Episode 3035 CWSA 12/03/25

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Well, let me make sure I can see all the beloved locals comments.

Not that they're better than the rest of you, but they are the beloveds.

All right, beloveds.

You are fully functional.

All right, let's uh check the news.

See if there's anything weird in the news.

Well, according to the University of Copenhagen, uh the contra the women's contraceptive pill uh may cause people to get depressed later in life.

Now, how many of you did not know that the contraceptive pill could change how you feel?

Well, it can.

It can uh increase risk of depression.

Well, I knew that if you just asked me.

I could have told you.

It also changes your preferences in men, doesn't it?

Don't we already know that?

that your preferences in men would change based on being on the pill.

That's dangerous.

So, I would advise you never get married and then go on the pill cuz that's kind of sketchy.

You might not be attracted to your husband anymore.

Anyway, did you know also that uh the more you engage in social media, the dumber you get?

According to Scypost Karina and Petrova, there's a new analysis that says that the more time you spend on social media, literally the dumber you get.

Okay.

You score lower on certain tasks of brain function.

Uh let me see.

I wonder who's wonder who scrolls more on social media.

Men or women?

What do you think?

Who spends more time on social media?

Well, let's go to Grock.

Grock says women spend 30% more time on social media.

So, if you know a woman who's on social media and she recently went on the pill, according to science, she is dumb and depressed compared to you.

Compared to you.

So be careful about that.

You don't want the dumb and depressed people.

Well, um Elon Musk is bragging about uh his new Optimus robots.

The hands are the hard thing to get because they have so many the range of motion is so great and they have to be able to feel what they're doing.

But apparently the new Optimus hand is a wonder.

22 degrees of freedom.

I don't know, maybe that's a lot, but they say they're finalizing it.

The design of Optimus version three, and it will have the manual dexterity of a human.

Really?

Um, this would be where a crude cartoonist would be making a joke, huh?

Let's see.

Women are going to be scrolling on social media and getting dumber compared to men according to science.

That's not me.

That's science.

And they're going to go on uh birth control to get angrier and more depressed.

But your Tesla Optimus robot is going to have a humanlike hand and is going to be happy and like you all the time.

I wonder where this is heading.

That's right.

Who will be the first person who cancels a date to get a hand job from his robot?

You know, Alice, I'd love to go on that date to the movie and sit there for two hours watching somebody get tied to a chair.

Or I could just uh get my robot to be a little friendly and a little handsy.

You know what I mean?

Well, can your robot give you a massage?

Back massage?

I don't know.

But if one of them learns it, then they all learn it, right?

Well, I believe since the Optimus robots will beworked and presumably anything that one of them learns will be be taught to the others automatically.

Uh I feel like it's a an important kind of a social thing you can do to train your robot first to uh you know get a little handsy and then all the robots will be able to then you don't have to date at all.

Yeah, that's where we're going.

Now Elon Musk of course also owns the Neurolink company where they put a chip in your brain and he says that uh any device can be controlled via computer or phone that can be controlled by computer phone can be controlled by the Neurolink implant.

H well that's interesting.

If you were in need of the Neurolink implant, would it be possible that you'd be able to someday, they can't do it yet, um, imagine that you're in a drone or robot and that you see what the drone sees or the robot sees.

That's coming, right?

So it could be that our best uh warriors will be people who are parapillegics but they have a neurolink implant so that they can actually be on the battlefield without being on the battlefield.

They just use their neurolink connection to see what the drone sees and uh see or see what the robot sees.

Now a question will be if the Neurolink I'm sorry if the uh Tesla robots Optimus suppose they're the best ones and inexpensive will will they be available to the military or will uh Tesla say we will not sell these to the military but what if the military said we will buy a million of them?

Well, maybe maybe.

Uh, so yeah, I have a real question whether the robots will ever be militarized or will Elon just say, "I don't want to be in that business.

Use some other robot." I feel like maybe he will not want to be part of that.

But I don't know.

Well, the New York Times has joined others in debunking the Washington Post story that alleged that Secretary Hegth ordered the killing of survivors on one of those narco boats in September.

So, the New York Times says, "Nope, not true." How many of you already knew that wasn't true because you had learned how to detect fake news from me?

