's good for him he'll shake the box and if he still doesn't get it what he wants he'll shake again and he'll shake again and I've said that only he can shake the box and he can do it as many times as he needs to until the variables light up the way he wants and that other people can't shake the box so they have a big disadvantage they can't shake the box because they can't take the heat you watch the president shake the hell out of the Russia box by having the summit and didn't go exactly the way people planned and what happened because he shook that box what variables are different there are some important variables that got shifted around in the box here's the most important variable how important did you think it was had a few years ago or even six months ago the Russian cyber meddling you probably thought it was important but if you are going to make if I ask you make a list of your top 20 things that you think are the important things in the world where would Russia's cyber meddling and and just Russia's bad acting in the world where would that be in your top 20 just you know six months ago probably about that high now I'm not gonna argue that it should be higher in the priorities but I will tell you that it is so the president has taken this lower level you know second tier priority in the public's mind I'm not saying it's not important I'm not saying that our experts are wrong about the you know that the incredible risk there is I'm just saying that in the public's mind it just was sort of down the list somewhere it was way after the economy way after North Korea and where is it right now top of the headlines is it more important because we're talking about it and focusing on it and and Trump has created a lot of energy around it well it didn't get more important it just got more attention and what is that duck it has it has hardened the American public's opinion against Trump I'm sorry yeah well that half the half the public is against Trump but at the same time whether or not they're against Trump separately the entire public left and right is against Putin and specifically against him messing with us that level of energy that variable is new Trump shook the box until the public left and right lined up with him against an external threat now he's not treating it as an external threat he's playing his smarter he's saying two things be our friend be our friend being our friend is great it's great you know the key the proverbial carrot hey it's a delicious carrot I've got the best carrots our carrots are awesome you should have a carrot would you like a carrot so he's got the carrot part better than anybody's ever done it and remember the importance of contrast it's not enough to say will hurt you if you don't want do what we want you also need the big contrast play which is and if you do what we like oh my god we could change the world you could be one of the greatest leaders of all time mr.

