Episode 3026 CWSA 11/22/25

Come on in.

Find a seat.

We're about to begin what can only be described as the best coffee with Scott Adams you've ever seen today.

Uhhuh.

Let me make sure all your comments are zipping by here.

And then we got a show.

Oh, do we have a show?

Oh boy, do we have a show.

Oh, what the I can't even lift my notes.

Why are my notes so heavy?

Oh, it's because the brand new 2026 Dilbert calendar was sitting on top of my notes.

I couldn't even lift them.

Well, as long as I'm talking about it, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're uh running out of calendars.

So, if you haven't ordered yours, you'll be really mad if you wait too long.

So, it does look like we have a really good chance of selling out, which is good for me and not ideal for the last person who tries to get one.

So, they're only on Amazon.

You already know if you want it.

So, just go to Amazon.

It's not going to be anywhere else.

It will only be on Amazon.

USA.

USA.

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

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

But if you want to take a chance, if you want to take a chance of elevating your experience up to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny shiny human brains.

All you need for that is a cuppper, a mug or a glass of tanker chest, a canteen, jugger flask, a vessel of any kind.

Fill it with your favorite liquid.

I like coffee.

And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.

It's called the simultaneous sip.

Right.

And it happens now.

Go.

Ah.

Ah, yeah.

That's the way I know.

All right.

Well, so today will be one of the best shows I've ever given you because just by chance, there's a whole bunch of persuasion related Trump related things happening and they're all delicious and they will all teach you something.

Well, we're going to start with uh oh, by the way, after the show, immediately after this, uh Owen Gregorian will be hosting another spaces event on the X platform.

So, look for Owen Gregorian.

If you search for him, it'll pop right up and then it's a it's a audio only.

Uh but you can ask questions and you can participate and you'll love it.

Anyway, um, President Trump has, uh, issued an order to temporarily terminate what's called temporary status for Simoleons, some kind of temporary protective status.

So, I guess they had some kind of special uh, characterization because the Simoleons were assumed to be in, you know, more more danger than other people.

And that allowed a lot of simoleons to come over here.

And do you remember was it just yesterday or the day before yesterday?

You can remind me.

Remember when I was saying that whenever you see a news story, it has any of these keywords.

It means some simoleons have stolen your tax money.

like you don't want to see uh Minnesota uh any kind of any kind of government program, anything about tax dollars.

If you see any of those words in the news and they're together, some Simoleons are running a some kind of scam on you.

So, there were so many of them, I think, that I started losing the ability to tell them apart.

It seemed like there was one every day.

It was just crazy.

Well, Christopher Rufo, you you know him if you're uh on the political right and you follow social media.

Uh Christopher Rufo and uh I guess some people he works with.

I don't know exactly the entity.

They did the research and he says, quote, "We broke this Somali fraud story and called on President Trump to revoke the temporary protected status for all Somali, and now the president has delivered." How many times have we seen this happen?

By far, this is the coolest thing about the Trump administration.

Um, I've called this out just a number of times.

Trump actually reads the room.

You know, we talk about can people read the room, meaning know what people are thinking, but he actually reads like literally reads the people in the room.

So, Christopher Rufo and his posts on X and I'm sure he's had direct communications with people in the administration.

Uh, he does the work.

He puts in the work based on what he and some other people have decided would be the important thing to work on like what would be good for the country what could we do that would make a difference and then they go do that thing I don't know that anybody asked him to do it they just sort of recognize this this gap in the way we run the country and he must have said here you know I'm doing a little mind readading here because I I can't know what they're thinking but it seems to me that these were some patriots who said, "Uh, no, we're not going to put up with this.

Uh, I'm going to call it out.

I'm going to write it up.

I'm going to go to the president.

I'm going to ask him to stop it." And then that's what happened.

I mean, come on.

Is that the coolest thing you've heard today?

Just the fact, doesn't it make you feel good that somebody could identify a problem, put the work in, and and then it gets solved?

>> >> How often does that happen?

Pretty cool.

So, good work, uh, Christopher Rufo.

Good work, President Trump.

We're at least one step forward on that stuff.

Well, you already know by now Marjorie Taylor Green has resigned effective uh early January.

So, there's so much to say about that because everybody took sides, blah blah blah.

But, uh, I'll say a bunch of things about it in no particular order.

Um, some say that it was because she disagreed with Trump on a number of what she might call me MAGA related issues and she was more mega than Trump was in the end and then they could no longer work with each other.

So, uh, Trump has said he wanted to primary her and there's not much chance she probably could have got elected.

If she got primar and the president was against her, it'd be hard to get elected.

So, a lot of smart people said, "Well, did she really quit or was she not going to be in office after the next, you know, election cycle anyway, so she's just getting ahead of it?" That's a fair statement.

Other people said, "Oh, is it just a coincidence that her that her uh benefits have vested?

Now she's got health care." Well, that would be a perfectly good reason for retiring from any job.

No problem.

Um, let's see.

Some say it's about Israel.

Of course, that'll be we always throw that in there.

Um anyway, so but let let me give you a few other ways to look at this.

Mario Knoff on X had a take that was uh that she just pulled off the smartest political move of her career.

How many people think that?

How many people think that this wasn't running away?

She just saw an opportunity for the biggest move of any politician ever.

And so she took it because she's smart and she said, "Whoa, this will never happen again.

I'm going to I'm going to take this opportunity." What are we talking about?

What opportunity?

Well, here's what Mario said.

Um, he said this.

She quit because she's playing the long game and uh losing in a primary with Trump destroying her is not really good long-term strategy.

But you know what would be?

You know what would be a long-term strategy?

To sort of go out at the top.

Now you could argue what the top is, but you know what I mean.

To go out before she's badly bruised when she still has, you know, full name recognition and all that.

And she has every opportunity in the world now.

I mean, I think she's got a book out, but I don't know if that's new or it's been out for a while.

Um, obviously by now she would be looking at offers.

Probably lots of them.

Could she start your own TV show?

Of course.

Yeah.

Do Do you think anybody's offered to say, "Well, how would you like to be our next Matt Gates?" Well, she'd probably be good at it.

So the world of opportunities for her had just opened up.

Did she become more powerful or less powerful because of resigning?

You tell me.

Well, it depends what happens next.

If she just goes off and works on her construction business or family construction business, then u that would be perfectly respectable.

patriot took a shot at improving things, decided it wasn't for her, wasn't making enough of a difference, went to do something else in the free market.

No problem.

So, that that's sort of the worst case scenario is that she just has a normal life now, a good normal life, a very good normal life.

But what's the other possibility?

Well, the other possibility is she becomes a Tucker Carlson like Matt Gates like um Ben Shapiro like person whose influence just magnifies because she would be good on TV.

You already know she's good on TV, right?

So now she suddenly has the opportunity to be way way more influential and even President Trump might someday want to go on her on her show and and answer some questions and she's going to have some tough questions.

Tough questions.

So we don't know if any of that's going to happen.

We're just purely speculating.

But if you think that she's operating from loss or operating from weakness, doesn't look like it to me.

It looks like she's operating from strength and she has lots of options.

So, you just don't know where she's going.

That's what I think.

Anyway, um we'll see where that goes.

I I I think there's more it's more likely that she'll come out of this more powerful.

What do you think?

I'm looking at your comments.

Whether you like her or not, you know, I know I know it's always a mixed bag, but would you agree that she'll come out of this more powerful, not less?

All right, we'll see in your comments what you say.

All right.

Uh, meanwhile, in a somewhat related, but not really, um, I saw user Matt Van Swall on X.

It was a good account.

You should follow it.

Uh, Matt Van Swall, his last name is Van Space Sol.

Um he noted that in con in Charlotte, North Carolina that there were he says hundreds of construction sites are completely empty and uh he believes the reason is that ICE came through and took all the employees.

How would he know or how would anybody know if there were hundreds of construction sites that were empty in Charlotte, North Carolina?

that it sounds like maybe a little bit a little bit of hyperbole or a little bit of pro not projection but would do you know that now I do believe that it's observable that you would observably see that a lot of sites were closed I don't know it's hundreds that's that's the only thing I question so um what do you make of that do you make of it that it would be a mistake or or was a mistake to send away all the people who know how to build stuff.

I I already know what you're going to say in the comments.

Shall I summarize your comments without even reading them?

I believe I can.

Some of you are going to say, "Too bad.

Too bad." Why did you start a construction company that depended on non-American workers?

Whose problem is that?

Not my problem.

Right.

Now, does that capture some of your comments?

Yeah.

It's just not your problem.

Um, but I would argue we are all part of this big old economy and uh if if it were this problem once, you might say, "Well, that construction owner guy made a mistake.

That's his problem." But what if what if it really is hundreds and it's only in one city there hundreds?

That's going to be magnified all over the country, right?

Are you okay with that?

And then the real question is it kind of depends how long it lasts, right?

If you said to me, Scott, Scott, answer me this.

Um, yeah, there might be a few days where they have to hire Americanborn workers and replace all the foreignb born people who got deported.

It might take a few days.

What would I say to that?

I would say a few days.

You say like how many days?

What's a few days?

Well, I don't know.

Two weeks.

I would say two weeks to convert from foreignb born to Americanborn workers in these good jobs.

Totally.

Yeah.

Sign me up for that.

I I would definitely take a two week total national disruption if at the end of it we had, you know, American border workers and that's what we wanted.

But what if it's not two weeks?

What if it's six months?

Well, now you got a whole different problem.

What if it is 6 months and then the half of the people who are in the construction business go out of business because they can't hold on for 6 months.

So, did we even create a path for the construction industry to survive?

I don't know the answer to that, but it's a pretty big question.

So, I would feel very different if there was simply a disruption in the economy versus destroying the entire construction industry in a way that almost can't go back.

And do we know which one of those is going to happen?

Cuz I don't.

I'm watching pretty carefully.

I don't know what's going to happen.

I I think the general feeling and I'm I'm going to say something that sounds a little biased here because it is.

The general feeling is that for people who are not close to the employment market, which is a lot of us, um I don't think people understand how woefully undertrained Americanborn workers are.

I don't think you know how hard it's going to be to get them trained up to the point uh that they can match the work of the foreignb born people.

Now, should we do it anyway because it's hard?

That's a good argument.

That the fact that it's hard shouldn't stop you from doing it if if if you want to get to that end point.

But, uh, we do not know what's going to happen.

We don't know.

How many of you feel confident that you do know and that you've got a got a good idea in your head, ah, this is going to be it's going to be three weeks of pain and then everything will be back to normal and better than normal because it'll be American-born uh workers and maybe that's what you want.

What do you think?

Are are you confident that you know where this ends up?

Well, I'm not.

Nor do I need to be.

I mean, it's an uncertain situation, but uh we'll find out.

You know, sometimes, and this might be one of those times, sometimes you have to just jump to the next rock without knowing if there's going to be another rock there.

Sometimes you just have to go for it.

And I don't know that there will ever be another time when the construction companies will be forced to hire American.

might be the only time.

So, if we lose this opportunity, well, maybe it doesn't come around again.

So, I wouldn't uh I wouldn't uh disagree with your plan if you thought that we should just do it and suffer the consequences.

