Episode 2837 CWSA 05/12/25

Come on in here.

Let's uh check the stock market to see if Holy cow, it's a good day in the stock market.

I hope you have some.

Well, let me get ready for the show.

Looking at your comments.

Looking good.

There must be a lot of good news today.

What do you think?

Good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization.

It's called Coffee with Scott Adams and you never had a better time.

But if you'd like to take a chance, I'm making this experience even better than you could ever even imagine with your tiny shiny brain.

All you need is a cover mug or a glass of tanker cheline a canteen jugger flask vessel.

Uh, what kind?

Any kind.

Fill it with your favorite liquid.

I like coffee.

And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine day of the day.

The thing that makes everything better.

It's called the simultaneous sip.

And it happens now.

That's good stuff.

Well, let's start with the ridiculous and get to the sublime.

from the ridiculous to the sublime.

According to News Nation, um UFO hit a US fighter jet.

Pilots flying over Arizona said they they saw swarm swarms swarms I say of weird flying objects and one of them smashed into a F-16.

I guess the pilot's okay.

Um, but the FAA confirmed it and uh, former Pentagon UFO guy says uh, Arizona's been buzzing with sightings near the border.

But some people say it's just the cartels drones.

I'm going to go with cartel drones.

That would be my guess.

Uh, I do not think the aliens are at the border.

Why?

Why would the aliens even be there of all places for them to be?

Well, according to Eric and Dolan and Sai Post, did you know that left-wing authoritarians are less likely to support f um physically strong men as their leaders?

So, if you're a left-wing person, you don't like leaders that are physically strong.

But if you're a right-wing person, you like them strong.

How many people are surprised by that?

Not, you know, I really think that politics is just a difference in testosterone sometimes, at least, you know, the the male version of politics.

Uh I can't judge for women, but for men, it's kind of testosterone.

The Republicans are high testosterone.

the Democrats with low testosterone and everything else is just rationalization.

That's what I think.

Well, did you know that the weight loss drugs um laglutide and saglutide um make a huge difference in reducing your alcohol consumption without any extra effort.

So the patients say it doesn't take any effort.

They just don't want as much alcohol.

So that's good.

This is more evidence that willpower is fake and imaginary.

Uh that's the hypnotist frame.

If you're a hypnotist, you learn that people make decisions based on whatever hormonal soup is bubbling up in their bodies.

And then after they made the decision, they layered over it with a rationalization.

Oh yeah, the reason I did that was this.

But it's really just chemical reaction.

So once you learn that willpower is fake and that just some people like things more than others.

How hard is it for me to avoid alcohol?

It's easy because I didn't like it that much.

How how hard is it or was it when I was more active?

How hard was it for me to exercise every day?

Not hard at all because I liked it.

If I didn't like it, it probably would have been nearly impossible.

So, no, willpower doesn't exist.

There's just stuff you like and stuff you don't like.

And that's usually just chemical and cause and effect and the structure of your brain and has nothing to do with anything else.

Um, here's some good news.

And wow, I was worried about this for a while, but it turns out that the new pope, Pope Leo, um he's calling for peace in Gaza and Ukraine.

Yes, I was so worried that the Pope would be pro-war, but no.

Turns out we got lucky again.

It's like I don't know how many popes in a row, but our luck is really holding.

They all seem to be anti-war.

And every time they announce it, I say to myself, "Boy, that could have gone either way." But it turns out that the Pope has a brother.

Have you all checked out the news about the Pope's brother?

This is the problem with having an American pope.

He's got an American brother.

And the American brother is super mega.

And I guess he's so mega.

The Gateway Pundits reporting that uh he not too long ago shared on X, I guess he shared a video calling uh Nancy Pelosi a drunk uh c-word.

So a drunken c-word.

And he mocks the quote crying libs with Trump derangement syndrome.

So, he's uh not just a little bit mega, but he's he's like way mega.

Now, if you don't think this is going to be fun, I immediately looked for his X account, but I couldn't find it.

So, is he posting somewhere else?

Maybe not on X, but I want to follow him so badly.

Well, I I was also interested to see if he followed me because it'd be fun if the Pope's brother followed you on X, but I did not see his account.

So, if anybody if anybody knows what his actual account is, I saw three that looked fake.

You know, they were too small for for that.

But if somebody knows which one is his, can you alert me to it?

I'd love to follow him.

Well, let's talk about the great cocaine hoax.

Um, some of you saw a video of uh um French President Mcronone and British Prime Minister Starmer and uh German Chancellor MS.

They were all together on a table.

It looked like it was on a train maybe or on a maybe some kind of a jet, but they were uh sitting at a table and the the photographers came in, the videographers, I guess, and uh you saw Mcronone grab this little rolled up tissue and sort of take it, you know, surreptitiously away.

And then you saw MS uh grab some little thing that people are calling a a coke spoon and uh and you know kind of hiding it from the cameras.

Now why in the world would you think a baldup tissue is where somebody was holding their cocaine?

It didn't look like cocaine to me.

And and that little thing that they call a cocaine spoon.

You really couldn't tell what it was.

I mean, it could have been a could have been, I don't know, a straw that he he was playing with or something, but uh it looked to me like they were just making the table look less messy and they were just preparing for the photo shoot, I guess.

So, I would say that's fake news.

I'm not No, I'm not saying that they're not all coked up.

That might be true.

Well, I don't know.

Maybe.

But, uh, it didn't it didn't look like a cocaine anything to me.

So, I'm going to say that's most likely a hoax.

Well, Hamas has decided to uh help Trump get a little distance between Israel and Trump.

Kind of cleverly, Hamas is going to release uh the American the remaining living American hostage, Eden Alexander.

So, that's going to happen today, I guess.

And uh that was Trump's victory.

So Trump gets some victory in getting the last American hostage out.

Now the Israelis of course would wish that more Israelis had been released, but I think you can see this as a clever Hamas move to put a little distance between America and Israel and it worked.

So you but you could also see that Trump seems to be willing to do things that are good for America and Americans even if Israel doesn't love it.

So there's definitely a new world out there.

Uh Trump is certainly going his own way and probably never appreciated all the people who said that, you know, the government is a puppet of Israel because at the moment it doesn't look like it.

At the moment, it looks like Trump's doing his own thing and Israel is going to have to do their own thing.

We'll be allies, of course, but uh not not singing from the same uh song sheet or whatever that whatever that saying is.

So, Trump gets the win uh just at the time he's getting ready to go to the Middle East to do some deals.

So, he's looking good there.

Um, Trump is also signing, I think today, if he hasn't already done it, might be any minute now, he's going to sign an executive order to lower pharmaceutical um costs.

And the executive order will require the drug companies to offer the pharmaceuticals to American consumers at the lowest price that they sell it anywhere.

So if if the Albonians are paying less than we are, then we get the Albonian price.

Now, I didn't know you could do that with an executive order, but I guess he's going to try.

So, this will be funny because will this cause the Democrats to be in favor of higher prices for pharmaceuticals?

And how are they going to explain that Biden couldn't do this if it works?

I mean, I imagine there'll be some kind of challenges from the pharmaceutical people, but it turns out it gets kind of complicated because there are things called PBMs.

How many of you would even know what that is?

A PBM.

It's a pharmacy benefit manager.

And it's this big middleman entity that is between the the pharmaceutical companies and the big health care companies and even the government Medicaid and everything else.

So that the these middle people, these pharmacy benefit managers or PVMs, they uh I had to go to Grock to find out exactly what they do.

But they uh they manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance plans and employers, etc.

And they act as a middleman between drug manufacturers, pharmacies, uh insurers, and patients.

And here's the key.

With the goal of controlling costs and administering drug coverage and they play a significant role in the US prescription drug supply chain, but but they're often criticized for opaque practices that can inflate costs.

So the pharmaceutical companies immediately said, "Wait, don't blame us for these high costs.

It's because the middlemen are sort of inflating the costs.

Now, that seems to be partly true, meaning that there's no doubt that the middleman is getting a cut.