Putin which is true by the way completely true Putin has this amazing place in the world right now where he can be despite anything he's been you know accused of true or not he is the center of history right now and he can either become one of the greatest leaders even with his laws I'm not I'm not discounting any of the bad stuff you know we all know what it is we could we can all make our list of bad Putin behavior but if he decides to go legit if you will and work with Trump on denuclearizing and is productive in the Middle East and all that he becomes one of the greatest leaders in history it will really be amazing Trump has created that and if nothing if if Putin had simply played well with us before you know let's say a year ago or before Trump let's say would Putin have gotten as much credit not really he just would have been a bad guy that we pushed into helping us somehow or or or he's just not even part of the important part of the story you see he's a he's just a footnote but Trump has elevated him to the center stage and put the entire focus of you know the of the American public on Putin Putin now has something to gain and something to lose that just didn't exist before at least not and that scale not in that level of importance but Trump has created an asset and of nothing how many times have you heard me say that he has conjured up an asset out of nothing but psychology and you know persuasion in which Putin has a huge thing to gain being one of the most important leaders of all history if he partners with Trump a or one of the biggest losers of all of history because the president has also made it clear that he would be Putin's worst enemy what does he mean by that it means it means what you think it doesn't mean war in all likelihood because I don't think we'd be that dumb but does it mean that Putin's going to have a successful leadership for the rest of his time on this earth it does not Putin would not have a good rest of his life and and Trump would make sure that very very cleanly and decisively I believe nobody believes that Trump would forget about it if he gets screwed here and and nobody would feel bad if he returned the favor in a very aggressive way so so we have this situation where the variables are now different the the American public is aligned against Putin so if if things went bad and the president said look we're going to have to get super rough on Russia because the Putin he's got the public on his side now both left and right how often does that happen so the variables are not what they were the variables even because and here's the here's the coincidence or or not part because the first summit was reported widely reported to be not good on a number of levels that brought all the attention exactly where Trump needs it to set the table for the second meeting how would you like to be Putin and walk into the summit in October and have nothing to offer think about it imagine Putin's showing up in Washington and having nothing to offer and imagine that you know it's been a few more months of bad behavior and he's just walking into the White House doing nothing for us how does that meeting going to go how's the rest of Putin's life gonna go not so well so yeah it would make Putin look foolish there's also a very important thing going on that I'm gonna call the bro code for the women who are watching this this will be a mysterious conversation in which you will not completely understand what's going on here probably some of you might you've heard something called the bro code there's sort of a an understood way that men deal with other men that is different than the way men would deal with let's say a crowd different than they would deal with a family member different than they would deal with a woman no matter what the relationship was two men have sort of an understanding that's just built into culture and experience that there are some rules at play that are not written down into her here's one of the rules President Trump took a lot of heat to help rehabilitate Putin in other words to allow Putin to even stand on the world stage President Trump had to eat about a mile of in public presence so even though President Trump you know has doubled down and said yes Russia you know did a lot of cyber stuff but metals in the election he's confirmed that a number of times but in public and when he talks about Putin he's giving him all kinds of forgiveness if you can call it that and I would get rid of this guy he's giving him all kinds of respect Putin because of the bro code owes Trump a favor he owes him a favor this has nothing to do with politics it has nothing to do with has nothing to do with diplomacy it has a lot to do it has a lot to do with just the bro code there's just a way that people that to two males work with each other now if Putin violates what we want as a country he's yeah he's in a lot of trouble if Putin top of that violates the bro code in other words if he just screws the president who just gave him space and protected him essentially in public if Putin does that he's crossed the line that you can't uncross and I think he knows it so I would expect a favorable result in October but it will be reported as if it's the end of the world coming by the enemy press Trump begged himself yes sort of yes so the you saw it the last summit there was this talk about hey what if Muller goes over to Russia and talks to the suspects in the in the election meddling in return what if some Russian law enforcement people of some sort come to the United States and on our soil we'll talk to some people related to that bill Browder situation now the experts the diplomats said oh you can't do that you can't you can't give up our diplomats just because your your your Putin's best friend you know you can never give up an ambassador you know or or a diplomat you got it you got to keep that diplomatic immunity going well here's the thing that whole offer of you know exchanging people none of that was real neither Putin nor Trump could have possibly thought that was a good idea but it sounded good it was you know something you say in public and it sounded like oh that's reasonable I guess well that's better than nothing but when you come right down to it what would that look like keeping in mind that the laws of the other don't apply you know in a foreign land so what's the worst-case scenario for whoever Russia wants to talk to here's the worst-case scenario that person goes to a meeting in which there's heavy security and talks to their Russian law enforcement and the Russian law enforcement says here's my question and the diplomat says I'm not going to answer that and then they ask another question and diplomat says I'm not going to answer that etc until the Russian the Russian legal whoever they are just leaves now what recourse does Russia have if the diplomat just says I'm in America and I don't really have to answer your question that's it and there's security standing there and you're in America you're perfectly safe that's it that's the whole meeting the whole meeting is just the diplomats saying I'm not going to talk to you now could the diplomat talk to the Russians and answer their questions if they wanted to well they could but it would be stupid because the right the right approach is to create a precedent there yeah you can come over take a flight over you could be in the room with me and my heaviest security but I'm never going to answer a question for a foreign country it's just not going to happen so likewise if Muller goes over to talk to the Russians you would assume that the Russians would lie about everything or just not answer questions and it wouldn't matter because Muller has no power he can't indict them you can't you can't find them guilty of obstruction of justice so it's a toothless ridiculous offer that they exchange people just I think it was designed to sound like there was something that wasn't nothing but it was closer to nothing than something giving Tony Podesta immunity yeah I saw something about that story but I don't know enough about it or what the implication of that is but it does look like yeah yeah Manafort some big troll why are you assuming it's on home soil Scott because and no American would go to a neutral place to talk to Russian law enforcement about something they don't want to talk to there's no law that would force them to do it and they certainly wouldn't do it willingly this is part of an existing treaty with Russia makes sense all right that's all for now I got to do some stuff I'll talk to you later bye