Whatever it is, it is.

It'll be hard, but we have to do it.

That wouldn't be a bad opinion.

I just don't know if it'll work out.

Well, the other big story is that Trump met Zoron Mumdami.

This is my favorite story, actually.

Um, and you probably know that instead of fighting it out like some of you thought that they would, uh, they ended up, at least Trump did, acting very friendly, like, uh, everything went great, uh, a lot of smiles, etc.

Now, I would note that Zoron, at least in the Oval Office meeting that was uh that was uh on video, he uh was his usual smiley self, but boy, he wasn't giving up much, was he?

He he looked like, "H, I don't know where this is going.

Wait a minute.

Are you saying good things about me?

Are you going to hijack me?

Am I going to be like some of those other leaders who didn't know that you were going to hijack me when I went into the Oval Office?

Or is this going to work out for me?

I don't know.

So Trump had this gigantic advantage over him that Trump knew where Trump was going and he knew that he was going to keep it friendly.

Zoron didn't know that.

I mean, he could have hoped it.

He could have heard it, but he didn't know it.

So I think he was a little bit not a little bit.

I mean, how many times has he been in the Oval Office?

Never.

Uh, basically I've been in the Oval Office more than he had until that day.

So, it did look like um Zoron was the uh I shook the intern, didn't it?

You could see the power difference.

Trump is sitting in a chair and uh Mandani is standing.

There's this giant age difference.

There's an experience difference.

There's an office difference.

There's a probably a height difference.

Right?

So Trump goes in with all these power symbols and he makes he makes them do Zim uh he makes Zoran just sort of stand there not know what to do.

So I love that.

Um but here here's the persuasion lesson for you.

Have you noticed that Trump is consistently able to be the most interesting person in every story?

Especially if it's a story he has some control over.

How in the world could Trump become the most interesting person in this story?

Because Zoron, he's the it guy, right?

He literally is more interesting than Trump just in this narrow domain.

Do you think Trump wants to bring in a guy who's got as much game as Trump does?

Is not as much, but uh that he's operating at that highest level of persuasion.

Do you think Trump wanted to bring him in and sort of make him the star?

Maybe not.

So, if you were Trump, how could you guarantee that without looking like a giant dick, you could also claim all the attention?

Well, how about acting like Ezoran's best friend and playing opposite of type to the point where it's all you want to talk about?

Wait a minute.

I didn't think Trump would do this.

Wait a minute.

With that other leader, he did this.

Wait a minute.

He could have done this.

Wait a minute.

Is it just because he likes New York?

Wait a minute.

You see where I'm going on this?

Trump made Trump the interesting person in the story.

Who else could do that?

I mean, really.

Nobody else could do that.

There's no normal politician who could have out Zorand Zoran at the peak of his being interesting.

This is the peak.

This is Zoran's best day.

He's never had a better day.

And Trump just went, he just high ground him like he wasn't even there.

So Trump made himself the star of the event and makes you insanely curious about what did they actually say behind closed doors?

What's it what's going to happen next?

Uh did he plan this?

I don't know.

or or was it just like a spontaneous thing where he sort of liked Zoran and thought, you know what, I'm gonna play opposite type.

We're gonna have some fun.

Don't know.

But it's the not knowing that makes it interesting.

So, uh if if you don't understand the level of talent that Trump brought to that one just that one event, you're really missing a great show.

That is not normal.

It's not normal to be that skillful in this unique situation, which he's never been in before.

And he just owned it.

Just totally owned it.

All right.

So, uh, here's one reason that you might have predicted that they would get along.

What would be the most predictive thing?

And I've told you this before, so it won't be the first time you've heard it, but it would be the first time maybe used it to predict.

Trump likes talented people.

And now we're done.

Trump likes really likes talented people.

Doesn't matter if it's sports, doesn't matter if it's politics, doesn't matter if it's some subset of talent within one of those things.

He really really likes talented people.

He likes merit.

And even if the person's on the other team, he will call them out for their talent.

So knowing as you do, and I've told you this before, that uh he's drawn to talent, he calls it out, he follows it, he tries to incorporate it, he tries to be around it.

What would you have predicted that would be his um response to Zoron in person?

exactly this.

If the only thing he knew is that he loves talent and it completely changes how he operates, you put him in a room with a super talented person.

I'm talking about the kind of talent that only a few people in the world have.

I'm talking about a Tom Brady kind of talent, right?

That kind of talent.

You put him in the room with that and he's always smiling, right?

You've seen it a million times.

Always smiling and he's always going to be respectful.

I'm seeing that word in the comments, respectful.

So he goes immediately into respectful mode and then everything works out.

Two highlevel people showing respect to each other and and Zoron Mandani uh quite wisely showed full respect to the office, which is all Trump requires.

He doesn't it doesn't have to be that personal.

But if he shows full respect to the office, well, now you got two people who can talk.

That's what happened.

All right.

Um Trump joked when one of it might have been CNN asked Mum Dami did he think that Trump was a fascist because it's a word that he's used a lot.

And rather than let uh Zoran try to answer that, which might be a problem.

Uh Trump jumps in and interrupts.

He goes, "Just say yes." Which I thought was hilarious.

Goes just say yes.

It'll be easier.

Just say yes.

He's a fascist.

Um, now what was that?

That was a rescue, wasn't it?

It was a rescue.

Trump rescued him in real time.

He he he took that little problem, just took it off his plate and made it forever, never a problem again.

There will never be another time when Zoran has to answer that same stupid question.

Well, you called him a fascist before, but now you want federal money.

How do you explain that?

Why would you take money from a fascist?

Trump just made that go away.

Now, does that obligate Zoran to sort of owe Trump?

Yeah, a little bit.

And not in a big way, but a little bit.

It's like he did him a favor.

Men especially feel that.

We feel it.

like, "All right, I owe I owe you one." Uh, what else next?

Uh, Trump has an instinct for the show.

I call it the show because he's always involved in the show.

You know, there are different episodes of the show, but it's always the show.

And Trump knows the show better than anybody.

And what could have been a better show than the one he put on yesterday by surprising us that they're, you know, acting like best friends?

You can't beat that.

I mean, a fist fight might have been more fun, but, you know, that wouldn't have been appropriate.

So, he knows how to put it on the show, and he did.

Um, and then Trump also said that they had good chemistry, and he said, quote, "It's always nice to have good chemistry with people." That's a bigger deal than people understand.

If he has good personal chemistry, he can get along with anybody.

And by the way, do you remember when uh I used to say that uh Trump had a pirate ship?

And one of the things I liked about him, especially in the the first election, is that he would assemble people who were his supporters that you wouldn't think would be on the same ship.

That's why I call it a pirate ship because it's all these weirdos.

And weirdos, I say, with love, not not with uh insult.

Um, and he never he never left that model.

And I always thought that is the strongest frame you're ever going to say because once you've established that you're the only one who can have any kind of pirate, you get all the good pirates, right?

If you're trying to pick teams and you've established that you'll not only work with the pirate, you'll make them head of a cabinet position, that's a real strong power.

So yeah, the the pirate ship mentality, if you're treating the pirates as a positive, like I don't care what you did before, RFK Jr., I don't care if you ate a ate a whale's head or I don't know what he's accused of doing, but as long as you can do this thing for me and for the country, we're going to do this thing.

Pirate ship.

Very powerful.

Um, what else?

I saw a body language expert looking at Zoran in the Oval Office and thought that he was being very reserved but also seemed to be relaxed.

I don't know about the relaxed part.

I might disagree with that but uh that he he seemed to be have been put at ease.

I think both of them knew how to put each other at ease and did a good job of it.

Um, yeah, let's say.

And Trump said about Zoran that he couldn't have been nicer.

And I thought to myself, that is just a superpower, isn't it?

Being nice to people is really powerful.

That, you know, even if it's the president of the United States, if if you're nice to him, who knows what could happen.

All right, but here's the best part.

I'm I'm getting to the real payoff here.

on uh persuasion.

Now, you're really going to learn something next.

You ready?

Do you remember when Zoron and maybe some other people trotted out the word affordability?

Do you remember what I said on my show here?

And I was just swooning at how smart that was.

I had never heard affordability being used as the main word.

of course is a normal word that people use, but I'd never heard it used as sort of the campaign's main theme.

And I thought to myself, "Oh my god, you can't really beat that." So, what are Republicans going to do to counter that?

You can't really beat affordability.

It's so well chosen.

It's not overused.

So, it's not like you remember Carrie did it when he Nothing like that.

So, it's fresh.

It's perfect.

It's on point.

Everybody feels it.

It works for all kinds of categories.

It's just a great word and I don't think you can beat it.

So then Trump runs into this word.

He would have, I believe, exactly the same reaction to it that I did, which is, "Oh crap, that's a really good word.

What am I going to do about that?" But as you know, Trump is the unmatched persuasion expert of our time.

Is there anything he could have done to counter the effectiveness of affordability?

Anything?

Is there any way to play that?

I couldn't think of one.

I was I was coming up blank and I I think about this stuff all the time.

I didn't really have a good answer.

So, what did Trump do?

Do you know what he did?

If you've been paying attention for the last week, he did the smartest thing you'll ever say.

He just took the word.

He He credited them.

So, he didn't say, you know, this is my own word.

He gave them credit and then he embraced it.

And he fully embraced it.

He borrowed it.

He stole it.

He co-opted it.

He embraced it.

Now what?

Now what do you do?

And my guess is that behind closed doors, it was probably that word that allowed them to say, "You know what?

I think we can say good things about each other when we're when we're out in that other room." Because if you're if you're down with affordability and I'm down with affordability, uh we can work together.

If I told you that one of these candidates was the common sense candidate, common sense.

Now, that would be Trump, not Zoran.

But affordability sounds like common sense, doesn't it?

Because if it's not affordable, it's a nothing.

So, it perfectly fits Trump's whole mega everything.

It's common sense.

Affordability is.

And at the same time, if it's Zoran's whole, it's got to be affordable cuz nobody can afford to live in New York City.

So, it's sort of perfect for both of them.

And Trump noticed that apparently and decided that he would he would get on that channel and that nothing could kick him off and that once he's on there uh the only thing that could happen is Zoron can leave and he's not going to.

So since they're both committed to this affordability thing, but the president of the United States has more tools simply by being president.

Zoran probably can't get to affordability without a little bit of help from a variety of places including the president.

So the fact that Trump not only noticed that the word was a high ground killer word.

So the first part is hard.

The first part is simply recognizing the power of that word.

But the second part, oh my goodness, the second part was knowing what to do about it.

It's so rare.

And the third part is he executed because right now I just think of affordability as something that two of our leaders have embraced and I hope the rest of them get on board.

That's three for three of three of the hardest things you could do in persuasion.

Recognize the word.

Uh know that you have to deal with it and then totally embrace it and co-opt it and turn it into your own thing.

Nobody else can do that.

That that's a that's a Trumpy thing right there.

It's one for the ages.

Anyway, uh you'll remember that one forever.

Meanwhile, CNN's Harry Enon tells us that the polls are not looking so good for Trump and uh I guess the independence in January of uh earlier this year in January.