And it's also true that they're opaque, meaning that if you ask them for details of what they do or why they do it, or can you show me your price sheet or they won't show you that stuff.

So, so they operate as a big black hole and there does seem to be some indication that they're part of the problem uh of the higher prices.

Now, you might say, well, they're a middle band, so they're supposed to take their cut, which is true, but you can't really monitor whether their cut makes sense or it's too high because if you try to ask them questions, you would get nothing.

It's just a big black hole.

Now, this is where Mark Cuban um becomes a valuable citizen.

So, you might know that Mark Cuban has his own um discount uh pharma drug company that he's been promoting lately.

I think it's cost plus cost plus drugs.

Hope I have the name right.

And he weighed in on this and he had a lot to say about the PBMs, these these middlemen.

Now, I won't read you his whole uh his whole uh explanation of how bad they are, but if any of what he said about them is true, and I think it is, they're pretty bad.

And so, there's some kind of some kind of fix that will be needed for these PBMs.

Uh if we just let Well, I guess it's a free market, so they can do what they want.

But uh you should uh you should see what Mark Cuban says about them because if you're trying to understand the whole pharmaceutical why are our prices so high he he's got a lot that contributes to that.

So um I think he should be you should really pay attention to him on this topic because it's one that he knows a lot about.

Well, so that's, you know, that's going to make the prices come down.

So, uh, the, uh, in other news, Futurism is reporting that the FDA is going to start using AI to speed up the, uh, approval of drugs.

Now, you might say to yourself, "But wait, AI hallucinates?

Is AI going to say my drug is safe when it isn't?" Well, they're they're still going to have to check the work of the AI to make sure it's not hallucinating, but apparently you can speed through the analysis and do in minutes what would take days for a human to do.

So, I don't know if they have a lot of uh wrinkles they have to iron out of this, but they seem to be very optimistic about it.

It does seem to me that it's the perfect application for AI because it's, you know, wildly complicated every time there's a new trial and a new drug and all the rest.

So, yeah, AI to accelerate the FDA approvals.

Probably there's going to be some problems, you know, because it's such a big change, but I feel like we have to get there.

I mean, it seems like that's exactly the place AI should make a difference.

Breitbart is reporting that uh Trump signed four bills on Friday where he's rolling back some Biden regulations on uh appliances like water heaters and refrigerators and walk-in coolers and some other household appliances.

Now, the the Biden regulations were, of course, to reduce uh energy consumption, I believe, and uh so Trump's rolling that back.

So, that would lower the cost of those devices.

So, now we've got Trump lowering the cost of big pharma, lowering the cost of household appliances, lowering the cost of eggs, gas, and a lot of other things.

So, uh, an energy, I guess.

So, it's going to be hard to hard to ignore that.

So, Trump is having the week of all weeks.

I mean, I I'm just still going that the list gets longer, but I don't think any president has ever had this good a week because he's really nailing it this week.

Um, but I'll tell you what isn't working is the Republicans are trying to wrap up their big beautiful bill, the the budget.

Everything about this budget effort looks fake and theatrical and performative.

I don't believe anything that's coming out of him.

I don't think they're going to give Trump half of or even three quarter.

Well, I don't think they'll give him a quarter of what he wants.

Um, I think that they will just kick the can down the road, add to the budget deficit, and lead us toward doom.

Um, I don't know what's going to stop it, but they're pretending to have this markup session in which they're going to do a bunch of good things.

It's all theater.

I I just don't believe any of it.

But uh at least one subset of the Republicans, I guess this would be I forget which group it is, but they're they're looking at steep cuts to Medicaid.

And so I said to myself, what Trump said no cuts to Medicaid?

Why are they going to ruin his big bill and the biggest thing he said, which is no cuts to Medicaid?

So, it looks like they've got all these weasel freaking tricks to lower the cost of Medicaid by finding clever ways to deny it to people, basically.

So, one of the clever ways to deny it to people, now this is not this is not a done deal.

These are just proposals that we think we're going to see.

Um, one of them would be a work requirement.

So, you couldn't get Medicaid unless you were in school or doing some public service of some kind or working.

And that alone would deny it to, they think, six million people.

So, the Democrats will say accurately, wait a minute, you've just installed some clever trick to deny 6 million people Medicaid.

Republicans will say, "All we ask is that they do something useful for the country so that the country can do something useful for them." It's not a terrible argument, but it's going to look like they cut Medicaid.

So, can Republicans survive that an obvious trick to cut Medicaid?

Because, you know, those people aren't all going to work.

What are they going to do?

go to the hospital and still get medical care and not and have the hospital cover it.

So, there's that.

And then apparently the bill, and again, this is just first drafts, so it doesn't mean it's real, would require some beneficiaries to pay more for their care.

I guess that would be income based.

And there were some other clever tricks in there.

All of it just looks like pure weasel theatrics.

Uh I am completely disappointed in the Republicans.

Just completely disappointed that to me the most important thing we had to get right was cutting the budget.

It looks like nothing like that's going to happen because I don't think that Trump's going to sign off on something that definitely looks like cutting Medicaid.

You know, you could argue all day, well, we have reasons.

And no, no, no, we're not cutting it because anybody can get it.

They just have to do some public service.

But, you know, the the bottom line will be the Democrats will accurately say he's cutting Medicaid for some people.

It'll be a lot of people, be millions.

I don't have a better idea, by the way, but it's their job to do the budget, not mine.

So, I think I think we're all going to be disappointed with whatever the Republicans have.

I'm not even sure that they're going to have no tax on tips and no tax on social security and all those other things Trump wanted.

I don't think he'll get any of that.

I I think that they're just going to say no on all of that.

We'll see.

Well, Apple is apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, um thinking about raising the price of their i.

Phones, but without blaming tariffs.

Uh Apple is kind of a clever company in terms of how they cover their public relations.

They they've always been good at it, but uh they don't want to blame China because that would be trouble.

And they don't want to blame Trump because that would be trouble.

So they want to raise their prices because of tariffs, but they want to make it look like it's not because of tariffs.

So the only way to do that would be if you somehow added some extra features and you go, "Oh yeah, these extra features are worth a I don't know few hundred more." So we'll see what they do.

But my big question would be, what would Steve Jobs do in this situation?

Would Steve Jobs be handling this completely differently in some out of the box way that we can't imagine?

I feel like he would, but of course I can't, you know, guess what he would have done because that's what made him Steve Jobs and we're not Steve Jobs.

But I feel like he would have handled this whole tariff China stuff differently.

I just don't know how.

Well, Democrats are uh continuing their uh lame approach to politics.

Uh now they've added to their oligarchs that they're that they want to keep habius corpus.

Now, if you were to do a survey of people on the street and say, "Are you a Democrat?" Yes.

Uh what's an oligarch?

Well, I don't know.

What's habius corpus?

I never heard of it.

So they're so they're they're betting on words that their base doesn't even know what they mean.

So I love this.

Let's do more let's more more oligarchic and habius corpus.

If you can get them to talk about that all day long and then look at Trump.

I cut your pharmaceutical costs.

I freed a hostage.

I'm going to bring a trillion dollars back in investments from the Middle East.

What part of that don't you understand?

It's just so simple.

And then you go to the Democrats and they're like, "Well, we we oppose the oligarchs and we want to make sure that we keep Amy Corpus for the MS-13 guys." Well, and everybody else, it's so lame.

And then then what about the chaos?

If you were to ask the person in the street, where's the chaos happening?

Now, they might say Doge, but have you noticed that Elon Musk has quite cleverly removed himself from all political conversation?

It used to be that every time I got on X, there would be very political pro.

Trump um posts pretty much every day.

But I think he's completely pulled himself out of politics and he's just doing Tesla related posts and stuff and Tesla stock is way up based on the fact that he's focusing on, you know, the nuts and bolts that he's getting out of politics.

So that's good.

That's good.

Meanwhile, uh James Carville and Roana, they're trying to distance themselves from a uh some comments made by uh what's her name?

Uh Elon Omar.

So, I guess in 2018, she made some comments about uh white people and that video has reemerged.

And I guess the comments were originally in an interview with Medi Hassan and Omar stated uh I would say our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country.