bum bum bum bum bum BA bum bum bum guess

what I've got it all better more than a

few of you have this new it's a little

thing I call coffee it's in another

little thing I call a coffee bug and

it's gonna be some good drinking or

sipping as I like to say are you ready

for this simultaneous sip the highlight

of your day and coffee with Scott Adams

grab your cup grab your vessel grab your

mug it's time for the simultaneous mmm

so I hope you saw my periscope from last

night that could not have been more fun

you'd have to see it to know what I'm

talking about

but it's my pin tweet so if you can't

get enough of me that one would be a

good one to watch if you only had to

watch one if you never watched more than

one that would be the one to watch not

this one this one's going to be terrible

no I'll try to I'll try to elevate I'll

try to try to make it better every time

so the big story since the last time I

spoke with you is that president Trump

has agreed to host Putin in October and

what did the media say when they heard

that he was going to host Putin in the

United States it went a little something

like this

this is either a hair on fire

or hair standing straight up you can

interpret it either way now one of the

things that I hate to keep referring to

this I refer to this as my last

periscope Chris Cuomo referred to what

we're seeing as something like a movie

and he made that reference several times

that the

Trump Russia saga is like a movie and if

it's a movie you just saw the third act

so the third act of any movie is well

let me start from the first the first

act somebody's life changes in some way

in this case the president became

president and then there's a bunch of

fun and games where he's acting

presidential and people are fighting him

but he comes out okay all the time and

then there's that thing that kept that

was foreshadowed because anything

Russian seemed to have been foreshadowed

right and then when the he summit with

Putin happened it felt like everybody

thought oh there it is

the worst of our fears he likes Putin

more than he likes our country nothing

like that happened of course but in one

of the movies that people are running in

their heads that's exactly what happened

so it looks like things could not be

worse things could not be worse we've

got a president who cares more about a

Russian Russian strongman who has done

many bad things than he does about his

own intelligence service and I'm

watching and watching all that happen

and then Trump invites Putin to another

meeting this time in in the States now

probably this will be something like a

third act a third act is when things

look the worst like oh my god it's the

end of the world and that's how it will

be reported right up to and including

during the summit the second summit in

October but there are a few things that

you need to know about it number one the

president has now had practice practice

makes everything better right it's hard

to think of anything that doesn't get

better with practice

so the president Trump has had one

summit with Putin in which he saw how

people reacted to all the elements of it

what did people get excited about what

did people like about it etc now he's

gonna get ready you'll have plenty of

time to get ready for a second one does

the president like to lose he does not

does he prepare as much as he as people

think he should for big events he does

not if you give him a little bit of

practice

does he elevate his game oh yeah he does

you saw that in the campaign when his

his debate performances seemed to get

better and I would argue that his whole

presidential thing is also improving

with practice so the second Trump summit

is likely to go much better even if all

the even if the only thing that changes

is how he manages the optics of the

press conference and that sort of thing

it will just be way better so the odds

are this is a good thing now what I love

about it is that when people's hair were

hair was already on fire and before the

before the hair had burned down to their

skull they were still running around the

hair is on fire every hair was on fire

he takes control of the narrative by

doubling down and saying hey once you

come to the United States Putin and

we'll have another meeting and then

everybody's like what ah double ah so he

has once again completely controlled the

narrative and now we're going to be

talking about the future because the

past were all are already exhausted with

the past and when I say the past I mean

this past week one week but we're

already exhausted with it and he's given

us new fresh stuff to talk about which

is the upcoming summit so that part is

good the experts are saying no no you

should not meet with him you should not

invite him to the United States but what

what was one of the big problems with

the summit it would seem to be that the

president seemed to not have the status

that his critics thought he seemed like

he had actually put himself at you know

such a conciliatory

place that it actually elevated Putin

almost like he was a little higher than

Trump that's that's at least some of the

impressions that people were getting I