Um he was only down four with independence and now he's down 43.

He's down 43 now.

How do you explain that the independents liked him if not or at least liked him a lot more in January, but it's completely collapsed?

Well, there's two ways to look at this.

I'm going to give you a little um a mental test.

I guess I guess that's what it is.

What do you call it?

A what's the word for that?

Not a mental test.

A uh uh you know what I mean?

Like a mental exercise.

Imagine if you will that Trump became president as he did and he did everything wrong and he only made mistakes.

What would happen to his poll numbers if he got in the job and didn't solve any problems?

His poll numbers would fall through the roof or no fall through the basement.

Right?

So if he does a really terrible terrible job, his poll numbers would look a lot like they do now.

What would happen on the other hand if he came into office and let's say there were five really big problems that the country cared about a lot and he immediately solved all five.

Let's say he ended some wars.

Uh closed the border uh put an end to inflation.

You'd like it to be lower, but he ended it.

Uh let's say tariffs worked.

Um just throw in a few more things, right?

What would happen if Trump solved all the problems that could be solved and what was left didn't look like that big a problem or didn't look like something that only Trump could solve?

What would happen to his poll numbers then?

Well, once you solve all your big problems, you start thinking about things like empathy because it's a luxury.

Empathy is a luxury.

If if everything's falling apart and you're in mortal danger, well then you need a Trump to do the things that no one else can do because no one else can do it and it's a mortal danger.

People are pouring across the border or or the dollar is becoming worth a penny.

I mean, these are mortal end of the world existential problems.

But what if he solved them all?

So you have this weird situation where it's going to be hard for us to distinguish.

Is Trump less popular because he solved all the Trump only problems?

I would say the border was kind of a Trump only could solve it situation.

But once it's solved then the next Republican can certainly maintain.

So, uh, I've always predicted that that Trump's poll numbers would fall through the, uh, floor.

Have you seen me predict that?

Before it actually happened, I predicted it.

And, uh, there would probably be a point sort of early in the election cycle, well, after he'd been elected, there would be a point early on where maybe he hit the best numbers he'd ever had because he hadn't done anything yet, and they're hoping he could solve the big problems.

But I did predict in public that once he solved the biggest problems, his polls would drop because you didn't need Trump for business as usual.

Business as usual is uh Marco Rubio, he could do that.

He'd be great at it.

Uh JD Vince, absolutely business as usual.

But uh you really need to do something that's going to make everybody hate you and maybe try to shoot you.

That's kind of only Trump.

So once we finish all these only Trump can do it problems, um if you combine the fact that Trump won't be running for office again, it kind of makes total sense that whether he succeeded or failed, his popularity as president should should naturally come to an end.

So there might be a there might be a point and I don't know if I would be bold enough to predict this yet where the type of success that he gets is so undeniably crazily good that before he leaves office and maybe after uh his his numbers will creep back up if for example he does put an end to the Ukraine war and we'll talk about that in a minute.

uh if he pulled that off and if he got our our budget a little bit closer to balance and if Gaza was heading in the right direction and if the border was stayed closed and if the employment numbers were just crazy good because you know it took a few took two years let's say but we finally trained enough American construction workers I mean just take take a look at construction just pick If the only thing that happened is you waited two years, well on day one it looks like, oh that Trump, he made a mistake.

He sent back the only qualified workers and now we can't build this hotel.

That's a real problem.

It's a real problem.

But in two years, what will it look like?

Well, the companies that are still in business will have figured out how to hire locals one way or the other and they'll just be running their business.

So, there's going to be a point where if Trump succeeds on on this whole range of things that it looks like he is going to it does look like he he will succeed.

If he does and then you wait two years and then let's say he turns down the temperature a little bit because he's not running for office.

You know, when he runs for office all the the temperature goes up.

He doesn't need to do that again.

So he can simply play for his legacy.

If the last two years of his office he's playing for his legacy, playing nice.

Basically, he'd be more like his meeting with Zoron, which even the left is going to say, "Ah, we don't mind that.

You could do more of that.

We we have no problem whatsoever with you being friendly with Zoron in the Oval Office.

Even we Democrats like that." So, the most natural arc for where this ends up is that Trump's poll numbers will continue to drop until, to borrow his language, no one's ever seen anything like it.

He might break records for the lowest popularity of a a sitting president.

And whether that happens or not, the second part of the the prediction is that by the time he leaves office, but it could be maybe shortly after, he'll have the best poll numbers of any president of all time.

Of all time.

Yeah.

But you're going to have to wait um to find out if I'm right about that.

So, uh here's a little personal interest story.

So, I'm sitting at home and I'm in my nice comfy lazy boy chair and I I've got my phone and I'm watching the news and I'm watching a video that was just happened really.

It was uh right after the uh the Zoran meeting in the Oval Office.

And so I'm I'm listening to Trump as he's talking on my phone.

Trump jump.

Then my phone rings.

I'm like, "Oh, damn it.

And it's uh West Palm Beach.

Yes.

The president called me while I was watching the president on TV.

He So Trump called just to make sure I was doing okay and I was getting the help I needed for my medical situation.

He followed up.

My god.

He called twice.

Yeah, I missed it but and called back.

But uh I will never get used to that.

You cannot get used there.

There's no way your brain can actually process it.

That you're sitting at home.

You're literally watching the most powerful in my opinion and successful president in the history of all humankind.

The most important person you could argue out of about 7 billion of us.

And and his little face and his words are are on this phone that's like in my hand.

And then the real one calls me.

The real one calls me while I'm sitting there.

I I'm trying to make this into a more interesting story, but it doesn't really need any extra details, does it?

Just the fact that it happened at all.

It's just mind-blowing.

It's just mind-blowing.

Then I hang up the phone and uh and Dr.

Roz calls me also because um I'm sure also because Trump originally got him involved.

Uh also to check to see how I was doing and uh thanks to Dr.

Oz.

Um my healthc care company Kaiser is definitely stepping up and they're they're definitely giving me a high quality um product.

Now I don't know that it's any higher than anybody else's.

I I know some of you are going to say, "Scott, you're using your fame and connections to get extra healthcare that the rest of us don't get." I don't think that's happening.

I I'm not aware of any special things outside of the boundaries of my healthcare that I'm getting, but I'm definitely getting the getting a good version of it.

Anyway, um so there's a uh Ukraine peace plan that uh the Trump administration has floated.

What do you think about that?

Do you think Trump's going to pull that off a peace plan?

I guess today might be the fourth year of the war.

You know, there's something about random numbers that motivate humans because we we act like random numbers matter.

So, it's the fourth year, and if I told you a war was in, let's say, its second year, you might say, "Well, that's a long time, but wars are longer than that." If I told you it was in its 10th year, you would definitely say, "Uh, let's wrap this up.

It doesn't look like it's going anywhere." fourth year starts to look like, you know what, we all want to just get out of this.

Let's This didn't work out.

So, I think maybe just psychologically everybody's a little bit closer to doing whatever whatever it will take to make the hard decisions.

So, I went to Grock and I said, because the news is terrible at summarizing, I said, "Can you summarize this 28point plan?" and Grock could not it it could only explain each of the 28 points in way too detailed um for what I wanted.

So I said stop stop and at some point you just have to scream at it stop and then it stopped.

I said all right try again except I only want one sentence for each of the bullet points for the 28 things.

just give me one sentence.

Do you think it could do that?

Well, sort of.

But it decided that that one sentence would be about a paragraph long.

So, I'm like, stop, stop, stop.

All right, we're going to try it again.

And it's going to be one short sentence.

One short sentence for each of the 28 points.

Can you do that?

Oh, yes.

And then I made it number them.

But man, did I have to work at it.

So now I have maybe the only list cuz my guess is that the people who work in the media were way too lazy to do what Grock did and probably way too or let's say not trained well enough to make AI do what I did which wasn't any genius move.

I just work I just yelled at him more.

Um so here are the things.

It might be the only time you hear these actually summarized in a good way.

Uh the 28 points would be that uh Ukraine's sovereignty would be confirmed internationally.

Uh so everybody would agree that it's a country.

Crimea would stay under Russian control permanently.

No surprise.

And by the way, I'm I'm not saying I like these or don't like them.

I'm just listing them.

These are not agreed to.

Not agreed to.

These are just what uh the Trump administration is proposing.

um that Donesk and Luhans would just be completely Russian.

Parts of Kersan and Zaparisia would go to Russia.

Uh some additional eastern territories including some in KEV would transfer to Russia.

All right.

So you and I don't know too much about any of those regions, but we knew that Russia would demand some keeping forever some part of it.

And uh maybe these make sense.

And then there's the Odessa regions coastal areas would which would become Russian enclaves.

Well, I don't know what an enclave is, but it's probably something that they plan to someday become Russian territory.

I think enclave might be the word they use for uh that's right before we say we're going to take it and it will be ours forever.

It's an enclave.

Uh then there would be a demilitariz demilitarized zone along the new Russia Ukraine border.

Of course, you would have to have a demilitarized zone.

And UN peacekeepers would monitor that.

We're up to number nine.

Ukraine would commit to permanent neutrality forever.

I don't know what that means, but probably that's workable.

Uh no NATO membership for Ukraine ever.

Ukraine's This one will be negotiable.

Ukraine's army gets capped at 100,000 active troops.

Well, that's kind of clever because we're already at the point where I tell you too often that uh all the wars will be robot wars.

The number of soldiers uh will no longer be predictive of who could win a war, but the number of drones might and the number of drone operators might.

So this might be workable in a way that it would not have been maybe even 3 years ago because it could be that Russia will say, "Well, if you only have that many soldiers, you're not a threat." Whereas Ukraine might say, "Well, I don't know if uh if we send you 50,000 trained drone operators who have a million drones at their disposal because one operator would have a swarm." Do you think do you think you'd feel safe from that?

So, there might be a way that both sides think they got the advantage, which would be a good deal.

Um, there'd be limits on Ukraine's heavy weapons and tanks, but again, those are not robots, so that might work.

No offensive missiles over 300 kilometers.

Uh, I wonder if that includes drones, but no offensive missiles.

Um the US, EU, and China would guarantee Ukraine's security jointly.

Well, that would be good if all three of them were on the same page.

Uh the the ceasefire would be immediate upon signing.

International observers would enforce the ceasefire daily.

Russian troops would withdraw from the nonseated areas in six months.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Uh Western sanctions on Russia would be lifted in phases.

the frozen Russian assets that uh would be used they would be unfrozen.

So the frozen Russian assets would be unfrozen to rebuild uh Ukraine with a US lead.

So So it looks like it looks like Trump found a way to make some money for us.

So he he's going to unfreeze Russia's money if I get this right.

Uh but USled entities will get to do the work.

doesn't mean US entities but US-led.

So that would be plenty of opportunity for the US to get its beak wet in some of this economic activity.

Uh Russia would get access to Ukrainian Black Sea ports.

Um Ukraine protects ethnic Russian rights.

No foreign military bases in Ukraine except for the UN.

Disputed borders.

Well, that's a big one.

No foreign military bases in Ukraine.

Do you think Well, this is our proposal, so apparently the US would be okay with this given that it's our proposal.