And and then uh Carville is trying to distance himself and say we need less of that and blah blah blah.

And I'm thinking to myself, look at what Trump is talking about.

Even if he doesn't get it done, he's talking about cutting your taxes and freeing hostages and ending wars and lowering pharma costs.

That's what Trump's talking about, sealing the border.

and and Carville's talking about a 2018 video where where somebody his team was being a racist.

You that's the biggest difference you could even imagine between the two parties.

And uh but at least uh Elon Omar finally explained to me why people hide when I enter the room.

I didn't realize I was that scary.

But apparently as a white man, I am one of the scariest people in the country.

So that explains why people get under their tables and run away when I enter.

I always wondered about that.

Here's some more bad news for Democrats.

Apparently, the House Judiciary Committee is going to interview Jack Smith's uh lead prosecutor who did the Mara Lago uh box gate.

You know, the when uh Trump was accused of having all these uh boxes of stuff.

And you know, we've heard enough about that story to believe that there's something there.

There's something sketchy there.

It could be that it was being directed by the White House.

Uh it could be that it wasn't a purely um let's say legal problem.

Could be that there were politics pushing it.

So, the lead prosecutor probably knows where all the bodies are buried on this story and will be under oath and we might find out some really interesting things about the Biden administration.

Now, I don't know for sure and if it's like everything else, nobody's going to go to jail.

But it's going to be yet another bad news cycle for Democrats because there's nothing good that can come out of that story except for Republicans.

According to the Rasmmanson poll, Trump's overall approval rating is 50% with likely voters.

Um, but here are some subcategories on that poll that are mind-blowing.

He's got, according to Rasmmanson, Hispanic supporters as 62%.

And black at 39%.

If those numbers are real, and I'm I'm kind of skeptical about that.

That would be just mind-blowing.

You know, it could be real, but do you think Hispanic support for Trump is 62%?

Now, this would be likely voters, so it wouldn't wouldn't count any immigrant communities.

Could be.

You know, I've been telling you for a while that if you didn't think that the Hispanics would would back uh Trump, then you you haven't been involved or you haven't had exposure to the Hispanic community.

If you have exposure to the Hispanic community, no surprise at all.

It's totally non-surprising if you've had any conversations with that group.

Well, speaking of Tesla, uh Tesla's robo taxi, which is where a Tesla with full self-driving can become a taxi, um I guess it's called Project Alicorn.

And um this uh feature will quietly appear on Tesla's mobile app code.

And uh so they're looking at a June roll out.

So listen to this.

Um that your car, if you had a Tesla and you wanted to have it double as a taxi, you could come home from work if your car is charged up, I guess, and just activate the app and park your car on the street and it would act like a robo taxi.

So, it would just take off from its parking space, go pick somebody up, uh deliver them to their location, and uh I guess go back and park where it was, and you can make $10 to $30,000 a year just while your car is working for you.

Now, apparently the initial fleet will launch in Austin with 10 to 20 cars, but it's going to scale up really fast.

And here's some of the uh I saw this was on a Mario post.

I guess the source was a user called G.

Filch.

Now, I can't I can't uh vouch for these numbers, but here's what one person estimated.

So that here's the math of it that if you look at Whimo, the competitor, they've got 1,500 robo taxis and they already generate $250 million in revenue.

I guess that's per year, but that's not enough for Whimo to make money.

I guess they have higher costs.

Um, and now if you were to look at Tesla, if they could get up to a 100,000 robo taxis, um, based on the likely charge that there would be for a ride, etc., they would make 2.9 billion in pure profit annually.

And that's just the start.

So the number of billions of dollars that these robo taxes could make, it's a big number.

because you could easily get to millions.

So you're looking at, you know, 2050 billion dollars a year ju just for the robo taxis.

Amazing.

We'll see if that happens.

Meanwhile, uh, as you know, Trump's going to the Middle East to talk to a bunch of countries.

But as the news is reporting, uh, the Trump family has a number of business deals over in the Middle East.

Um, Trump thinks he'll come back with a trillion dollars in commitments to invest in the United States from the Middle East.

If he does, that's going to be pretty impressive.

We'll see.

Axios is reporting that.

Um, but the Wall Street Journal is talking about the Trump family business connections to the Middle East.

And I think I think this is important because these do feel um they do feel like it should at least be fully transparent, which I think it is.

I think it's fully transparent.

So, I'd worry more if uh you know, if we didn't know something about it.

But for example um in the past year uh some Trump branded residential towers have been launched in Dubai and Jedha and and then there's also a Trump luxury golf resort that's being um launched in Cutter.

Now here's what you need to know.

These are Trump branded properties, meaning that he just licenses his name, but the ownership of the property is whoever built it, I guess.

So, Trump does two kinds of business.

One is he does build his own resorts and stuff, but he also just licenses his name to other people who are going to do it.

So, uh, are you comfortable with him doing business as the president with these same countries where there are very large investments that benefit the Trump family?

I'm not fully comfortable with that.

But on the other hand, should they be denied the ability to do what they normally do because this is completely normal business for them.

They license their name.

Do you think that there would be this many Trump branded properties if he were not president of the United States?

I kind of doubt it.

I doubt it.

Um, so you have to worry about that.

Um, and there's something about the UAE and the royal family fund and something about Trump related crypto stable coins that I don't understand, but it looks it looks like something to worry about, something to keep an eye on.

And uh, then on top of that, the Qataris have offered to I won't say give.

Yeah, I guess it's a gift um a gift to the United States of a plane that would replace Air Force One.

Now, you might say to yourself, why do you need to do that?

Well, the Air Force Ones that we have, I think there might be two of them, but they're like 35 to 40 years old.

And Trump has had an order in for a new one for a long time, but it looks like it'll be 7 to 10 years before the the new ones get built.

So, you'd never be able to see the benefits.

But the Qataris have a plane that apparently they're willing to part with a new one.

And uh they said, "Why don't we give it to the Air Force?" So, it's not Trump's gift exactly.

It' be given to the Air Force and then somehow later it would be donated to the Trump Library for his use.

So, that seems a little sketchy.

So, feels a little like you'd be getting a free airplane.

And uh so you got that going on.

So I'm I'm going to say the same thing about all these Trump deals.

They all make me uncomfortable.

The Qatari plane definitely makes me uncomfortable.

Um, and on top of that, uh, as you know, Jared Kushner is doing his own investing and he's he's gotten some co-investors from three of the, uh, the Middle East countries.

What?

Yeah, three states.

I guess three states have committed more than three and a half billion to his private equity fund.

So, that makes me uncomfortable.

But, it's all it's all transparent.

It's all completely legal.

It just makes me uncomfortable.

Um, and then it's sort of semi-related things.

or some investments that uh would be good for Elon Musk such as the Saudi prince Al Wid Binelli El Saud who's a nephew of the king is an investor in X AI which is um Elon Musk's AI company.

So but that's normal.

He's he's just a gigantic investor who does a lot of investing in American companies.

So again, completely transparent, but makes me uncomfortable.

Now, the the only thing I can say that would be softening all these deals is that Trump is the one person who can take your money and then screw you if he needs to.

So, if he were anyone but Trump, you would have to worry more that they they just bought his cooperation.

But I think Trump could take their money and still throw them under the bus if they did something that required that.

But you can't guarantee it.

So in terms of buying influence, I do think they're buying influence.

But there are also countries that, you know, we have a lot of influence on as well.

So I don't know.

I I I'll just say that uh any Democrat criticism on this domain probably probably makes sense, but there's no smoking gun or anything that he's done wrong or that there's there's nothing that looks illegal and it's all completely transparent and it's business as usual for the most part.

It's stuff that they would be doing as normal business, you know, licensing the Trump name, etc.

But like I said, they probably get more offers because he's president.

That's not a coincidence.

So, we we're going to hear a lot more about this Qatari plane.

I think Congress says they have to approve it.

I think the Democrats are going to complain so much that it gets killed.

If I had to guess, it's not more than a 50% chance that that that Qatari plane will actually become something that Trump's riding on.