didn't see that but a lot of people saw

that when they watch it

and so when you invite Putin to your

country who has the situational

advantage who has the advantage Putin

who is visiting or Trump who actually

lives in the you know lives and works in

the White House right Putin is going to

be on Trump's home turf Trump will

absolutely have the visual advantage

because you know blah blah white White

House flag symbols and all those things

and what will Putin have his suit Putin

will show up with the clothes on his

back in terms of what we see so we're

gonna see Putin and Putin's clothing

that's it that's all will see a Putin

but we're gonna see the White House the

flags we're gonna see them the military

we're gonna see you're gonna see so much

America surrounding Putin that the the

visual persuasion game will be one

before it starts so I think it's a and

let me ask you this in the business

world if you're the one who goes to

someone else's office who is the Alpha

is the Alpha person the person who goes

to visit the other person or the person

who waits for the person to visit them

it's always the host so Trump has won

before he starts the second summit

because the set up is just so favorable

to Trump that that it would be hard for

that to go wrong visually now you also

have the advantage of low expectations

people thought

people thought that the first summit

when so poorly whether or not that's

true the impression is that it did that

trumps bar that he asked across to look

like he's getting better at this or

things are moving in the right direction

it's very low also a perfect situation

so he's got practice with lots of

feedback and criticisms lots of things

to work with

he might have progress by then

meaning that presumably the meeting

won't even happen unless unless rush is

delivered at least a little bit right so

or at least has something to plan to

announce at the summit so it's very

likely he'll have something that he can

at least at least show as progress he'll

have practice he'll have the home-field

advantage and have low expectations so

things are set up for Trump to have a

good meeting now of course the news will

find new new things to obsess about but

as I was talking in my periscope last

night the news is totally lost in the

weeds Trump and the White House are

trying to make sure that the risk of

nuclear war is lowered in all the hot

spots around the world he's trying to

calm down the Middle East and maybe

actually make something work North Korea

denuclearization

so Trump is up here working on the very

top priorities and his his enemy press

if we can say that is talking about well

did he say water wouldn't he say no and

then there's a new one down in the weeds

the unimportant stuff the the new one is

that apparently this summit with Putin

the second one was in the news and

announced when dan coates

who's the Director of National

Intelligence I believe was on stage of

some event being interviewed and he

learned of it by somebody reading it off

their phone in public while he was in

front of the crowd now if he didn't see

it Coates was very funny

because he did a sort of a comedic

double-take with what do you say and

made it clear that he didn't know

anything about it now the media reported

this says he was on fire how can how can

Trump make such a decision and not even

inform you know his his Director of

National Intelligence who has to learn

about it while he's giving a speech it's

the worst thing in the world it was

Andrea Mitchell was interviewing him and

told him about it so here's my here's my

feedback on that so that's that's my

that's my feedback to the entire story

that Coates wasn't in the loop so here's

the thing whose decision wasn't Trump's

what if Trump had talked to everybody

and and gotten all their feedback what

would they have said they would have

said I think don't do it because that

last one went so poorly do you know who

says don't do it because the last one

went so poorly people who believe

history repeats do you know what history

never does it never repeats it can't

because the situation changes the fact

that we observed something happening in

the first summit changes what can happen

in the second summit Trump got practiced

Trump learned what works and what

doesn't Trump's putting him you know

taking the home-field advantage

Trump's going to make sure probably that

that there's some kind of progress or

something to announce the bar is lower

because of the lesson so nothing is the

same what do you think Trump's advisers

would have told them to do that would

have told them not to do it did he need

to ask them for their advice when he

already knew what they would say and it

wasn't going to be what he decided to do

there's only one person who needs to

make the decision

wasn't dan comes and it doesn't really

matter how he found out because Trump

made the decision

people probably should have told dan

coates a little sooner I assume somebody

in his organization you know might have

heard wind of it before the media and

you know what even if even if Trump I

don't know if this happened but even if

Trump had told the media before he told

even one person am i okay with that yep