Um, and then disputed borders go to international arbitration.

Ukraine gets 50 billion in debt relief from Russia.

I guess they have some debt out there.

Uh, joint energy projects.

Oh, joint energy projects until 2040.

So that's yet another way that Trump could make some money for the US.

Uh EU accession talks paused for 10 years.

So Ukraine wouldn't get into the European Union for at least 10 years.

And all parties ratify the deal within 30 days.

All right.

So obviously that's way too big and complicated for people like you and me to know if that's a good idea or a bad or a bad proposal.

But what's your what's your general feeling about it?

Do do you feel like there's something we could work with on this?

All right.

Is that close enough to a deal?

Well, it really depends if Russia wants a deal.

I would say it comes down to this.

It It really isn't about the specifics of the proposal.

If Russia is tired of fighting and they don't think they can win outright and they're just ready they're just ready for some kind of you know some kind of result then yes this they could make this work.

Uh, if Russia is doing nothing but stalling, stalin stalin.

Uh, if they're nothing if they're doing nothing but um kicking the can down the road and making it look like they care about peace, but they don't, well, then nothing will work.

So, I'm going to say that the details of this plan will not be the defining or predictive element.

So you would not be able to, so this is my prediction, you would not be able to look at the plan to know if this could work or not.

You would only be able to look into the hearts and souls of the people involved.

Zalinski, does he have a way to survive this?

Does he have an afterwar plan?

Uh Putin, does Putin really want to wrap this up?

Would he get enough out of this?

Uh, and then Trump, how much does Trump want the Nobel Peace Prize, right?

So, I think my take on this is that this plan push you in, it push you in the game.

Meaning that if the players were finally ready to make peace, this would get you there.

So, I'm going to I'm going to say uh this would be good enough.

You still have to tweak it like crazy.

And it might take weeks or months to get there, but this is close enough if, and this is the biggest if, if they've already mentally decided they want to get this done.

If they've decided they if they haven't decided, then it's no good at all.

All right.

Would you believe that there's another story about a court blocking something that Trump wanted and then the Supreme Court uh overturned the activist judge?

Well, that happened again.

Uh this is about Texas's new Republicanfriendly congressional map.

So, Texas draws a new map that would give them a new representative.

A activist judge says, "You can't do that." But then it goes immediately to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court says, "Well, we don't have time to decide on that yet, but in the short run, uh, we're going to block you from blocking it." So, the Supreme Court has blocked the lower court from blocking it.

It just sounds like the same story every few days, doesn't it?

Because it is.

In other news, remember uh you probably remember George Floyd and Derek Schovin.

I'll bet you do.

But uh Derek Schovin's attorney has filed a new petition uh to try to get Derek Schovin released.

And this is the approach they're taking according to Alpha News.

I saw this on X.

Um, apparently they found more than 50 former and current officers, police officers who have provided sworn declarations stating that the technique used by Derek Schovin and other min Minneapolis police officers involved that day was part of the Minneapolis Police Department training.

Now, you already knew that, right?

Just as an observer, you already knew that Derek Schovin literally used the technique that he was trained to use and that it was in writing and it was an actual official policy.

You all knew that, right?

But but I believe that was I believe it was prohibited from being presented at the trial.

Do I have that right?

Give me a fact check on that.

Were Were they prohibited or did they just treat it in a way that wasn't quite the way you'd want it to be treated?

Yeah.

Uh so I don't know the the total details there, but to me that does seem like that should be really really important because if he was trained to do it that way and everybody else was trained to do it that way and you got 50 50 is a lot.

Just ask those uh former and current intelligence people who signed off on the Hunter laptop.

50 is a lot.

The 50 is all you need.

Um if it were up to you and the only thing you knew is that they had this and nothing else changed.

But let's say you believed completely these 50 officers and you said to yourself, "Holy cow, I was part of the decision to put Chovin in jail, but I didn't know this.

I didn't know." What if you're finding out about it for the first time?

How would you feel?

How would you feel if you were on the jury and you would uh you had convicted him to effectively something like life and then you learned that he had been trained to do it exactly that way.

How would you feel about yourself?

I tell you if that were me I wouldn't feel too good about that at all.

So anyway, we'll see if that goes anywhere but good luck.

So Bill Maher's show was last night.

Do you know that whenever Bill Maher has a show that we like to talk about his uh slow transition into a Republican?

No, I'm just joking.

He's not going to become a Republican.

Might be better than that.

Might be something better.

So, he had uh Don Brazil on the show and uh I'm I'm going to tell you about their back and forth, but I'm going to take a direction on this after I tell you that you don't see coming.

I think so.

The Overton News is reporting that so they were debating education and uh and an issue Democrats used to sort of own and Bill Maher is making the point that Democrats are sort of seeding control of that topic.

So here's what happened.

Uh so uh Bill Maher said uh I really do feel like the Democratic party this has been their portfolio meaning education for a long time education.

So, I feel like they if they're going to get back into office, they have to own the issue a little.

And then he goes on, he says, because a lot of the states that are doing better now are like the southern states, meaning Republican.

And Don and Brazil said, really?

Which ones?

And Mar said Mississippi as an example.

And Brazil said, Mississippi is getting better than Louisiana.

So, I guess Louisiana would be a blue state.

And Bill Maher said, "And here's the payoff.

See, you're in a bubble.

You didn't get that a story." Now, that's the the story is not about the story.

So, here I have no interest, not really, at least at the moment, about which of these states did a better job.

That's not the point.

Uh, I'm going to make a point that's not about education.

That's also interesting, but that's not where I'm going here.

So, it's not about the states.

It's not about education.

It's about this that the way Bill Maher framed it was two people in different information bubbles.

When was the last time you saw that?

That it got framed as reasonable people who just happen to be getting different information.

What's that sound like?

>> >> It sounds like something that uh comes from Republicans.

What's important here is that Bill can now speak the language of Republicans the way we would speak it because I would have said maybe the same thing.

I would say, "Well, if you don't know about that story, you might be in a bubble." And it doesn't mean you're smart and uh and I'm dumb or vice versa.

It just means you and I get different information.

And if we got the same information, especially about something like education, don't you think we'd probably be on the same page if we had the same information?

Probably.

So again, I'm not arguing the the merit of the point about education.

I'm just really impressed when I watch, in this case, Bill Maher.

He's trying to see the whole field, but he's not trying to see the whole field just factually.

He's trying to see how it works.

And how it works is that we get pushed into these little bubbles and then we believe that our bubble has the right facts and then we're completely lost after that.

It's a big deal.

It's a big deal that somebody has learned how to speak the Republican language and they're not a Republican.

by the way, do all of you see that how big a deal that is?

Am I Am I getting too excited over nothing?

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

Because, you know, I've been making this point that uh Republicans learn and and also teach their base.

This is more important.

Republicans teach their base and their followers how to think about things, not just what to think.

And did you see that Bill Maher just did that?

He He just told Donna in Brazil how to think, which is make sure you're not in a bubble.

He didn't tell her what to think.

That that came along with it.

Oh, by the way, if you were in if you had done that, you would you would see this differently.

So every time you see somebody in the left start to adopt the idea that common sense and affordability and uh these are also how to think kinds of issues.

Uh if they start focusing on how to think about things, we're going to end up in the same place.

That that's the magic of it.

You'll end up in the same place if you learn how to think.

But if they try to teach you what to think, you'll all end up in different places and then you fight.

All right.

Um, apparently the FBI has now concluded and that would include uh Dan Bonino who uh I think most of us completely trust.

So it to me I would be amazed if Dan Bonino started lying to lying to the country.

It just doesn't even seem possible.

He he seems so credible that he you know like anybody could be wrong about something but but would he lie?

I just doesn't even seem possible.

Um but they say that they've now looked into it totally and Thomas Crooks acted alone.

But what I found even more important, this was in a Fox News report, is that there were some things I thought I knew about that story.

So Krooks is the one that was on the roof and got shot as soon as he took his shot.

Um, one of the things I thought I knew about that is that Krooks had some encrypted apps uh or some devices that we couldn't get into.

How many of you thought that was real?

that that the shooter was known to have some encrypted apps and even the FBI couldn't get into them.

That was never real.

Did you know that?

That was never real.

That there are no apps and no devices.

According to Bonino, there were no apps and no devices that were impossible to get into.

The FBI just opened them up like like they were all just cans of soda.

No, no.

There was I remember you thought to yourself, how can this even be possible?

How is it possible that in this day and age, you know, the FBI can't get into all these apps?

Of course, they can.

They got into them right away.

There's no problem at all.

So, uh, what was the other thing?

There was at least there was at least one other thing in that story that I thought everybody knew was true that just turned down it was never true.

So anyway, what once you once you adjust for the fact that you had the wrong facts, you know, you can't I guess you were in the wrong bubble.

Uh once you adjust to the fact that you had the wrong facts, it does look pretty believable that it was a single shooter.

Um but if you had believed that there were these secret encrypted apps that nobody could get into, well, it's a little bit more more suggestive that there's more to the story.

All right.

Uh I guess uh JD Vance has uh been mocking Canada.

I don't know if mocking is the right word, but uh Canada's uh living standards have stagnated.

Um and JD points out that it's probably not unrelated to the fact that Canada has the highest number of of the G7, the highest percentage of people not born in the country that they're living.

So that would say that immigration is the reason that Canadian living standards have stagnated.

Do you think that's true?

Do you think that the reason that Canadian living standards have stagnated is because of immigration?

Well, might be part of it.

Um I imagine there's more than one reason.

All right, that's all I had for today.

Um, I will remind you that the the afterparty will be starting pretty soon.

I'm going to say a few words to my beloved subscribers on uh uh on uh locals and the rest of you.

I'll see you tomorrow.

If I don't see you today, I might join the the spaces today, but I will be anonymous so you wouldn't know if I'm there or not.

All right, everybody.

an amazing day.

Go find Owen Gregorian.

Go search for him.

Owen Gregorian.

And uh

Come on in. Find a seat. We're about to

begin what can only be described as the

best coffee with Scott Adams you've ever

seen today.

Uhhuh.

Let me make sure all your comments are

zipping by here. And then we got a show.

Oh, do we have a show? Oh boy, do we

have a show.

Oh,

what the I can't even lift my notes. Why

are my notes so heavy? Oh, it's because

the brand new 2026 Dilbert calendar was

sitting on top of my notes. I couldn't

even lift them. Well, as long as I'm

talking about it, I don't know if you've

noticed, but we're uh running out of

calendars. So, if you haven't ordered

yours, you'll be really mad if you wait

too long. So, it does look like we have

a really good chance of selling out,

which is good for me and not ideal for

the last person who tries to get one.

So, they're only on Amazon. You already

know if you want it. So, just go to

Amazon. It's not going to be anywhere

else. It will only be on Amazon. USA.

USA.

Good morning everybody and welcome to

the highlight of human civilization.