I I think there'll be enough screaming and kicking from Democrats um or maybe even Republicans would think it looks wrong.

In another news, you know what birthright citizenship is, right?

So that question is coming to the Supreme Court now.

Birthright citizenship is uh the in the constitution and it means that if you're born in this country with very rare exceptions um you are a citizen automatically.

You just have to be born here.

Now Trump wanted to uh end that.

So you've got some legal challenges to the ending of it and uh it's going to go to the Supreme Court.

Now, if you're like me, you say and and you've read the actual language of the Constitution, it doesn't look like there's any wiggle room at all.

To me, it looks like the Constitution is super clear.

If you're born here, you know, with with some exceptions that aren't relevant to this, if you're born here, you're a citizen.

Now, I'm not saying that's good or bad.

I'm just saying that when I read the Constitution, it looks kind of cut and dried, like there's no there's no way you could challenge it.

But of course, that's what lawyers are for.

They always have a way to challenge everything.

And here's the way they're going to challenge it.

So, the citizenship clause um says it applies to children born in the USA who are quote subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

Now, that would uh disqualify, for example, a diplomat's child.

So, if they were a diplomat working in the United States, the diplomats are not subject to our laws.

So, a diplomat can break a law in America and we don't do anything about it because they're not subject to our laws.

But their child is also therefore since it's not subject to our jurisdiction, their child is not automatically an American.

And I think there are some Native American exceptions, etc.

But, uh, here's how they're trying to argue that this subject to the jurisdiction thereof applies to the immigrant population.

And they say it's analogous to Native Americans.

And you know, you know what I always say about analogies?

Analogies are not arguments.

So if all you have is analogous, you don't have anything.

So, forget about analogous.

Let's go to the stronger part.

Um, and they're saying that uh the noncitizens are I guess this would be the babies too are are intentionally entered the country without authorization and likewise refuse to quote formally present themselves to American authorities.

So, does that make you subject to the jurisdiction thereof?

Well, to me, this is the worst argument ever.

And I'm not even a lawyer because the subject to the jurisdiction thereof is more about America thinks you're subject to our jurisdiction.

It's not about what the immigrant thinks.

If the imi if the immigrant comes in and they act like they're not subject to our jurisdiction or they think they're not, that has nothing to do with anything.

They don't get a vote.

It It's up to America.

So, if we say you are subject to our jurisdiction and if we catch you doing illegal things, we're going to put you in jail, I think that's the end of the story, right?

It's not up to them if they're subject to our jurisdiction.

So to me, it looks like there's no chance that Trump can prevail in the birthright citizenship.

And again, I'm not giving you an opinion on whether they should or should not.

It just looks like the argument is terrible.

And you know, again, I'm I'm not a lawyer, so I could be wrong, but it looks terrible to me.

According to Elon Musk, Doge has discovered a 100,000 active federal employees who are also collecting unemployment insurance.

Jim Haft and the Gateway Pundits writing about that.

Now, um I think I've told you before that my current uh view is that I'm not going to believe any of the Doge claims.

I'll just tell you that that claim is out there, but probably it's not exactly what it looks like.

I don't know.

So, I think it's better and and this is not something brand new.

It's something that uh Musk said a little while ago.

Um, so I think that Musk is smart to stay quiet on all the political stuff which he's been doing, but I'm I'm skeptical of all the Doge claims that sound a little too clever.

You know, that one's just a little too on the nose.

You know, might be true, but there there have been so many of the Doge claims that sort of didn't pan out that I'm just going to say, well, that's what he claims.

Apparently India and Pakistan their ceasefire seems to be holding.

It didn't hold at first but now it is.

That would look like a victory for Trump because the American um I think Marco Rubio and his team were working on making sure that Indian Pakistan didn't blow each other up.

Now the the the thing I would say about India and Pakistan is they really didn't want to be in a war.

They really really didn't want to be in a war because there's just no way that that's going to be good for either one of them.

But what they needed was the fake because they they needed some external thing to, you know, talk them off the roof so it didn't look like they were backing down.

So America just comes in with its book big footprint and says, "Hey, you guys knock it off.

We'll help you, you know, hold this ceasefire or something." So this is where America can really be useful.

Uh it was just something that Pakistan and India both needed.

They just needed somebody who wasn't either Pakistan or Indian to come in and put a big boot on it and say, you know, cut it out.

Now, that's not exactly what we did.

We were being helpful, but uh that's just a win.

If if the peace holds, I'd say that's an American win as well as obviously a bigger win for India and Pakistan.

Speaking of war, apparently President Zilinski says he's ready to meet Putin in Turkey.

So, um I don't know if there'll be any ceasefiring before then or during then, but Zalinski and Putin are going to meet and that of course would be uh good for America and uh certainly something that Trump has been pushing for.

get them to talk and it it gets America out of the conversation which is sort of perfect, you know, because I think we would just complicate things at this point.

So, those two just need to work it out.

I guess Germany's new government uh is already threatening um Russia that if they don't do a ceasefire, they're going to put new sanctions on them.

So, Germany is trying to be helpful there.

Um, yeah.

And, uh, of course, the Ukrainians and the and the Russians are just full-on drone war on the on the front.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I think you can see that this is one of the best weeks that Trump has ever had.

And uh if if half of these things go in the right direction, you know, if the the wars look like they're winding down, the prices of stuff look like they're winding down, and did I mention did I mention that uh China and the United States have agreed to delay for 90 days the big tariffs?

So, both countries have pulled back their tariffs.

Now, that that's probably the big reason the market is up.

And that's exactly what we wanted.

I I always say the the stupidest people in the comments are the ones who just say, "I don't understand the topic." Like like you couldn't fit a reason in there.

So anyway, uh Zalinsky had his pants on backwards.

Yeah, it looked like that in one of the pictures, but uh I think uh Scott Bassant probably did some good work.

I think the main thing is just to get China and the United States to think that they're negotiating productively.

Will that lead to anything good?

I don't know.

I saw Joel Pollock mention that it'll save Christmas um because there'll be enough toys for Christmas from China.

Um, but it also puts us in a stronger negotiating position than we've been in.

So, we have China's full attention.

They know that uh Trump would be willing to tariff the hell out of them.

Uh, but one of the things that Scott Bass said, and maybe this is the thing that China wanted the most, is that neither China nor the United States want to decouple.

So I wonder if China was just really afraid of decoupling because there are a lot of people in the United States who do want to decouple such as me.

Uh but there there are a number of industries etc like the the high-end Apple phones.

There's nobody else who can make them.

So the low-end ones I guess you can make in India but the high-end ones require more special processes or whatever and uh so so it looks like we're stuck with China and China is stuck with us on a bunch of different uh levels.

You know we we can't really quickly get all the pharmaceutical products.

We can't quickly get all the tech stuff, the the assembly.

We can't quickly get all the rare earth minerals, etc.

So, we're kind of stuck with each other for a while.

Um, and it looks like maybe we're heading in the right direction.

So, everything's looking good.

Probably the best week that Trump has ever had.

It's my guess.

And, uh, that's all I got for today.

I'm going to say a few words to the uh locals people privately and the rest of you.

I will see you tomorrow, same time, same place.

I hope for more good There's

Come on in here. Let's uh check the

stock market to see if Holy cow, it's a

good day in the stock market. I hope you

have

some. Well, let me get ready for the

show. Looking at your

comments. Looking

good. There must be a lot of good news

today. What do you

think? Good morning everybody and

welcome to the highlight of human

civilization. It's called Coffee with

Scott Adams and you never had a better

time. But if you'd like to take a

chance, I'm making this experience even

better than you could ever even imagine

with your tiny shiny brain. All you need

is a cover mug or a glass of tanker

cheline a canteen jugger flask vessel.

Uh, what kind? Any kind. Fill it with

your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And

join me now for the unparalleled

pleasure, the dopamine day of the day.

The thing that makes everything better.