totally okay with that whose decision is

it Trump's decision alone his decision

alone what does everybody else have to

do with that decision they find out

about it after he makes it so the end

codes found out about it after he makes

it is that ideal no probably not

wouldn't it yeah it looked better if

everybody knew and they were on the same

page but does it matter no it does not

- remember that disastrous summit that

President Trump had with Putin he said

things about our intelligence agencies

that most people agree with but he said

it while he was standing next to Putin

and so it's the worst thing in the world

and so I read about the end of the world

and I saw about stories about the end of

the world because of that horrible

horrible tragedy at the summit that

Trump said something that shocked people

because he's never done that before has

Trump ever done anything that shocked

people I'm so surprised and then the

next day after that terrible tragedy at

the summit I woke up and I got myself

some coffee and I thought to myself this

coffee will be ruined now how can I go

on because of that awkward thing that

happened at that summit in another

country let me tentatively taste my

coffee wait a minute this coffee tastes

exactly the same as yesterday my clothes

are not on fire and I still have my job

I'm

pretty sure it was the end of the world

this week why is everything looked the

same am I already dead am I in heaven

why is nothing worse

CNN told me things were worse but my

coffee tastes exactly the same

it's not even dripping out of the bottom

of the cup how could this be how can I

explain my world my world doesn't make

sense so the president's critics have

some good points to make they're not

necessarily completely making up news

and there are criticisms of what

happened at the first summit are not

completely off base they just are

completely unimportant did he say would

or wouldn't it doesn't really matter did

he say know about putin's meddling and

cyber cyber cyber ways it doesn't really

matter we know what he thinks we know

what the government thinks we know what

his strategy is it's a good strategy and

seems to be heading in the right

direction do we care that Dan Coates was

surprised about the information and that

he was not consulted on something that

his opinion would not have mattered in

any way nope

coffee still tastes the same now if

President Trump and Putin succeed in

calming the Middle East getting a good

result in North Korea maybe even taking

down their nuclear threats toward each

other

is anybody goo remember any of this will

the will the historians say just imagine

think of the future it's a year from now

and there's tremendous progress on

everything nuclear from you know Iran to

North Korea to the US and and Russian

stockpiles will the historians say yeah

they made tremendous progress working

together but we can't get over that wood

and wooden thing and we were shocked

that dan coates was surprised about

something at an event

somewhere no historians will not

remember any of that they will not care

so what do we expect out of this

upcoming summit first of all it's

classic Trump to media once he has all

of this energy yeah there was so much

hair on fire and reporting and yeah and

explaining that he took all of this

energy and then he refocused it as he

does I've told you the 50% of persuasion

is just keeping your attention because

whatever your attention is on you will

eventually convince yourself is more

credible more important than whatever

else you were thinking of because you're

just focused on so now we're focused on

this summit and the president has has

brought into focus well let me yeah let

me tell you something else that connects

a few dots remember I kept telling I

keep telling you for two years now or so

that the president likes to shake the

box

whenever the variables are not lined up

in a way that's good for him he'll shake

the box and if he still doesn't get it

what he wants he'll shake again and

he'll shake again and I've said that

only he can shake the box and he can do

it as many times as he needs to

until the variables light up the way he

wants and that other people can't shake

the box so they have a big disadvantage

they can't shake the box because they

can't take the heat you watch the

president shake the hell out of the

Russia box by having the summit and

didn't go exactly the way people planned

and what happened because he shook that

box what variables are different there

are some important variables that got

shifted around in the box here's the

most important variable how important

did you think it was had a few years ago

or even six months ago the Russian cyber

meddling you probably thought it was

important but if you are going to make

if I ask you make a list of your top 20

things that you think are the important

things in the world

where would Russia's cyber meddling and

and just Russia's bad acting in the

world where would that be in your top 20

just you know six months ago probably

about that high

now I'm not gonna argue that it should

be higher in the priorities but I will

tell you that it is so the president has