It's called Coffee with Scott Adams and

you've never had a better time. But if

you want to take a chance, if you want

to take a chance of elevating your

experience up to levels that nobody can

even understand with their tiny shiny

human brains. All you need for that is

a cuppper, a mug or a glass of tanker

chest, a canteen, jugger flask, a vessel

of any kind. Fill it with your favorite

liquid. I like coffee. And join me now

for the unparalleled pleasure, the

dopamine of the day, the thing that

makes everything better. It's called the

simultaneous sip. Right. And it happens

now. Go.

Ah. [clears throat]

Ah,

yeah.

That's the way I know. All right. Well,

so today will be one of the best shows

I've ever given you because just by

chance, there's a whole bunch of

persuasion related Trump related things

happening and they're all delicious and

they will all teach you something.

Well, we're going to start with uh oh,

by the way, after the show, immediately

after this, uh Owen Gregorian will be

hosting another spaces event on the X

platform. So, look for Owen Gregorian.

If you search for him, it'll pop right

up and then it's a it's a audio only. Uh

but you can ask questions and you can

participate and you'll love it.

Anyway, um, President Trump has, uh,

issued an order to temporarily terminate

what's called temporary status for

Simoleons,

some kind of temporary protective

status. So, I guess they had some kind

of special

uh, characterization

because the Simoleons were assumed to be

in, you know, more more danger than

other people. And that allowed a lot of

simoleons to come over here. And do you

remember was it just yesterday or the

day before yesterday? You can remind me.

Remember when I was saying that whenever

you see a news story, it has any of

these keywords.

It means some simoleons have stolen your

tax money. like you don't want to see uh

Minnesota

uh any kind of any kind of government

program,

anything about tax dollars.

If you see any of those words in the

news and they're together,

some Simoleons are running a some kind

of scam on you. So, there were so many

of them, I think, that I started losing

the ability to tell them apart. It

seemed like there was one every day. It

was just crazy. Well, Christopher Rufo,

you you know him if you're uh on the

political right and you follow social

media. Uh Christopher Rufo and uh I

guess some people he works with. I don't

know exactly the entity. They did the

research and he says, quote, "We broke

this Somali fraud story and called on

President Trump to revoke the temporary

protected status for all Somali, and now

the president has delivered." How many

times have we seen this happen?

By far, this is the coolest thing about

the Trump administration. Um, I've

called this out just a number of times.

Trump actually reads the room.

You [clears throat] know, we talk about

can people read the room, meaning know

what people are thinking, but he

actually reads like literally reads

the people in the room. So, Christopher

Rufo and his posts on X and I'm sure

he's had direct communications with

people in the administration. Uh, he

does the work. He puts in the work based

on what he and some other people have

decided would be the important thing to

work on like what would be good for the

country what could we do that would make

a difference and then they go do that

thing I don't know that anybody asked

him to do it they just sort of recognize

this this gap in the way we run the

country and he must have said here you

know I'm doing a little mind readading

here because I I can't know what they're

thinking but it seems to me that these

were some patriots who said, "Uh, no,

we're not going to put up with this. Uh,

I'm going to call it out. I'm going to

write it up. I'm going to go to the

president. I'm going to ask him to stop

it." And then that's what happened. I

mean, come on. Is that the coolest thing

you've heard today? Just the fact,

doesn't it make you feel good that

somebody could identify a problem, put

the work in,

and and then it gets solved?

>> [laughter]

>> How often does that happen? Pretty cool.

So, good work, uh, Christopher Rufo.

Good work, President Trump.

We're at least one step forward on that

stuff.

Well, you already know by now Marjorie

Taylor Green has resigned effective uh

early January. So, there's so much to

say about that because everybody took

sides, blah blah blah. But, uh, I'll say

a bunch of things about it in no

particular order. Um, some say that it

was because she disagreed with Trump on

a number of what she might call me MAGA

related issues and she was more mega

than Trump was in the end and then they

could no longer work with each other.

So, uh, Trump has said he wanted to

primary her and there's not much chance

she probably could have got elected. If

she got primar and the president was

against her, it'd be hard to get

elected. So,

a lot of smart people said, "Well, did

she really quit or was she not going to

be in office after the next, you know,

election cycle anyway, so she's just

getting ahead of it?" That's a fair

statement. Other people said, "Oh, is it

just a coincidence that her that her uh

benefits have vested? Now she's got

health care." Well, that would be a

perfectly good reason for retiring from

any job. No problem. Um,

let's see. Some say it's about Israel.

Of course, that'll be we always throw

that in there. Um

anyway, so but let let me give you a few

other ways to look at this. Mario Knoff

on X had a take that was uh that she

just pulled off the smartest political

move of her career. How many people

think that? How many people think that

this wasn't running away? She just saw

an opportunity for the biggest move of

any politician ever. And so she took it

because she's smart and she said, "Whoa,

this will never happen again. I'm going

to I'm going to take this opportunity."

What are we talking about? What

opportunity? Well, here's what Mario

said. Um,

he said this. She quit because she's

playing the long game and uh losing in a

primary with Trump destroying her is not

really good long-term strategy. But you

know what would be? You know what would

be a long-term strategy? To sort of go

out at the top. Now you could argue what

the top is, but you know what I mean. To

go out before she's badly bruised when

she still has, you know, full name

recognition and all that. And she has

every opportunity in the world now. I

mean, I think she's got a book out, but

I don't know if that's new or it's been

out for a while. Um, obviously by now

she would be looking at offers.

Probably lots of them. Could she start

your own TV show? Of course. Yeah. Do Do

you think anybody's offered to say,

"Well, how would you like to be our next

Matt Gates?" Well, she'd probably be

good at it. So the world of

opportunities for her had just opened

up. Did she become more powerful or less

powerful because of resigning?

You tell me. Well, it depends what

happens next. If she just goes off and

works on her construction business or

family construction business, then u

that would be perfectly respectable.

patriot took a shot at improving things,

decided it wasn't for her, wasn't making

enough of a difference, went to do

something else in the free market. No

problem. So, that that's sort of the

worst case scenario

is that she just has a normal life now,

a good normal life, a very good normal

life. But what's the other possibility?

Well, the other possibility is she

becomes a Tucker Carlson like Matt Gates

like

um Ben Shapiro like person whose

influence just magnifies

because she would be good on TV. You

already know she's good on TV, right? So

now she suddenly has the opportunity to

be way way more influential

and even President Trump might someday

want to go on her on her show and and

answer some questions and she's going to

have some tough questions. Tough

questions. So we don't know if any of

that's going to happen. We're just

purely speculating. But if you think

that she's operating from loss or

operating from weakness, doesn't look

like it to me. It looks like she's

operating from strength and she has lots

of options. So, you just don't know

where she's going. That's what I think.

Anyway, um

we'll see where that goes. I I I think

there's more it's more likely that

she'll come out of this more powerful.

What do you think? I'm looking at your

comments. Whether you like her or not,

you know, I know I know it's always a

mixed bag, but would you agree that

she'll come out of this more powerful,

not less?

All right, we'll see in your comments

what you say. All right. Uh, meanwhile,

in a somewhat related, but not really,

um, I saw user Matt Van Swall on X. It

was a good account. You should follow

it. Uh, Matt Van Swall, his last name is

Van Space Sol.

Um he noted that in con in Charlotte,

North Carolina that there were he says

hundreds of construction sites are

completely empty and uh he believes the

reason is that ICE came through and took

all the employees. How would he know or

how would anybody know if there were

hundreds of construction sites that were

empty in Charlotte, North Carolina? that

it sounds like maybe a little bit

a little bit of hyperbole or a little

bit of pro not projection but would do

you know that now I do believe that it's

observable that you would observably see

that a lot of sites were closed I don't

know it's hundreds that's that's the

only thing I question so

um what do you make of that do you make

of it that it would be a mistake or or

was a mistake to send away all the

people who know how to build stuff.

I I already know what you're going to

say in the comments. Shall I summarize

your comments without even reading them?

I believe I can. Some of you are going

to say, "Too bad. Too bad." Why did you

start a construction company that

depended on non-American workers? Whose

problem is that? Not my problem. Right.

Now, does that capture some of your

comments? Yeah. It's just not your

problem.

Um, but I would argue we are all part of

this big old economy and uh if if it

were this problem once, you might say,

"Well, that construction owner guy made

a mistake. That's his problem." But what

if what if it really is hundreds and

it's only in one city there hundreds?

That's going to be magnified all over

the country, right? Are you okay with

that? And then the real question is it

kind of depends how long it lasts,

right? If you said to me, Scott, Scott,

answer me this. Um, yeah, there might be

a few days where they have to hire

Americanborn workers and replace all the

foreignb born people who got deported.

It might take a few days. What would I

say to that? I would say a few days. You

say like how many days? What's a few

days? Well, I don't know. Two weeks.

I would say two weeks to convert from

foreignb born to Americanborn workers in

these good jobs. Totally. Yeah. Sign me

up for that. I I would definitely take a

two week total national disruption if at

the end of it we had, you know, American

border workers and that's what we

wanted. But what if it's not two weeks?

What if it's six months?

Well, now you got a whole different

problem.

What if it is 6 months and then the half

of the people who are in the

construction business go out of business

because they can't hold on for 6 months.

So, did we even create a path for the

construction industry to survive? I

don't know the answer to that, but it's

a pretty big question. So, I would feel

very different

if there was simply a disruption in the

economy versus destroying the entire

construction industry in a way that

almost can't go back.

And do we know which one of those is

going to happen? Cuz I don't. [laughter]

I'm watching pretty carefully. I don't

know what's going to happen. I I think

the general feeling and I'm I'm going to

say something that sounds a little

biased here because it is. The general

feeling is that for people who are not

close to the employment market, which is

a lot of us,

um I don't think people understand

how woefully undertrained

Americanborn workers are. I don't think

you know how hard it's going to be to

get them trained up to the point uh that

they can match the work of the foreignb

born people. Now, should we do it anyway

because it's hard? That's a good

argument. That the fact that it's hard

shouldn't stop you from doing it if if

if you want to get to that end point.

But, uh, we do not know what's going to

happen. We don't know. How many of you

feel confident that you do know and that

you've got a got a good idea in your

head, ah, this is going to be it's going

to be three weeks of pain and then

everything will be back to normal and

better than normal because it'll be

American-born uh workers and maybe

that's what you want. What do you think?

Are are you confident that you know

where this ends up? Well, I'm not. Nor

do I need to be. I mean, it's an

uncertain situation, but uh we'll find

out. You know, sometimes, and this might

be one of those times, sometimes you

have to just

jump to the next rock without knowing if

there's going to be another rock there.

Sometimes you just have to go for it.

And I don't know that there will ever be

another time when the construction

companies will be forced to hire

American. might be the only time. So, if

we lose this opportunity, well, maybe it

doesn't come around again. So, I

wouldn't uh I wouldn't uh disagree with

your plan if you thought that we should

just do it and suffer the consequences.

Whatever it is, it is. It'll be hard,

but we have to do it. That wouldn't be a

bad opinion. I just don't know if it'll

work out.