It's called the simultaneous sip. And it

happens

now. That's good

stuff. Well, let's start with the

ridiculous and get to the sublime.

from the ridiculous to the

sublime. According to News Nation,

um UFO hit a US fighter

jet. Pilots flying over Arizona said

they they saw swarm swarms swarms I say

of weird flying objects and one of them

smashed into a

F-16. I guess the pilot's okay. Um, but

the FAA confirmed it and uh, former

Pentagon UFO guy says uh, Arizona's been

buzzing with sightings near the border.

But some people say it's just the

cartels

drones. I'm going to go with cartel

drones. That would be my guess. Uh, I do

not think the aliens are at the border.

Why? Why would the aliens even be there

of all places for them to

be? Well, according to Eric and Dolan

and Sai Post, did you know that

left-wing authoritarians are less likely

to support f

um physically strong men as their

leaders? So, if you're a left-wing

person, you don't like leaders that are

physically strong. But if you're a

right-wing person, you like them strong.

How many people are surprised by

that?

Not, you know, I really think that

politics is just a difference in

testosterone sometimes, at least, you

know, the the male version of politics.

Uh I can't judge for women, but for men,

it's kind of

testosterone. The Republicans are high

testosterone. the Democrats with low

testosterone and everything else is just

rationalization. That's what I

think. Well, did you know that the

weight loss drugs

um laglutide and saglutide

um make a huge difference in reducing

your alcohol

consumption without any extra effort. So

the patients say it doesn't take any

effort. They just don't want as much

alcohol. So that's good. This is more

evidence that willpower is fake and

imaginary. Uh that's the hypnotist

frame. If you're a hypnotist, you learn

that people make decisions based on

whatever hormonal soup is bubbling up in

their bodies. And then after they made

the decision, they layered over it with

a rationalization. Oh yeah, the reason I

did that was this. But it's really just

chemical

reaction. So once you learn that

willpower is fake and that just some

people like things more than others. How

hard is it for me to avoid

alcohol? It's easy because I didn't like

it that much.

How how hard is it or was it when I was

more active? How hard was it for me to

exercise every day? Not hard at all

because I liked it. If I didn't like it,

it probably would have been nearly

impossible. So, no, willpower doesn't

exist. There's just stuff you like and

stuff you don't like. And that's usually

just chemical and cause and effect and

the structure of your brain and has

nothing to do with anything

else. Um, here's some good news. And

wow, I was worried about this for a

while, but it turns out that the new

pope, Pope Leo,

um he's calling for peace in Gaza and

Ukraine.

Yes, I was so worried that the Pope

would be

pro-war, but no. Turns out we got lucky

again. It's like I don't know how many

popes in a row, but our luck is really

holding. They all seem to be

anti-war. And every time they announce

it, I say to

myself, "Boy, that could have gone

either

way." But it turns out that the Pope has

a

brother. Have you all checked out the

news about the Pope's

brother? This is the problem with having

an American

pope. He's got an American

brother. And the American brother is

super mega. And I guess he's so mega.

The Gateway Pundits reporting that uh he

not too long ago shared on X, I guess he

shared a video calling uh Nancy Pelosi a

drunk

uh

c-word. So a drunken

c-word. And he mocks the quote crying

libs with Trump derangement syndrome.

So, he's uh not just a little bit mega,

but he's he's like way mega. Now, if you

don't think this is going to be fun, I

immediately looked for his X account,

but I couldn't find it. So, is he

posting somewhere else? Maybe not on X,

but I want to follow him so badly. Well,

I I was also interested to see if he

followed me because it'd be fun if the

Pope's brother followed you on X, but I

did not see his account. So, if anybody

if anybody knows what his actual account

is, I saw three that looked fake. You

know, they were too small for for that.

But if somebody knows which one is his,

can you alert me to it? I'd love to

follow him.

Well, let's talk about the great cocaine

hoax. Um, some of you saw a video of uh

um French President Mcronone and British

Prime Minister Starmer and uh German

Chancellor MS. They were all together on

a table. It looked like it was on a

train maybe or on a maybe some kind of a

jet, but they were uh sitting at a table

and the the photographers came in, the

videographers, I guess, and uh you saw

Mcronone grab this little rolled up

tissue and sort of take it, you know,

surreptitiously away. And then you saw

MS uh grab some little thing that people

are calling a a coke

spoon and uh and you know kind of hiding

it from the cameras.

Now why in the world would you think a

baldup tissue is where somebody was

holding their

cocaine? It didn't look like cocaine to

me. And and that little thing that they

call a cocaine spoon. You really

couldn't tell what it was. I mean, it

could have been a could have been, I

don't know, a straw that he he was

playing with or something, but uh it

looked to me like they were just making

the table look less messy and they were

just preparing for the photo shoot, I

guess. So, I would say that's fake news.

I'm not No, I'm not saying that they're

not all coked up. That might be true.

Well, I don't know. Maybe. But, uh, it

didn't it didn't look like a cocaine

anything to

me. So, I'm going to say that's most

likely a

hoax. Well, Hamas has decided to uh help

Trump get a little distance between

Israel and Trump. Kind of cleverly,

Hamas is going to release uh the

American the remaining living American

hostage, Eden Alexander. So, that's

going to happen today, I guess. And uh

that was Trump's victory. So Trump gets

some victory in getting the last

American hostage out. Now the Israelis

of course would wish that more Israelis

had been released, but I think you can

see this as a clever Hamas move to put a

little distance between America and

Israel and it worked. So you but you

could also see that Trump seems to be

willing to do things that are good for

America and Americans even if Israel

doesn't love it. So there's definitely a

new world out there. Uh Trump is

certainly going his own way and probably

never appreciated all the people who

said that, you know, the government is a

puppet of Israel because at the moment

it doesn't look like it. At the moment,

it looks like Trump's doing his own

thing and Israel is going to have to do

their own thing. We'll be allies, of

course, but uh not not singing from the

same uh song sheet or whatever that

whatever that saying

is. So, Trump gets the win uh just at

the time he's getting ready to go to the

Middle East to do some

deals. So, he's looking good there.

Um, Trump is also signing, I think

today, if he hasn't already done it,

might be any minute now, he's going to

sign an executive order to lower

pharmaceutical

um costs. And the executive order will

require the drug companies to offer the

pharmaceuticals to American consumers at

the lowest price that they sell it

anywhere. So if if the Albonians are

paying less than we are, then we get the

Albonian price. Now, I didn't know you

could do that with an executive order,

but I guess he's going to try. So, this

will be funny because will this cause

the Democrats to be in favor of higher

prices for

pharmaceuticals? And how are they going

to explain that Biden couldn't do this

if it works? I mean, I imagine there'll

be some kind of challenges from the

pharmaceutical people, but it turns out

it gets kind of

complicated because there are things

called

PBMs. How many of you would even know

what that is? A

PBM. It's a pharmacy benefit manager.

And it's this big middleman entity that

is between the the pharmaceutical

companies and the big health care

companies and even the government

Medicaid and everything else. So that

the these middle people, these pharmacy

benefit managers or PVMs, they uh I had

to go to Grock to find out exactly what

they do. But they uh they manage

prescription drug benefits for health

insurance plans and employers, etc. And

they act as a middleman between drug

manufacturers, pharmacies, uh insurers,

and patients. And here's the key. With

the goal of controlling costs and

administering drug coverage and they

play a significant role in the US

prescription drug supply chain, but but

they're often criticized for opaque

practices that can inflate costs. So the

pharmaceutical companies immediately

said, "Wait, don't blame us for these

high costs. It's because the middlemen

are sort of inflating the costs. Now,

that seems to be partly true, meaning

that there's no doubt that the middleman

is getting a cut. And it's also true

that they're opaque, meaning that if you

ask them for details of what they do or

why they do it, or can you show me your

price sheet or they won't show you that

stuff. So, so they operate as a big

black

hole and there does seem to

be some indication that they're part of

the problem uh of the higher prices.

Now, you might say, well, they're a

middle band, so they're supposed to take

their cut, which is true, but you can't

really monitor whether their cut makes

sense or it's too high because if you

try to ask them questions, you would get

nothing. It's just a big black hole.