taken this lower level you know second

tier priority in the public's mind I'm

not saying it's not important I'm not

saying that our experts are wrong about

the you know that the incredible risk

there is I'm just saying that in the

public's mind it just was sort of down

the list somewhere it was way after the

economy way after North Korea and where

is it right now top of the headlines is

it more important because we're talking

about it and focusing on it and and

Trump has created a lot of energy around

it

well it didn't get more important it

just got more attention and what is that

duck it has it has hardened the American

public's opinion against Trump I'm sorry

yeah well that half the half the public

is against Trump but at the same time

whether or not they're against Trump

separately the entire public left and

right is against Putin and specifically

against him messing with us that level

of energy that variable is new Trump

shook the box until the public left and

right lined up with him against an

external threat now he's not treating it

as an external threat he's playing his

smarter he's saying two things be our

friend be our friend being our friend is

great it's great you know the key the

proverbial carrot hey it's a delicious

carrot I've got the best carrots our

carrots are awesome you

should have a carrot would you like a

carrot so he's got the carrot part

better than anybody's ever done it and

remember the importance of contrast it's

not enough to say will hurt you if you

don't want do what we want you also need

the big contrast play which is and if

you do what we like oh my god we could

change the world you could be one of the

greatest leaders of all time mr. Putin

which is true by the way completely true

Putin has this amazing place in the

world right now where he can be despite

anything he's been you know accused of

true or not

he is the center of history right now

and he can either become one of the

greatest leaders even with his laws I'm

not I'm not discounting any of the bad

stuff you know we all know what it is we

could we can all make our list of bad

Putin behavior but if he decides to go

legit if you will and work with Trump on

denuclearizing and is productive in the

Middle East and all that he becomes one

of the greatest leaders in history it

will really be amazing

Trump has created that and if nothing if

if Putin had simply played well with us

before you know let's say a year ago or

before Trump let's say would Putin have

gotten as much credit not really he just

would have been a bad guy that we pushed

into helping us somehow or or or he's

just not even part of the important part

of the story you see he's a he's just a

footnote but Trump has elevated him to

the center stage and put the entire

focus of you know the of the American

public on Putin Putin now has something

to gain and something to lose that just

didn't exist before at least not and

that scale not in that level of

importance but Trump has created an

asset and of nothing how many times have

you heard me say that he has conjured up

an asset out of nothing but psychology

and you know persuasion in which Putin

has a huge thing to gain

being one of the most important leaders

of all history if he partners with Trump

a or one of the biggest losers of all of

history because the president has also

made it clear that he would be Putin's

worst enemy

what does he mean by that it means it

means what you think it doesn't mean war

in all likelihood because I don't think

we'd be that dumb but does it mean that

Putin's going to have a successful

leadership for the rest of his time on

this earth it does not Putin would not

have a good rest of his life and and

Trump would make sure that very very

cleanly and decisively

I believe nobody believes that Trump

would forget about it if he gets screwed

here and and nobody would feel bad if he

returned the favor in a very aggressive

way so so we have this situation where

the variables are now different the the

American public is aligned against Putin

so if if things went bad and the

president said look we're going to have

to get super rough on Russia because the

Putin he's got the public on his side

now both left and right how often does

that happen

so the variables are not what they were

the variables even because and here's

the here's the coincidence or or not

part because the first summit was

reported widely reported to be not good

on a number of levels that brought all

the attention exactly where Trump needs

it to set the table for the second

meeting how would you like to be Putin

and walk into the summit in October and

have nothing to offer think about it

imagine Putin's showing up in Washington

and having nothing to offer and imagine

that you know it's been a few more

months of bad behavior and he's just

walking into the White House doing

nothing for us how does that meeting

going to go

how's the rest of Putin's life gonna go

not so well

so yeah it would make Putin look foolish

there's also a very important thing

going on that I'm gonna call the bro

code for the women who are watching this

this will be a mysterious conversation

in which you will not completely