This one had all of the signs.

All of the signs for fake news that was there.

Number one, the story fit the the Democrat narrative perfectly.

Oh, so six people are complaining about the risk of illegal orders being followed by the military.

And then coincidentally, there's a big national story about some military people who may have allegedly uh done some illegal things by following orders.

That is what we call two on the nose.

So clue number one was fake news.

Two on the nose.

And the timing was kind of coincidentally perfect for something that happened in September and we waited until now.

All right.

Number two, it came from the Washington Post.

Uh well, uh well assumed, let's say, assumed to be a non-legitimate news source when it comes to deep state Democrat stuff.

Maybe not in general.

you know, the the other news might be fine.

But when it comes to politics, that would be one of the least credible sources.

So, that would be clue number two.

Two on the nose and it's the Washington Post.

What would be the third thing?

The third thing is it's from two, it's always two.

They always tell you they're two anonymous whistleblowers.

Now, if they had been non anonymous and we could all talk to them, maybe, you know, but if they're anonymous, Washington Post, too on the nose, no, we did not need to wait for the New York Times to debunk this.

We were all there first.

So, how does it feel to know what the future is?

That's what happened.

Th those of you that I've trained to spot fake news, as soon as you saw that, you said a number of people told me as soon as I saw it, uh, your training kicked in, Scott, and I knew it was fake news.

Yep.

So, you're welcome.

Anyway, speaking of eggs, he's announced uh I I don't know that this is new, but um that the US is going for drone dominance.

So, we've got to be the bestest, biggest military drone maker to stay safe.

Almost nothing else will matter except drones.

Um, and uh we can't afford to shoot down cheap drones with, you know, expensive missiles.

So, we're going to have to match the cheapness of what will be coming at us if there's a war.

My question is this.

how many of our drones that we make and we're looking to make a gazillion of them and you know be able to make more than anybody else.

So the only way that's going to happen is if they're being made by robots.

So we'll have to have Tesla robots working in factories or other robots making drones like crazy.

But uh will they be software upgradable?

Probably.

That's probably the the main difference will be the software upgrades, but there will be other hardware upgrades, too.

All right.

Um, ABC News says that the wealth of the top 1% of Americans is now a record 52 trillion.

Wow.

So if you took if you confiscated most of the wealth of uh wealthy Americans, if you just took it all, you would be able to pay off our national debt.

So how do you think the national debt will be paid off?

Do you think it will be paid off by the poor people?

No.

Will it be paid off by um a tremendous amount of economic activity from robots?

Well, that's what uh Elon Musk thinks.

He thinks the only way out to pay off our national debt is to have such a gigantic increase in economic activity that that 32 trillion or 39 trillion uh debt doesn't look so big anymore.

Maybe that plus inflation could be.

Um, but here's the good news.

Even though the richest got richer by uh 10% recently, the the bottom half also did well.

They uh increased their wealth by 6%.

Well, that's not that's not bad.

a 6% increase.

But I'll bet it doesn't feel like they increased their wealth because everything costs more, right?

Not everything.

Well, speaking of everything costing more, um Rand Paul is reviving a plan that I guess Democrat AG's shot down the last time it came up.

It's a plan to allow um health insurance to be sold through Costco, Amazon, and Sam's Club.

Now, if I understand the idea here, if you allow those those entities in particular, because they're so big, Costco, Amazon, and Sam's Club, if you allow them to compete in the insurance business, uh the competition would drive the cost down.

Now, do you think that's true?

Do you think that that would be enough?

All you have to do is let these big uh costconscious companies that are really good at driving costs down.

If you let them compete with each other, will that drive down the cost of healthcare?

It feels like it's worth a try, right?

I don't really see the downside.

Um but I don't know how much of a difference that would make or how quickly.

I suspect it would not be fast.

But I also wonder if your Amazon um has not Amazon announced that it wants to be directly in the health care business, not just the insurance business, but in the providing health care.

Um part of it makes sense because there's a lot of health care stuff that really depends on something being delivered to you, right?

Like you need some crushes, you need a pill.

Uh, a lot of it is just something has to be delivered.