Now, this is where Mark Cuban um becomes

a valuable citizen. So, you might know

that Mark Cuban has his own um discount

uh pharma drug company that he's been

promoting lately. I think it's cost plus

cost plus drugs. Hope I have the name

right. And he weighed in on this and he

had a lot to say about the PBMs, these

these middlemen. Now, I won't read you

his whole uh his whole uh explanation of

how bad they are, but if any of what he

said about them is true, and I think it

is, they're pretty

bad. And so, there's some kind

of some kind of fix that will be needed

for these PBMs. Uh if we just let Well,

I guess it's a free market, so they can

do what they want. But uh you should uh

you should see what Mark Cuban says

about them because if you're trying to

understand the whole pharmaceutical why

are our prices so high he he's got a lot

that contributes to that. So um I think

he should

be you should really pay attention to

him on this topic because it's one that

he knows a lot

about. Well, so that's, you know, that's

going to make the prices come down. So,

uh, the, uh, in other news, Futurism is

reporting that the FDA is going to start

using AI to speed up the, uh, approval

of drugs. Now, you might say to

yourself, "But wait, AI

hallucinates? Is AI going to say my drug

is safe when it isn't?"

Well, they're they're still going to

have to check the work of the AI to make

sure it's not hallucinating, but

apparently you can speed through the

analysis and do in minutes what would

take days for a human to do. So, I don't

know if they have a lot of

uh wrinkles they have to iron out of

this, but they seem to be very

optimistic about it.

It does seem to me that it's the perfect

application for AI because it's, you

know, wildly complicated every time

there's a new trial and a new drug and

all the rest. So, yeah, AI to accelerate

the FDA

approvals. Probably there's going to be

some problems, you know, because it's

such a big change, but I feel like we

have to get there. I mean, it seems like

that's exactly the place AI should make

a difference. Breitbart is reporting

that uh Trump signed four bills on

Friday where he's rolling back some

Biden regulations on uh appliances like

water heaters and refrigerators and

walk-in coolers and some other household

appliances. Now, the the Biden

regulations were, of course, to reduce

uh energy consumption, I believe, and uh

so Trump's rolling that back. So, that

would lower the cost of those devices.

So, now we've got Trump lowering the

cost of big

pharma, lowering the cost of household

appliances, lowering the cost of eggs,

gas, and a lot of other things.

So, uh, an energy, I guess. So, it's

going to be hard to hard to ignore

that. So, Trump is having the week of

all weeks. I mean, I I'm just still

going that the list gets longer, but I

don't think any president has ever had

this good a

week because he's really nailing it this

week. Um, but I'll tell you what isn't

working is the Republicans are trying to

wrap up their big beautiful bill, the

the

budget. Everything about this budget

effort looks fake and theatrical and

performative. I don't believe anything

that's coming out of him. I don't think

they're going to give Trump half of or

even three quarter. Well, I don't think

they'll give him a quarter of what he

wants.

Um, I think that they will just kick the

can down the road, add to the budget

deficit, and lead us toward doom. Um, I

don't know what's going to stop it, but

they're pretending to have this markup

session in which they're going to do a

bunch of good things. It's all theater.

I I just don't believe any of it.

But uh at least one subset of the

Republicans, I guess this would be I

forget which group it is, but they're

they're looking at steep cuts to

Medicaid. And so I said to myself, what

Trump said no cuts to

Medicaid? Why are they going to ruin his

big bill and the biggest thing he said,

which is no cuts to Medicaid? So, it

looks like they've got all these weasel

freaking tricks to lower the cost of

Medicaid

by finding clever ways to deny it to

people, basically. So, one of the clever

ways to deny it to people, now this is

not this is not a done deal. These are

just proposals that we think we're going

to see. Um, one of them would be a work

requirement. So, you couldn't get

Medicaid unless you were in school or

doing some public service of some kind

or working.

And that alone would deny it to, they

think, six million

people. So, the Democrats will say

accurately, wait a minute, you've just

installed some clever trick to deny 6

million people Medicaid. Republicans

will

say, "All we ask is that they do

something useful for the country so that

the country can do something useful for

them." It's not a terrible argument, but

it's going to look like they cut

Medicaid. So, can Republicans survive

that an obvious trick to cut Medicaid?

Because, you know, those people aren't

all going to work. What are they going

to do? go to the hospital and still get

medical care and not and have the

hospital cover

it. So, there's that. And then

apparently the bill, and again, this is

just first drafts, so it doesn't mean

it's real, would require some

beneficiaries to pay more for their

care. I guess that would be income

based. And there were some other clever

tricks in there. All of it just looks

like pure weasel theatrics.

Uh I am

completely disappointed in the

Republicans. Just completely

disappointed that to me the most

important thing we had to get right was

cutting the budget. It looks like

nothing like that's going to happen

because I don't think that Trump's going

to sign off on something that definitely

looks like cutting

Medicaid. You know, you could argue all

day, well, we have reasons. And no, no,

no, we're not cutting it because anybody

can get it. They just have to do some

public

service. But, you know, the the bottom

line will

be the Democrats will accurately say

he's cutting Medicaid for some people.

It'll be a lot of people, be

millions. I don't have a better idea, by

the way, but it's their job to do the

budget, not mine. So, I think I think

we're all going to be disappointed with

whatever the Republicans have. I'm not

even sure that they're going to have no

tax on tips and no tax on social

security and all those other things

Trump wanted. I don't think he'll get

any of that. I I think that they're just

going to say no on all of that. We'll

see.

Well, Apple is apparently, according to

the Wall Street Journal, um thinking

about raising the price of their

iPhones, but without blaming

tariffs. Uh Apple is kind of a clever

company in terms of how they cover their

public relations. They they've always

been good at it, but uh they don't want

to blame China because that would be

trouble. And they don't want to blame

Trump because that would be trouble. So

they want to raise their prices because

of tariffs, but they want to make it

look like it's not because of tariffs.

So the only way to do that would be if

you somehow added some extra features

and you go, "Oh yeah, these extra

features are worth a I don't know few

hundred more." So we'll see what they

do. But my big question would be, what

would Steve Jobs do in this situation?

Would Steve Jobs be handling this

completely differently in some out of

the box way that we can't imagine? I

feel like he would, but of course I

can't, you know, guess what he would

have done because that's what made him

Steve Jobs and we're not Steve Jobs. But

I feel like he would have handled this

whole tariff China stuff differently. I

just don't know

how. Well, Democrats are uh continuing

their uh lame approach to politics. Uh

now they've added to their

oligarchs that they're that they want to

keep habius

corpus. Now, if you were to do a survey

of people on the street and say, "Are

you a Democrat?" Yes. Uh what's an

oligarch? Well, I don't know. What's

habius corpus? I never heard of it. So

they're so they're they're betting on

words that their base doesn't even know

what they mean. So I love this. Let's do

more let's more more oligarchic and

habius corpus. If you can get them to

talk about that all day long and then

look at Trump. I cut your pharmaceutical

costs. I freed a

hostage. I'm going to bring a trillion

dollars back in investments from the

Middle East.

What part of that don't you understand?

It's just so

simple. And then you go to the Democrats

and they're like, "Well, we we oppose

the oligarchs and we want to make sure

that we keep Amy Corpus for the MS-13

guys." Well, and everybody

else, it's so lame. And then then what

about the chaos?

If you were to ask the person in the

street, where's the chaos happening?

Now, they might say Doge, but have you

noticed that Elon Musk has quite

cleverly removed himself from all

political

conversation? It used to be that every

time I got on X, there would be very

political proTrump

um posts pretty much every day. But I

think he's completely pulled himself out

of politics and he's just doing Tesla

related posts and stuff and Tesla stock

is way up based on the fact that he's

focusing on, you know, the nuts and

bolts that he's getting out of politics.

So that's

good. That's good.

Meanwhile, uh James Carville and Roana,

they're trying to distance

themselves from a uh some comments made

by uh what's her

name?