understand what's going on here probably

some of you might you've heard something

called the bro code there's sort of a an

understood way that men deal with other

men that is different than the way men

would deal with let's say a crowd

different than they would deal with a

family member different than they would

deal with a woman no matter what the

relationship was two men have sort of an

understanding that's just built into

culture and experience that there are

some rules at play that are not written

down into her here's one of the rules

President Trump took a lot of heat to

help rehabilitate Putin in other words

to allow Putin to even stand on the

world stage President Trump had to eat

about a mile of in public presence

so even though President Trump you know

has doubled down and said yes Russia you

know did a lot of cyber stuff but metals

in the election he's confirmed that a

number of times but in public and when

he talks about Putin he's giving him all

kinds of forgiveness if you can call it

that and I would get rid of this guy

he's giving him all kinds of respect

Putin because of the bro code

owes Trump a favor he owes him a favor

this has nothing to do with politics it

has nothing to do with has nothing to do

with

diplomacy it has a lot to do it has a

lot to do with just the bro code there's

just a way that people that to two males

work with each other

now if Putin violates what we want as a

country he's yeah he's in a lot of

trouble if Putin top of that violates

the bro code in other words if he just

screws the president who just gave him

space and protected him essentially in

public if Putin does that he's crossed

the line that you can't uncross and I

think he knows it so I would expect a

favorable result in October but it will

be reported as if it's the end of the

world coming by the enemy press Trump

begged himself yes sort of yes so the

you saw it the last summit there was

this talk about hey what if Muller goes

over to Russia and talks to the suspects

in the in the election meddling in

return what if some Russian law

enforcement people of some sort come to

the United States and on our soil we'll

talk to some people related to that bill

Browder situation now the experts the

diplomats said oh you can't do that you

can't you can't give up our diplomats

just because your your your Putin's best

friend you know you can never give up an

ambassador you know or or a diplomat you

got it you got to keep that diplomatic

immunity going well here's the thing

that whole offer of you know exchanging

people none of that was real neither

Putin nor Trump could have possibly

thought that was a good idea but it

sounded good it was you know something

you say in public and it sounded like oh

that's reasonable

I guess well that's better than nothing

but when you come right down to it what

would that look like keeping in mind

that the laws of the other

don't apply you know in a foreign land

so what's the worst-case scenario for

whoever Russia wants to talk to here's

the worst-case scenario that person goes

to a meeting in which there's heavy

security and talks to their Russian law

enforcement and the Russian law

enforcement says here's my question and

the diplomat says I'm not going to

answer that and then they ask another

question and diplomat says I'm not going

to answer that

etc until the Russian the Russian legal

whoever they are just leaves now what

recourse does Russia have if the

diplomat just says I'm in America and I

don't really have to answer your

question that's it

and there's security standing there and

you're in America you're perfectly safe

that's it that's the whole meeting the

whole meeting is just the diplomats

saying I'm not going to talk to you now

could the diplomat talk to the Russians

and answer their questions if they

wanted to well they could but it would

be stupid because the right the right

approach is to create a precedent there

yeah you can come over take a flight

over you could be in the room with me

and my heaviest security but I'm never

going to answer a question for a foreign

country it's just not going to happen so

likewise if Muller goes over to talk to

the Russians you would assume that the

Russians would lie about everything or

just not answer questions and it

wouldn't matter because Muller has no

power he can't indict them you can't you

can't find them guilty of obstruction of

justice so it's a toothless ridiculous

offer that they exchange people just I

think it was designed to sound like

there was something that wasn't nothing

but it was closer to nothing than

something giving Tony Podesta immunity

yeah I saw something about that story

but I don't know enough about it or what

the implication of that is but it does

look like

yeah yeah Manafort some big troll why

are you assuming it's on home soil Scott

because and no American would go to a

neutral place to talk to Russian law

enforcement about something they don't

want to talk to there's no law that

would force them to do it and they

certainly wouldn't do it willingly this

is part of an existing treaty with

Russia makes sense all right that's all

for now I got to do some stuff I'll talk

to you later bye