Well, the other big story is that Trump

met Zoron Mumdami. This is my favorite

story, actually. Um, and you probably

know that instead of fighting it out

like some of you thought that they

would, uh, they ended up, at least Trump

did, acting very friendly, like, uh,

everything went great, uh, a lot of

smiles, etc. Now, I would note that

Zoron, at least in the Oval Office

meeting that was uh that was uh on

video, he uh was his usual smiley self,

but boy, he wasn't giving up much, was

he? He he looked like, "H, I don't know

where this is going. Wait a minute. Are

you saying good things about me? Are you

going to hijack me? Am I going to be

like some of those other leaders who

didn't know that you were going to

hijack me when I went into the Oval

Office? Or is this going to work out for

me? I don't know. So Trump had this

gigantic advantage over him that Trump

knew where Trump was going and he knew

that he was going to keep it friendly.

Zoron didn't know that. I mean, he could

have hoped it. He could have heard it,

but he didn't know it. So I think he was

a little bit not a little bit. I mean,

how many times has he been in the Oval

Office? Never. Uh,

basically I've been in the Oval Office

more than he had until that day. So,

it did look like um Zoron was the uh I

shook the intern,

didn't it? You could see the power

difference. Trump is sitting in a chair

and uh Mandani is standing. There's this

giant age difference. There's an

experience difference. There's an office

difference. There's a probably a height

difference. Right? So Trump goes in with

all these power symbols and he makes he

makes them do Zim uh

he makes Zoran just sort of stand there

not know what to do. So I love that. Um

but here here's the persuasion lesson

for you. Have you noticed that Trump is

consistently able to be the most

interesting person in every story?

Especially if it's a story he has some

control over.

How in the world could Trump become the

most interesting person in this story?

Because Zoron,

he's the it guy, right? He literally is

more interesting than Trump just in this

narrow domain. Do you think Trump wants

to bring in a guy who's got as much game

as Trump does? Is not as much, but uh

that he's operating at that highest

level of persuasion.

Do you think Trump wanted to bring him

in and

sort of make him the star?

Maybe not. So, if you were Trump, how

could you guarantee that without looking

like a giant dick, you could also claim

all the attention?

Well, how about acting like Ezoran's

best friend and playing opposite of type

to the point where it's all you want to

talk about? Wait a minute. I didn't

think Trump would do this. Wait a

minute. With that other leader, he did

this. Wait a minute. He could have done

this. Wait a minute. Is it just because

he likes New York? Wait a minute. You

see where I'm going on this? Trump made

Trump the interesting person in the

story. Who else could do that? I mean,

really.

Nobody else could do that.

There's no normal politician who could

have out Zorand

Zoran at the peak of his being

interesting. This is the peak. This is

Zoran's best day. He's never had a

better day. [laughter]

And Trump [clears throat] just went,

he just high ground him like he wasn't

even there. So Trump made himself the

star of the event and makes you insanely

curious about what did they actually say

behind closed doors? What's it what's

going to happen next? Uh did he plan

this? I don't know. or or was it just

like a spontaneous thing where he sort

of liked Zoran and thought, you know

what, I'm gonna play opposite type.

We're gonna have some fun. Don't know.

But it's the not knowing that makes it

interesting.

So, uh if if you don't understand the

level of talent that Trump brought to

that one just that one event,

you're really missing a great show. That

is not normal.

It's not normal to be that skillful

in this unique situation, which he's

never been in before. And he just owned

it. Just totally owned it. All right.

So, uh, here's one reason that you might

have predicted that they would get

along. What would be the most predictive

thing? And I've told you this before, so

it won't be the first time you've heard

it, but it would be the first time maybe

used it to predict.

Trump likes talented people.

And now we're done. Trump likes really

likes talented people. Doesn't matter if

it's sports, doesn't matter if it's

politics, doesn't matter if it's some

subset of talent within one of those

things. He really really likes talented

people. He likes merit. And even if the

person's on the other team, he will call

them out for their talent. So knowing as

you do, and I've told you this before,

that uh he's drawn to talent, he calls

it out, he follows it, he tries to

incorporate it, he tries to be around

it.

What would you have predicted that would

be his um response to Zoron in person?

exactly this. If the only thing he knew

is that he loves talent and it

completely changes how he operates, you

put him in a room with a super talented

person. I'm talking about the kind of

talent that only a few people in the

world have. I'm talking about a Tom

Brady kind of talent, right? That kind

of talent. You put him in the room with

that and he's always smiling, right?

You've seen it a million times. Always

smiling and he's always going to be

respectful. I'm seeing that word in the

comments, respectful. So he goes

immediately into respectful mode and

then everything works out. Two highlevel

people showing respect to each other and

and Zoron Mandani uh quite wisely showed

full respect to the office, which is all

Trump requires. He doesn't it doesn't

have to be that personal. But if he

shows full respect to the office, well,

now you got two people who can talk.

That's what happened. All right. Um

Trump joked when one of it might have

been CNN asked Mum Dami did he think

that Trump was a fascist because it's a

word that he's used a lot. And rather

than let uh Zoran

try to answer that, which might be a

problem. Uh Trump jumps in and

interrupts. He goes, "Just say yes."

Which I thought was hilarious. Goes just

say yes. It'll be easier. [laughter]

Just say yes. He's a fascist. [snorts]

Um, now what was that?

That was a rescue, wasn't it? It was a

rescue. Trump rescued him in real time.

He he he took that little problem, just

took it off his plate and made it

forever, never a problem again. There

will never be another time when Zoran

has to answer that same stupid question.

Well, you called him a fascist before,

but now you want federal money. How do

you explain that? Why would you take

money from a fascist? Trump just made

that go away.

Now, does that obligate Zoran to sort of

owe Trump? Yeah, a little bit.

[laughter]

And not in a big way, but a little bit.

It's like he did him a favor.

Men especially feel that. We feel it.

like, "All right, I owe I owe you one."

Uh, what else

next? Uh, Trump has an instinct for the

show. I call it the show because he's

always involved in the show. You know,

there are different episodes of the

show, but it's always the show. And

Trump knows the show better than

anybody. And what could have been a

better show than the one he put on

yesterday by surprising us that they're,

you know, acting like best friends? You

can't beat that. I mean, a fist fight

might have been more fun, but, you know,

that wouldn't have been appropriate. So,

he knows how to put it on the show, and

he did. Um,

and then Trump also said that they had

good chemistry, and he said, quote,

"It's always nice to have good chemistry

with people." That's a bigger deal than

people understand. If he has good

personal chemistry, he can get along

with anybody. And by the way, do you

remember when uh I used to say that uh

Trump had a pirate ship? And one of the

things I liked about him, especially in

the the first election, is that he would

assemble

people who were his supporters that you

wouldn't think would be on the same

ship. That's why I call it a pirate ship

because it's all these weirdos. And

weirdos, I say, with love, not not with

uh insult. Um, and he never he never

left that model. And I always thought

that is the strongest frame you're ever

going to say because once you've

established that you're the only one who

can have any kind of pirate, you get all

the good pirates,

[laughter]

right? If you're trying to pick teams

and you've established that you'll not

only work with the pirate, you'll make

them head of a cabinet position,

that's a real strong power. So yeah, the

the pirate ship mentality,

if you're treating the pirates as a

positive, like I don't care what you did

before, RFK Jr., I don't care if you ate

a ate a whale's head or I don't know

what he's accused of doing, but as long

as you can do this thing for me and for

the country, we're going to do this

thing. Pirate ship. Very powerful.

Um,

what else? I saw a body language expert

looking at Zoran in the Oval Office and

thought that he was being very reserved

but also seemed to be relaxed.

I don't know about the relaxed part. I

might disagree with that but uh that he

he seemed to be have been put at ease. I

think both of them knew how to put each

other at ease and did a good job of it.

Um,

yeah, let's say. And Trump said about

Zoran that he couldn't have been nicer.

And I thought to myself, that is just a

superpower, isn't it? Being nice to

people

is really powerful. That, you know, even

if it's the president of the United

States, if if you're nice to him, who

knows what could happen.

All right, but here's the best part. I'm

I'm getting to the real payoff here. on

uh persuasion.

Now, you're really going to learn

something next. You ready? Do you

remember

when Zoron and maybe some other people

trotted out the word affordability?

Do you remember what I said on my show

here? And I was just swooning at how

smart that was. I had never heard

affordability

being used as the main word. of course

is a normal word that people use, but

I'd never heard it used as sort of the

campaign's main theme. And I thought to

myself, "Oh my god, you can't really

beat that." So, what are Republicans

going to do to counter that? You can't

really beat affordability. It's so well

chosen. It's not overused. So, it's not

like you remember Carrie did it when he

Nothing like that. So, it's fresh. It's

perfect. It's on point. Everybody feels

it. It works for all kinds of

categories. It's just a great word and I

don't think you can beat it. So

then Trump runs into this word. He would

have, I believe, exactly the same

reaction to it that I did, which is, "Oh

crap, [laughter]

that's a really good word. What am I

going to do about that?"

But as you know, Trump is the unmatched

persuasion expert of our time.

Is there anything he could have done to

counter the effectiveness of

affordability?

Anything? Is there any way to play that?

I couldn't think of one. I was I was

coming up blank and I I think about this

stuff all the time. I didn't really have

a good answer. So, what did Trump do? Do

you know what he did? [laughter] If

you've been paying attention for the

last week, he did the smartest thing

you'll ever say. He just took the word.

He He credited them. So, he didn't say,

you know, this is my own word. He gave

them credit and then he embraced it.

And he fully embraced it. He borrowed

it. He stole it.

He co-opted it. He embraced it.

Now what? Now what do you do? And my

guess is that behind closed doors, it

was probably that word that allowed them

to say, "You know what? I think we can

say good things about each other when

we're when we're out in that other

room." Because if you're if you're down

with affordability and I'm down with

affordability,

uh we can work together.

If I told you that one of these

candidates was the common sense

candidate, common sense. Now, that would

be Trump, not Zoran. But affordability

sounds like common sense, doesn't it?

Because if it's not affordable, it's a

nothing.

So, it perfectly fits

Trump's whole mega everything. It's

common sense. Affordability is. And at

the same time, if it's Zoran's whole,

it's got to be affordable cuz nobody can

afford to live in New York City. So,

it's sort of perfect for both of them.

And Trump noticed that apparently and

decided that he would he would get on

that channel and that nothing could kick

him off and that once he's on there uh

the only thing that could happen is

Zoron can leave [laughter]

and he's not going to. So since they're

both committed to this affordability

thing, but the president of the United

States has more tools simply by being

president. Zoran probably can't get to

affordability without a little bit of

help from a variety of places including

the president. So the fact that Trump

not only noticed that the word was a

high ground killer word. So the first

part is hard. The first part is simply

recognizing the power of that word. But

the second part,

oh my goodness, the second part was

knowing what to do about it.

It's so rare. And the third part

is he executed

because right now I just think of

affordability as something that two of

our leaders have embraced and I hope the

rest of them get on board.

That's three for three of three of the

hardest things you could do in

persuasion. Recognize the word. Uh know

that you have to deal with it and then

totally embrace it and co-opt it and

turn it into your own thing. Nobody else

can do that. That that's a that's a

Trumpy thing right there. It's one for

the ages.

Anyway, uh you'll remember that one

forever.