So, Amazon's the obvious one to do that.

Uh, would you buy your health insurance from Amazon if they provided the insurance, but they also provided some fast same day service for, you know, all the medical things that you continually need.

I feel like I might I feel like that that might be an attractive option.

So, I guess the last time this came up, the Democrat AGs fought against it in court and won.

To which I say, what was their objection to it?

Why did the Democrats AGS not want competition?

In what world is competition a bad thing?

Well, it must be just somebody was making money.

Yeah, it had to be the usual.

Some kind of corruption or something.

But now that the uh Republicans have control of Congress, there's some thought that it could get passed.

So maybe if that was the only thing that Trump did for health care, how much of a difference would it make?

Maybe a lot.

By a lot, I would say 20%.

I mean, it's not gonna it's not going to, you know, turn it upside down, but you could get a probably a solid 20%.

Well, Trump is doubling down on his uh anti- Biden auto pen stuff.

Um, and he's wants to make sure that everybody who got a pardon and of that knows that it's canled.

I've got a problem with this.

I got a problem.

You know, the uh is a constitutional um ban against double jeopardy.

So, you can't be tried for the same thing twice if the first time you got off, right?

And we all we understand that to be fair, don't we?

Don't you think that's fair?

If you've been tried for something once and you were found not guilty, it's not really cool to try you again.

It just we like that.

It seems fair.

But uh what happens if you got a autopen pardon or commutation and then the next president tries to take it away?

Doesn't that feel like a little double jeopardyish?

To me, it does.

So, as much as I think people like Fouchy and whoever else need to um they need to be responsible for what they allegedly did.

I don't know what they did or didn't do, but it feels like people should be responsible for, you know, any bad things they did.

On the other hand, it's really double jeopardyish.

I I just don't know if I want to be part of a system that can tell somebody, "All right, you're safe.

You know, go live your life." And then next president comes in and says, "Oh, no.

You have to go back to jail." Are there people who will be literally put back in jail because of the auto patent?

That's not cool.

You know, even if I don't like those people and even if I think, you know, they got away with murder, I don't know.

You know, I I don't think anybody has been put back in jail because of it yet.

But how would you feel watching somebody being handcuffed and taken back to jail after they thought that their all their problems were over and they'd been pardoned?

It wouldn't be a good feeling, but I imagine there are a few really bad characters that, you know, maybe would.

Now, there is an allegation that maybe there's no there's no proof of this whatsoever, uh that maybe the uh the Biden people sold some of the pardons or commutations or clemency or whatever the hell that's called.

But I don't think we've seen evidence of that or and I don't think we would necessarily even if it were true.

So I'm uncomfortable with that, but I understand why it's being done.

Uh let's see.

Scott Jennings apparently spent some time with President Trump and uh there was some report that Trump fell asleep during a a meeting, cabinet meeting.

Is that true?

How in the world could it be true that Trump fell asleep during a cabinet meeting and there's no video of it?

Was there a part of the meeting where it was not videoed?

I don't know.

Seems like we'd be seeing that all over the news if that were true.

But they say he dozed off.

Now, I wouldn't care.

You know, if if somebody dozes off in a meeting that's so boring that anybody would doze off, I don't really care.

Do you?

I I feel like if your job is going from one meeting to another and you sleep four hours a night and one of these is just so boring you fall asleep, I don't want you impeached over that.

I just think you should have shorter meetings or have somebody sitting next to you to wake you up.

But it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but Scott Jennings is pushing back on that.

I saw a man a few days ago in the Oval Office for about an hour.

He looked and sounded fine.

Wide range of issues.

People were coming and going.

It was bustling.

He was listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon cabinet meeting.

So maybe that's another fake news.

So I don't know.

Uh the video won't be shown on the news stations I watch.

What do you mean?

I watch I watch uh both sides of the news.

How many of you think I don't watch CNN?

I do watch CNN.

I I don't watch MSNBC so much because that's not even trying to be news.

CNN at least is trying to be news most of the time, you know, and they they may stray a little bit from perfection.

Um, but if you look at them lately, not not five years ago, but if you look at them lately, it looks like they're trying to do news.