Uh Elon Omar. So, I guess in 2018, she

made some comments about uh white people

and that video has

reemerged. And I guess the comments were

originally in an interview with Medi

Hassan and Omar stated uh I would say

our country should be more fearful of

white men across our country because

they are actually causing most of the

deaths within this

country. And and then uh

Carville is trying to distance himself

and say we need less of that and blah

blah blah. And I'm thinking to

myself, look at what Trump is talking

about. Even if he doesn't get it done,

he's talking about cutting your taxes

and freeing hostages and ending wars and

lowering pharma

costs. That's what Trump's talking

about, sealing the border.

and and Carville's talking about a 2018

video where where somebody his team was

being a

racist. You that's the biggest

difference you could even imagine

between the two parties. And uh but at

least uh Elon Omar finally explained to

me why people hide when I enter the

room.

I didn't realize I was that scary. But

apparently as a white man, I am one of

the scariest people in the country. So

that explains why people get under their

tables and run away when I enter. I

always wondered about that. Here's some

more bad news for Democrats.

Apparently, the House Judiciary

Committee is going to interview Jack

Smith's uh lead prosecutor who did the

Mara Lago uh box gate. You know, the

when uh Trump was accused of having all

these uh boxes of stuff.

And you know, we've heard enough about

that story to believe that there's

something there.

There's something sketchy there. It

could be that it was being directed by

the White House. Uh it could be that it

wasn't a purely

um let's say legal problem. Could be

that there were politics pushing it.

So, the lead prosecutor probably knows

where all the bodies are buried on this

story and will be under oath and we

might find out some really interesting

things about the Biden

administration. Now, I don't know for

sure and if it's like everything else,

nobody's going to go to jail. But it's

going to be yet another bad news cycle

for Democrats because there's nothing

good that can come out of that story

except for

Republicans. According to the Rasmmanson

poll, Trump's overall approval rating is

50% with likely voters. Um, but here are

some subcategories on that poll that are

mind-blowing. He's got, according to

Rasmmanson, Hispanic supporters as

62%. And black at

39%. If those numbers are real, and I'm

I'm kind of skeptical about that. That

would be just

mind-blowing. You know, it could be

real, but do you think Hispanic support

for Trump is 62%? Now, this would be

likely voters, so it wouldn't wouldn't

count any immigrant

communities. Could be. You know, I've

been telling you for a while that if you

didn't think that the Hispanics would

would back uh Trump, then you you

haven't been involved or you haven't had

exposure to the Hispanic community. If

you have exposure to the Hispanic

community, no surprise at all. It's

totally non-surprising if you've had any

conversations with that

group. Well, speaking of Tesla, uh

Tesla's robo taxi, which is where a

Tesla with full self-driving can become

a taxi, um I guess it's called Project

Alicorn. And

um this uh feature will quietly appear

on Tesla's mobile app code.

And uh so they're looking at a June roll

out.

So listen to this. Um that your car, if

you had a Tesla and you wanted to have

it double as a taxi, you could come home

from work if your car is charged up, I

guess, and just activate the app and

park your car on the street and it would

act like a robo taxi. So, it would just

take off from its parking space, go pick

somebody up, uh deliver them to their

location, and uh I guess go back and

park where it was, and you can make $10

to $30,000 a year just while your car is

working for you.

Now, apparently the initial fleet will

launch in Austin with 10 to 20 cars, but

it's going to scale up really

fast. And here's some of the uh I saw

this was on a Mario post. I guess the

source was a user called G. Filch. Now,

I can't I can't uh vouch for these

numbers, but here's what one person

estimated. So that here's the math of it

that if you look at Whimo, the

competitor, they've got 1,500 robo taxis

and they already generate $250 million

in revenue. I guess that's per year, but

that's not enough for Whimo to make

money. I guess they have higher costs.

Um, and now if you were to look at

Tesla, if they could get up to a 100,000

robo taxis,

um, based on the likely charge that

there would be for a ride, etc., they

would make 2.9 billion in pure profit

annually. And that's just the start. So

the number of billions of dollars that

these robo taxes could

make, it's a big number.

because you could easily get to

millions. So you're looking at, you

know, 2050 billion dollars a year ju

just for the robo

taxis.

Amazing. We'll see if that happens.

Meanwhile, uh, as you know, Trump's

going to the Middle East to talk to a

bunch of countries. But as the news is

reporting, uh, the Trump family has a

number of business deals over in the

Middle East. Um, Trump thinks he'll come

back with a trillion dollars in

commitments to invest in the United

States from the Middle East. If he does,

that's going to be pretty impressive.

We'll see. Axios is reporting that. Um,

but the Wall Street Journal is talking

about the Trump

family business connections to the

Middle East. And I think I think this is

important because these do feel

um they do feel like it should at least

be fully transparent, which I think it

is. I think it's fully transparent. So,

I'd worry more if

uh you know, if we didn't know something

about it. But for example um in the past

year uh some Trump branded residential

towers have been launched in Dubai and

Jedha and and then there's also a Trump

luxury golf resort that's being um

launched in

Cutter. Now here's what you need to

know. These are Trump branded

properties, meaning that he just

licenses his name, but the ownership of

the property is whoever built it, I

guess. So, Trump does two kinds of

business. One is he does build his own

resorts and stuff, but he also just

licenses his name to other people who

are going to do it.

So, uh, are you comfortable with him

doing business as the president with

these same countries where there are

very large investments that benefit the

Trump

family? I'm not fully comfortable with

that. But on the other hand, should they

be denied the ability to do what they

normally do because this is completely

normal business for them. They license

their name. Do you think that there

would be this many Trump branded

properties if he were not president of

the United

States? I kind of doubt

it. I doubt it. Um, so you have to worry

about that.

Um, and there's something about the UAE

and the royal family fund and something

about Trump related crypto stable coins

that I don't understand, but it looks it

looks like something to worry about,

something to keep an eye on. And uh,

then on top of that, the Qataris have

offered

to I won't say give. Yeah, I guess it's

a gift um a gift to the United States of

a plane that would replace Air Force

One. Now, you might say to yourself, why

do you need to do that? Well, the Air

Force Ones that we have, I think there

might be two of them, but they're like

35 to 40 years old. And Trump has had an

order in for a new one for a long time,

but it looks like it'll be 7 to 10 years

before the the new ones get built. So,

you'd never be able to see the benefits.

But the Qataris have a plane that

apparently they're willing to part with

a new one. And uh they said, "Why don't

we give it to the Air Force?" So, it's

not Trump's gift exactly. It' be given

to the Air Force and then somehow later

it would be donated to the Trump

Library for his

use. So, that seems a little sketchy.

So, feels a little like you'd be getting

a free airplane.

And uh so you got that going on. So I'm

I'm going to say the same thing about

all these Trump deals. They all make me

uncomfortable. The Qatari plane

definitely makes me uncomfortable.

Um, and on top of that, uh, as you know,

Jared Kushner is doing his own investing

and he's he's gotten some

co-investors from three of the, uh, the

Middle East countries. What? Yeah, three

states. I guess three states have

committed more than three and a half

billion to his private equity

fund. So, that makes me uncomfortable.

But, it's all it's all transparent. It's

all completely

legal. It

just makes me

uncomfortable. Um, and

then it's sort of semi-related things.

or some investments that uh would be

good for Elon Musk such as the Saudi

prince Al Wid Binelli El Saud who's a

nephew of the king is an investor in X

AI which is um Elon Musk's AI

company. So but that's normal. He's he's

just a gigantic investor who does a lot

of investing in American companies. So

again, completely

transparent, but makes me uncomfortable.

Now, the the only thing I can say that

would be softening all these

deals is that Trump is the one person

who can take your money and then screw

you if he needs

to. So, if he were anyone but Trump, you

would have to worry more that they they

just bought his cooperation.

But I think Trump could take their money

and still throw them under the bus if

they did something that required

that. But you can't guarantee it. So in

terms of buying influence, I do think

they're buying

influence. But there are also countries

that, you know, we have a lot of

influence on as

well.