Meanwhile, CNN's Harry Enon tells us

that the polls are not looking so good

for Trump and uh I guess the

independence in January of uh earlier

this year in January. Um he was only

down four with independence and now he's

down 43. He's down 43

now. How do you explain that the

independents liked him if not or at

least liked him a lot more in January,

but it's completely collapsed?

Well, there's two ways to look at this.

I'm going to give you a little um a

mental test. I guess I guess that's what

it is. What do you call it? A what's the

word for that? Not a mental test. A uh

uh you know what I mean? Like a mental

exercise. Imagine if you will that Trump

became president as he did and he did

everything wrong and he only made

mistakes. What would happen to his poll

numbers if he got in the job and didn't

solve any problems?

His poll numbers would fall through the

roof or no fall through the basement.

Right? So if he does a really terrible

terrible job, his poll numbers would

look a lot like they do now. What would

happen on the other hand if he came into

office and let's say there were five

really big problems that the country

cared about a lot and he immediately

solved all five. Let's say he ended some

wars. Uh closed the border uh put an end

to inflation. You'd like it to be lower,

but he ended it. Uh let's say tariffs

worked. Um just throw in a few more

things, right? What would happen if

Trump solved all the problems that could

be solved and what was left

didn't look like that big a problem or

didn't look like something that only

Trump could solve? What would happen to

his poll numbers then?

Well, once you solve all your big

problems, you start thinking about

things like empathy

because it's a luxury. Empathy is a

luxury. If if everything's falling apart

and you're in mortal danger, well then

you need a Trump to do the things that

no one else can do because no one else

can do it and it's a mortal danger.

People are pouring across the border or

or the dollar is becoming worth a penny.

I mean, these are mortal end of the

world existential problems.

But what if he solved them all?

So you [clears throat] have this weird

situation where it's going to be hard

for us to distinguish. Is Trump less

popular because he solved all the Trump

only problems? I would say the border

was kind of a Trump only could solve it

situation. But once it's solved

then the next Republican can certainly

maintain.

So, uh, I've always predicted that that

Trump's poll numbers would fall through

the, uh, floor.

Have you seen me predict that? Before it

actually happened, I predicted it. And,

uh, there would probably be a point sort

of early in the election cycle, well,

after he'd been elected, there would be

a point early on where maybe he hit the

best numbers he'd ever had because he

hadn't done anything yet, and they're

hoping he could solve the big problems.

But I did predict in public that once he

solved the biggest problems, his polls

would drop because you didn't need Trump

for business as usual. Business as usual

is uh Marco Rubio, he could do that.

He'd be great at it. Uh JD Vince,

absolutely business as usual. But uh you

really need to do something that's going

to make everybody hate you and maybe try

to shoot you.

That's kind of only Trump.

So once we finish all these only Trump

can do it problems,

um if you combine the fact that Trump

won't be running for office again,

it kind of makes total sense that

whether he succeeded or failed,

his popularity as president should

should naturally come to an end.

So there might be a there might be a

point and I don't know if I would be

bold enough to predict this yet where

the type of success that he gets is so

undeniably

crazily good

that before he leaves office and maybe

after uh his his numbers will creep back

up if for example he does put an end to

the Ukraine war and we'll talk about

that in a minute. uh if he pulled that

off and if he got our our budget a

little bit closer to balance

and if Gaza was heading in the right

direction and if the border was stayed

closed and if the employment numbers

were just crazy good because you know it

took a few took two years let's say but

we finally trained enough American

construction workers I mean just take

take a look at construction just pick

If the only thing that happened is you

waited two years,

well on day one it looks like, oh that

Trump, he made a mistake. He sent back

the only qualified workers and now we

can't build this hotel. That's a real

problem. It's a real problem. But in two

years, what will it look like?

Well, the companies that are still in

business will have figured out how to

hire locals one way or the other and

they'll just be running their business.

So, there's going to be a point

where if Trump succeeds on on this whole

range of things that it looks like he is

going to it does look like he he will

succeed. If he does

and then you wait two years and then

let's say he turns down the temperature

a little bit because he's not running

for office. You know, when he runs for

office all the the temperature goes up.

He doesn't need to do that again. So he

can simply play for his legacy.

If the last two years of his office he's

playing for his legacy, playing nice.

Basically, he'd be more like his meeting

with Zoron, which even the left is going

to say, "Ah, we don't mind that. You

could do more of that. We we have no

problem whatsoever with you being

friendly with Zoron in the Oval Office.

Even we Democrats like that." So, the

most natural arc for where this ends up

is that Trump's poll numbers will

continue to drop until, to borrow his

language, no one's ever seen anything

like it. [laughter]

He might break records for the lowest

popularity of a a sitting president.

And whether that happens or not, the

second part of the the prediction is

that by the time he leaves office, but

it could be maybe shortly after, he'll

have the best poll numbers of any

president of all time. Of all time.

Yeah. But you're going to have to wait

um to find out if I'm right about that.

So, uh here's a little personal interest

story. So, I'm sitting at home [snorts]

and I'm in my nice comfy lazy boy chair

and I I've got my phone and I'm watching

the news and I'm watching a video that

was just happened really. It was uh

right after the uh the Zoran meeting in

the Oval Office. And so I'm I'm

listening to Trump as he's talking on my

phone. Trump jump.

Then my phone rings. I'm like, "Oh, damn

it.

And it's uh West Palm Beach.

Yes. The president called me while I was

watching the president on TV. [laughter]

He So Trump called just to make sure I

was doing okay and I was getting the

help I needed for my medical situation.

He followed up.

My god.

He called twice. Yeah, I missed it but

and called back. But uh

I will never get used to that.

You cannot get used there. There's no

way your brain can actually process it.

That you're sitting at home. You're

literally watching the most powerful in

my opinion and successful president in

the history of all humankind.

The most important person you could

argue out of about 7 billion of us. And

and his little face and his words are

are on this phone that's like in my

hand. And then the real one calls me.

The real one calls me while I'm sitting

there. [laughter]

I I'm trying to make this into a more

interesting story,

but it doesn't really need any extra

details, does it? Just the fact that it

happened at all. It's just mind-blowing.

It's just mind-blowing. Then I hang up

the phone

and uh and Dr. Roz calls me also because

um I'm sure also because Trump

originally got him involved. Uh also to

check to see how I was doing and uh

thanks to Dr. Oz. Um my healthc care

company Kaiser is definitely stepping up

and

they're they're definitely giving me a

high quality um product. Now I don't

know that it's any higher than anybody

else's. I I know some of you are going

to say, "Scott, you're using your fame

and connections to get extra healthcare

that the rest of us don't get." I don't

think that's happening. I I'm not aware

of any special things outside of the

boundaries of my healthcare that I'm

getting, but I'm definitely getting the

getting a good version of it. Anyway, um

so there's a uh Ukraine peace plan

that uh the Trump administration has

floated.

What do you think about that? Do you

think Trump's going to pull that off a

peace plan? I guess today might be the

fourth year of the war.

You know, there's something about random

numbers

that motivate humans because we we act

like random numbers matter. So, it's the

fourth year, and if I told you a war was

in, let's say, its second year, you

might say, "Well, that's a long time,

but wars are longer than that." If I

told you it was in its 10th year, you

would definitely say, "Uh, let's wrap

this up. It doesn't look like it's going

anywhere."

fourth year starts to look like, you

know what, we all want to just get out

of this. Let's This didn't work out. So,

I think maybe just psychologically

everybody's a little bit closer to doing

whatever whatever it will take to make

the hard decisions. So, I went to Grock

and I said, because the news is terrible

at summarizing, I said, "Can you

summarize this 28point plan?" and Grock

could not

it it could only explain each of the 28

points in way too detailed um for what I

wanted. So I said stop stop

and at some point you just have to

scream at it stop and then it stopped.

I said all right try again except I only

want one sentence

for each of the bullet points for the 28

things. just give me one sentence. Do

you think it could do that? Well, sort

of. But it decided that that one

sentence would be about a paragraph

long. So, I'm like, stop, stop, stop.

All right, we're going to try it again.

And it's going to be one short sentence.

One short sentence for each of the 28

points. Can you do that? Oh, yes. And

then I made it number them. But man, did

I have to work at it. So now I have

maybe the only list cuz my guess is that

the people who work in the media were

way too lazy to do what Grock did and

probably way too

or let's say not trained well enough to

make AI do what I did which wasn't any

genius move. I just work I just yelled

at him more. Um so here are the things.

It might be the only time you hear these

actually summarized in a good way. Uh

the 28 points would be that uh Ukraine's

sovereignty would be confirmed

internationally.

Uh so everybody would agree that it's a

country. Crimea would stay under Russian

control permanently. No surprise. And by

the way, I'm I'm not saying I like these

or don't like them. I'm just listing

them. These are not agreed to. Not

agreed to. These are just what uh the

Trump administration is proposing. um

that Donesk and Luhans would just be

completely Russian. Parts of Kersan and

Zaparisia

would go to Russia. Uh some additional

eastern territories including some in

KEV would transfer to Russia. All right.

So you and I don't know too much about

any of those regions, but we knew that

Russia would demand some keeping forever

some part of it. And uh maybe these make

sense. And then there's the Odessa

regions coastal areas would which would

become Russian enclaves. Well, I don't

know what an enclave is, but it's

probably something that they plan to

someday become Russian territory. I

think enclave might be the word they use

for uh that's right before we say we're

going to take it and it will be ours

forever. It's an enclave.

Uh then there would be a demilitariz

demilitarized zone along the new Russia

Ukraine border. Of course, you would

have to have a demilitarized zone. And

UN peacekeepers would monitor that.

We're up to number nine. Ukraine would

commit to permanent neutrality forever.

I don't know what that means, but

probably that's workable. Uh no NATO

membership for Ukraine ever. Ukraine's

This one will be negotiable. Ukraine's

army gets capped at 100,000 active

troops. Well, that's kind of clever

because we're already at the point where

I tell you too often that uh all the

wars will be robot wars. The number of

soldiers

uh will no longer be predictive of who

could win a war, but the number of

drones might and the number of drone

operators might. So this might be

workable in a way that it would not have

been maybe even 3 years ago because it

could be that Russia will say, "Well, if

you only have that many soldiers, you're

not a threat." Whereas Ukraine might

say, "Well, I don't know if uh if we

send you 50,000 trained drone operators

who have a million drones at their

disposal because one operator would have

a swarm."

Do you think do you think you'd feel

safe from that?

So, there might be a way that both sides

think they got the advantage, which

would be a good deal. Um, there'd be

limits on Ukraine's heavy weapons and

tanks, but again, those are not robots,

so that might work. No offensive

missiles over 300 kilometers.

Uh, I wonder if that includes drones,

but no offensive missiles. Um the US,

EU, and China would guarantee Ukraine's

security jointly. Well, that would be

good if all three of them were on the

same page. Uh the the ceasefire would be

immediate upon signing. International

observers would enforce the ceasefire

daily. Russian troops would withdraw

from the nonseated areas in six months.

Yeah, good luck with that. Uh Western

sanctions on Russia would be lifted in

phases. the frozen Russian assets that

uh would be used they would be unfrozen.

So the frozen Russian assets would be

unfrozen to rebuild uh Ukraine with a US

lead. So So it looks like it looks like

Trump found a way to make some money for

us. So he he's going to unfreeze

Russia's money if I get this right. Uh

but USled

entities will get to do the work.

doesn't mean US entities but US-led. So

that would be plenty of opportunity for

the US to get its beak wet in some of

this economic activity. Uh Russia would

get access to Ukrainian Black Sea ports.

Um Ukraine protects ethnic Russian

rights. No foreign military bases in

Ukraine except for the UN. Disputed

borders. Well, that's a big one. No

foreign military bases in Ukraine. Do

you think Well, this is our proposal, so

apparently the US would be okay with

this given that it's our proposal. Um,

and then disputed borders go to

international arbitration. Ukraine gets

50 billion in debt relief from Russia. I

guess they have some debt out there. Uh,

joint energy projects. Oh, joint energy

projects until 2040. So that's yet

another way that Trump could make some

money for the US. Uh EU accession talks

paused for 10 years. So Ukraine wouldn't

get into the European Union for at least

10 years. And all parties ratify the

deal within 30 days. All right. So

obviously that's way too big and

complicated for people like you and me

to know if that's a good idea or a bad

or a bad proposal. But what's your

what's your general feeling about it?

Do do you feel like there's something we

could work with on this? All right. Is

that close enough to a deal? Well, it

really depends if Russia wants a deal.

I would say it comes down to this. It It

really isn't about the specifics of the

proposal. If Russia is tired of fighting

and they don't think they can win

outright and they're just ready they're

just ready for some kind of you know

some kind of result then yes this they

could make this work. Uh, if Russia is

doing nothing but stalling, stalin

stalin. Uh, if they're nothing if

they're doing nothing but um

kicking the can down the road and making

it look like they care about peace, but

they don't, well, then nothing will

work. So, I'm going to say that the

details of this plan will not be the

defining

or predictive element.

So you would not be able to, so this is

my prediction, you would not be able to

look at the plan to know if this could

work or not. You would only be able to

look into the hearts and souls of the

people involved. Zalinski, does he have

a way to survive this? Does he have an

afterwar plan? Uh Putin, does Putin

really want to wrap this up? Would he

get enough out of this?

Uh, and then Trump, how much does Trump

want the Nobel Peace Prize, right? So, I

think my take on this is that this plan

push you in, it push you in the game.

Meaning that if the players were finally

ready to make peace, this would get you

there. So, I'm going to I'm going to say

uh this would be good enough. You still

have to tweak it like crazy. And it

might take weeks or months to get there,

but this is close enough if, and this is

the biggest if, if they've already

mentally decided they want to get this

done. If they've decided they if they

haven't decided, then it's no good at

all. All right.

Would you believe that there's another

story about a court blocking something

that Trump wanted and then the Supreme

Court uh overturned the activist judge?

Well, that happened again. Uh this is

about Texas's new Republicanfriendly

congressional map. So, Texas draws a new

map that would give them a new

representative. A activist judge says,

"You can't do that." But then it goes

immediately to the Supreme Court and the

Supreme Court says, "Well, we don't have

time to decide on that yet, but in the

short run, uh, we're going to block you

from blocking it."

So, the Supreme Court has blocked the

lower court from blocking it.

It just sounds like the same story every

few days, doesn't it? Because it is. In

other news, remember uh you probably

remember George Floyd and Derek Schovin.

I'll bet you do. But uh Derek Schovin's

attorney has filed a new petition

uh to try to get Derek Schovin released.

And this is the approach they're taking

according to Alpha News. I saw this on

X. Um, apparently they found more than

50 former and current officers, police

officers who have provided sworn

declarations

stating that the technique used by Derek

Schovin and other min Minneapolis police

officers involved that day was part of

the Minneapolis Police Department

training.

Now, you already knew that, right? Just

as an observer, you already knew that

Derek Schovin literally used the

technique that he was trained to use and

that it was in writing and it was an

actual

official policy. You all knew that,

right? But but I believe that was I

believe it was prohibited

from being presented at the trial. Do I

have that right? Give me a fact check on

that. Were Were they prohibited or did

they just treat it in a way that wasn't

quite the way you'd want it to be

treated?

Yeah. Uh so I don't know the the total

details there, but to me that does seem

like that should be really really

important because if he was trained to

do it that way and everybody else was

trained to do it that way and you got 50

50

is a lot. Just ask those uh former and

current intelligence people who signed

off on the Hunter laptop. 50 is a lot.

The 50 is all you need. Um

if it were up to you and the only thing

you knew is that they had this and

nothing else changed. But let's say you

believed completely these 50 officers

and you said to yourself, "Holy cow, I

was part of the decision to put Chovin

in jail, but I didn't know this. I

didn't know." What if you're finding out

about it for the first time? How would

you feel? How would you feel if you were

on the jury and you would uh you had

convicted him to effectively something

like life and then you learned that he

had been trained to do it exactly that

way. How would you feel about yourself?

I tell you if that were me I wouldn't

feel too good about that at all. So

anyway, we'll see if that goes anywhere

but good luck.

So Bill Maher's show was last night. Do

you know that whenever Bill Maher has a

show that we like to talk about his uh

slow transition into a Republican? No,

I'm just joking. He's not going to

become a Republican.

Might be better than that. Might be

something better. So, he had uh Don

Brazil on the show and uh

I'm I'm going to tell you about their

back and forth, but I'm going to take a

direction on this after I tell you that

you don't see coming. I think so. The

Overton News is reporting that so they

were debating education and uh and an

issue Democrats used to sort of own and

Bill Maher is making the point that

Democrats are sort of seeding control of

that topic. So here's what happened. Uh

so uh

Bill Maher said uh I really do feel like

the Democratic party this has been their

portfolio meaning education for a long

time education. So, I feel like they if

they're going to get back into office,

they have to own the issue a little. And

then he goes on, he says, because a lot

of the states that are doing better now

are like the southern states, meaning

Republican.

And Don and Brazil said, really? Which

ones? And Mar said Mississippi as an

example. And Brazil said, Mississippi is

getting better than Louisiana. So, I

guess Louisiana would be a blue state.

And Bill Maher said, "And here's the

payoff. See, you're in a bubble. You

didn't get that a story."

Now, that's

the the story is not about the story.

So, here I have no interest, not really,

at least at the moment, about which of

these states did a better job. That's

not the point. Uh, I'm going to make a

point that's not about education.

That's also interesting, but that's not

where I'm going here. So, it's not about

the states. It's not about education.

It's about this that the way Bill Maher

framed it was two people in different

information bubbles.

When was the last time you saw that?

That it got framed as reasonable people

who just happen to be getting different

information. What's that sound like?

>> [laughter]

>> It sounds like something that uh comes

from Republicans.

What's important here is that Bill

can now speak the language of

Republicans the way we would speak it

because I would have said maybe the same

thing. I would say, "Well, if you don't

know about that story, you might be in a

bubble." And it doesn't mean you're

smart and uh and I'm dumb or vice versa.

It just means you and I get different

information. And if we got the same

information, especially about something

like education, don't you think we'd

probably be on the same page if we had

the same information?

Probably. So again, I'm not arguing the

the merit of the point about education.

I'm just really impressed when I watch,

in this case, Bill Maher. He's trying to

see the whole field, but he's not trying

to see the whole field just factually.

He's trying to see how it works. And how

it works is that we get pushed into

these little bubbles

and then we believe that our bubble has

the right facts and then we're

completely lost after that. It's a big

deal. It's a big deal that somebody has

learned how to speak the Republican

language and they're not a Republican.

by the way, do all of you see that how

big a deal that is? Am I Am I getting

too excited over nothing? I don't think

so. I don't think so. Because, you know,

I've been making this point

that uh Republicans learn and and also

teach their base. This is more

important. Republicans teach their base

and their followers how to think about

things, not just what to think. And did

you see that Bill Maher just did that?

He He just told Donna in Brazil how to

think, which is make sure you're not in

a bubble.

He didn't tell her what to think. That

that came along with it. Oh, by the way,

if you were in if you had done that, you

would you would see this differently. So

every time you see somebody in the left

start to adopt the idea that common

sense and affordability

and uh these are also how to think kinds

of issues. Uh if they start focusing on

how to think about things, we're going

to end up in the same place.

That that's the magic of it. You'll end

up in the same place if you learn how to

think.

But if they try to teach you what to

think,

you'll all end up in different places

and then you fight. All right.

Um,

apparently the FBI has now concluded and

that would include uh Dan Bonino who uh

I think most of us completely trust. So

it to me I would be amazed if Dan Bonino

started lying to lying to the country.

It just doesn't even seem possible. He

he seems so credible that he you know

like anybody could be wrong about

something but but would he lie? I just

doesn't even seem possible.

Um but they say that they've now looked

into it totally and Thomas Crooks acted

alone. But what I found even more

important, this was in a Fox News

report, is that there were some things I

thought I knew about that story. So

Krooks is the one that was on the roof

and got shot as soon as he took his

shot. Um, one of the things I thought I

knew about that is that Krooks had some

encrypted apps uh or some devices that

we couldn't get into. How many of you

thought that was real?

that that the shooter

was known to have some encrypted apps

and even the FBI couldn't get into them.

That was never real. Did you know that?

That was never real. [laughter]

That there are no apps and no devices.

According to Bonino, there were no apps

and no devices that were

impossible to get into. The FBI just

opened them up like like they were all

just cans of soda.

No, no. There was I remember you thought

to yourself, how can this even be

possible? How is it possible that in

this day and age, you know, the FBI

can't get into all these apps? Of

course, they can. They got into them

right away. There's no problem at all.

So, uh, what was the other thing? There

was at least

there was at least one other thing in

that story that I thought everybody knew

was true that just turned down it was

never true.

So anyway, what once you once you adjust

for the fact that you had the wrong

facts, you know, you can't I guess you

were in the wrong bubble. Uh once you

adjust to the fact that you had the

wrong facts, it does look pretty

believable

that it was a single shooter. Um but if

you had believed that there were these

secret encrypted apps that nobody could

get into, well, it's a little bit more

more suggestive that there's more to the

story. All right. Uh

I guess uh JD Vance has uh been mocking

Canada. I don't know if mocking is the

right word, but uh

Canada's uh living standards have

stagnated.

Um and JD points out that it's probably

not unrelated to the fact that Canada

has the highest number of of the G7, the

highest percentage of people not born in

the country that they're living.

So that would say that immigration is

the reason that Canadian living

standards have stagnated.

Do you think that's true? Do you think

that the reason that Canadian living

standards have stagnated is because of

immigration?

Well, might be part of it. Um I imagine

there's more than one reason. All right,

that's all I had for today.

Um, I will remind you that the the

afterparty

will be starting pretty soon. I'm going

to say a few words to my beloved

subscribers on uh

uh on uh locals and the rest of you.

I'll see you tomorrow. If I don't see

you today, I might join the the spaces

today, but I will be anonymous so you

wouldn't know if I'm there or not.

All right, everybody.

an amazing day. Go find Owen Gregorian.

Go search for him. Owen Gregorian.

And uh