So I don't know. I I I'll just say that

uh any

Democrat criticism on this

domain

probably probably makes sense, but

there's no smoking gun or anything that

he's done wrong or that there's there's

nothing that looks illegal and it's all

completely transparent and it's business

as usual for the most part. It's stuff

that they would be doing as normal

business, you know, licensing the Trump

name, etc. But like I said, they

probably get more offers because he's

president. That's not a

coincidence. So, we we're going to hear

a lot more about this Qatari plane. I

think Congress says they have to approve

it. I think the Democrats are going to

complain so much that it gets killed. If

I had to guess, it's not more than a 50%

chance that that that Qatari plane will

actually become something that Trump's

riding on. I I think there'll be enough

screaming and kicking from Democrats

um or maybe even Republicans would think

it looks

wrong. In another news, you know what

birthright citizenship is, right? So

that question is coming to the Supreme

Court now. Birthright citizenship is uh

the in the constitution and it means

that if you're born in this country with

very rare exceptions

um you are a citizen automatically. You

just have to be born here. Now Trump

wanted to uh end that. So you've got

some legal challenges to the ending of

it and uh it's going to go to the

Supreme Court. Now, if you're like me,

you say and and you've read the actual

language of the Constitution, it doesn't

look like there's any wiggle room at

all. To me, it looks like the

Constitution is super clear. If you're

born here, you know, with with some

exceptions that aren't relevant to this,

if you're born here, you're a citizen.

Now, I'm not saying that's good or bad.

I'm just saying that when I read the

Constitution, it looks kind of cut and

dried, like there's no there's no way

you could challenge it. But of course,

that's what lawyers are for. They always

have a way to challenge everything. And

here's the way they're going to

challenge it. So, the citizenship clause

um says it applies to children born in

the USA who are quote subject to the

jurisdiction thereof.

Now, that would uh

disqualify, for example, a diplomat's

child. So, if they were a diplomat

working in the United States, the

diplomats are not subject to our laws.

So, a diplomat can break a law in

America and we don't do anything about

it because they're not subject to our

laws. But their child is also therefore

since it's not subject to our

jurisdiction, their child is not

automatically an American. And I think

there are some Native American

exceptions,

etc. But, uh, here's how they're trying

to argue that this subject to the

jurisdiction thereof applies to the

immigrant

population. And they say it's analogous

to Native Americans. And you know, you

know what I always say about

analogies? Analogies are not

arguments. So if all you have is

analogous, you don't have anything. So,

forget about analogous. Let's go to the

stronger part. Um, and they're saying

that uh the

noncitizens are I guess this would be

the babies too are are intentionally

entered the country without

authorization and likewise refuse to

quote formally present themselves to

American

authorities.

So, does that make you subject to the

jurisdiction

thereof? Well, to me, this is the worst

argument ever. And I'm not even a lawyer

because the subject to the jurisdiction

thereof is more about America thinks

you're subject to our jurisdiction. It's

not about what the immigrant thinks. If

the imi if the immigrant comes in and

they act like they're not subject to our

jurisdiction or they think they're not,

that has nothing to do with anything.

They don't get a vote. It It's up to

America. So, if we say you are subject

to our jurisdiction and if we catch you

doing illegal things, we're going to put

you in jail, I think that's the end of

the story, right? It's not up to them if

they're subject to our jurisdiction. So

to me, it looks like there's no chance

that Trump can prevail in the birthright

citizenship. And again, I'm not giving

you an opinion on whether they should or

should not. It just looks like the

argument is

terrible. And you know, again, I'm I'm

not a lawyer, so I could be wrong, but

it looks terrible to me. According to

Elon Musk, Doge has discovered a 100,000

active federal employees who are also

collecting unemployment

insurance. Jim Haft and the Gateway

Pundits writing about that. Now, um I

think I've told you before that my

current

uh view is that I'm not going to believe

any of the Doge claims.

I'll just tell you that that claim is

out there, but probably it's not exactly

what it looks like. I don't know. So, I

think it's better and and this is not

something brand new. It's something that

uh Musk said a little while ago. Um, so

I think that Musk is smart to stay quiet

on all the political stuff which he's

been doing, but I'm I'm skeptical of all

the Doge claims that sound a little too

clever. You know, that one's just a

little too on the nose. You know, might

be

true,

but there there have been so many of the

Doge claims that sort of didn't pan out

that I'm just going to say, well, that's

what he claims.

Apparently India and Pakistan their

ceasefire seems to be holding. It didn't

hold at first but now it is. That would

look like a victory for Trump because

the American um I think Marco Rubio and

his team were working on making sure

that Indian Pakistan didn't blow each

other up.

Now the the the thing I would say about

India and Pakistan is they really didn't

want to be in a war. They really really

didn't want to be in a war because

there's just no way that that's going to

be good for either one of them. But what

they needed was the fake because they

they needed some external thing to, you

know, talk them off the roof so it

didn't look like they were backing down.

So America just comes in with its book

big footprint and says, "Hey, you guys

knock it off. We'll help you, you know,

hold this ceasefire or something." So

this is where America can really be

useful. Uh it was just something that

Pakistan and India both needed. They

just needed somebody who wasn't either

Pakistan or Indian to come in and put a

big boot on it and say, you know, cut it

out. Now, that's not exactly what we

did. We were being helpful, but uh

that's just a win. If if the peace

holds, I'd say that's an American win as

well as obviously a bigger win for India

and Pakistan.

Speaking of war, apparently President

Zilinski says he's ready to meet Putin

in Turkey. So, um I don't know if

there'll be any ceasefiring before then

or during then, but Zalinski and Putin

are going to meet and that of course

would be

uh good for America and uh certainly

something that Trump has been pushing

for. get them to talk and it it gets

America out of the

conversation which is sort of perfect,

you know, because I think we would just

complicate things at this point. So,

those two just need to work it out. I

guess Germany's new government uh is

already threatening um Russia that if

they don't do a ceasefire, they're going

to put new sanctions on

them. So, Germany is trying to be

helpful there.

Um,

yeah. And, uh, of course, the Ukrainians

and the and the Russians are just

full-on drone war on the on the

front. So, ladies and

gentlemen, I think you can see that this

is one of the best weeks that Trump has

ever had. And uh if if half of these

things go in the right direction, you

know, if the the wars look like they're

winding down, the prices of stuff look

like they're winding down, and did I

mention did I mention that uh China and

the United States have agreed to delay

for 90 days the big tariffs? So, both

countries have pulled back their

tariffs. Now, that that's probably the

big reason the market is up. And that's

exactly what we

wanted. I I always say the the stupidest

people in the comments are the ones who

just say, "I don't understand the

topic." Like like you couldn't fit a

reason in

there. So anyway,

uh Zalinsky had his pants on backwards.

Yeah, it looked like that in one of the

pictures, but uh I think uh Scott

Bassant probably did some good work. I

think the main thing is just to get

China and the United States to think

that they're negotiating productively.

Will that lead to anything good? I don't

know. I saw Joel Pollock mention that

it'll save Christmas

um because there'll be enough toys for

Christmas from China. Um, but it also

puts us in a stronger negotiating

position than we've been in. So, we have

China's full attention. They know that

uh Trump would be willing to tariff the

hell out of them. Uh, but one of the

things that Scott Bass said, and maybe

this is the thing that China wanted the

most, is that neither China nor the

United States want to decouple.

So I wonder if China was just really

afraid of decoupling because there are a

lot of people in the United States who

do want to

decouple such as

me. Uh but there there are a number of

industries etc like the the high-end

Apple phones. There's nobody else who

can make them. So the low-end ones I

guess you can make in India but the

high-end ones require more special

processes or

whatever and

uh so so it looks like we're stuck with

China and China is stuck with us on a

bunch of different uh levels. You know

we we can't really quickly get all the

pharmaceutical products. We can't

quickly get all the tech stuff, the the

assembly. We can't

quickly get all the rare earth minerals,

etc. So, we're kind of stuck with each

other for a while. Um, and it looks like

maybe we're heading in the right

direction. So, everything's looking

good. Probably the best week that Trump

has ever had. It's my

guess. And, uh, that's all I got for

today. I'm going to say a few words to

the uh locals people privately and the

rest of you. I will see

you tomorrow, same time, same place. I

hope for more good There's