Um, so I always sample CNN and all the regular mainstream news.

So no, I would definitely have seen it if it were circulating, but uh, it was a good accusation.

Well, uh, President Trump has called Elon Omar garbage.

Now, compare compare the outrage or lack of it with what Trump said this week to how much outrage there would have been in his first term.

And it's completely different.

So, this this is something Trump actually said.

Quote, Elon Omar is garbage.

She's garbage.

Her friends are garbage.

These aren't people that work.

Uh these aren't people that say, "Let's go.

Come on.

Uh let's make this place great." These are people that do nothing but complain.

When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but this is actually what Trump said.

Do nothing but We don't want them in our country.

Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.

All right.

So, was that racist?

Was it sexist?

What was it?

Was it racist or sexist?

And are you surprised at how little push back there is on this?

There's a little bit, but it doesn't feel like it would have fell five years ago, does it?

Five years ago, this would have been the only story and they would have slammed it over and over again and it would all be about uh he wouldn't call a white person this and if it were a white person he wouldn't do that.

Uh if it were a man he wouldn't do that even if he would.

So, does it seem to you that Trump has uh cornered the Democrats because their one play their go-to all the time was identity politics.

So, he goes right in the middle of the identity politics and does a tap dance on top of it.

It's like watch this.

Uh they're garbage when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but We don't want you in our country.

Yes, you're garbage.

All your friends are garbage.

Oh, and and he basically just gets away with it because I think I think the Democrats have finally caught on that if they if they take the bait and they go down the identity politics, it doesn't get them to be the next president.

They people don't care.

Most Americans don't really care about whether he's insulting Somalians who are ripping off the country.

They're not all ripping off the country.

Let me say that because I'm no racist.

But uh there are some prominent stories of Somalian crooks stealing a billion dollars from Minneapolis, Minnesota I should say.

So uh yeah, but it's not every one of them.

So don't be like that.

There are plenty of good Somalians.

I don't know any Simoleons, but I'm just assuming.

I assume there's some good ones.

Anyway, Elon Omar is garbage and all of her friends are garbage.

All right.

Well, that was fun.

Um, they're not all garbage.

Come on.

They're people.

They're human beings.

People, stop being that way.

But it is pretty funny when Trump is that way.

Well, the Trump administration has officially uh halted immigration and naturalization from 19 third world countries.

So, I remember when doing that was a racist act.

But now, not so much.

Not so much.

Doesn't seem so racist now, does it?

And have Democrats learned that pushing back about uh against identity politics or embracing it, I guess, doesn't work.

Have they or do they just not have any leadership?

Because it seems to me and see if you agree that Trump is giving them all kinds of red meat.

Just all kinds of red meat and they don't seem to be chopping on it.

But they're also not doing anything else that's working.

Maybe they just think they can outweigh him, which they can, by the way.

They could wait him out.

Anyway, um it it does make me wonder if Democrats have literally had a meeting and said, "All right, we can't let him bait us like this.

Every time he baits us into this identity politics things, he wins and we lose.

So just don't take the bait." Do you think that's happening or is it just some lack of leadership that they can't organize a counterattack?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Uh meanwhile, a town has squashed a plan to build in their town a large Muslim school.

And uh locals say they don't want to become like Dearborn or Great Britain, which I imagine means they don't want to have too many uh too many Muslims in their town.

But the reason that they gave for turning it down had to do with traffic.

Do you believe that?

And do you believe that Alabama turned down the Muslim school because the impact it would have on traffic?

Well, maybe.

I I mean, traffic's real and maybe, but that was kind of convenient because then they didn't have to, you know, have a uh let's say a deeper argument about what their concerns were.

So, we'll see if there's more of that or less of that.

Um, I wonder why you can't just turn it down for being a Muslim school.

Like, that's that's not a good enough reason.

Now, I get that we're America, blah blah blah, but wouldn't a Muslim school be sort of at odds with the um whatever standards there are for American schools?

I feel like a Muslim school would have a tough time meeting the requirements of a regular school.

So, I got questions.

Anyway, um so Duffy, uh what's his first name?

Secretary Shan Duffy, Transportation Secretary.

Uh he warned that uh he warned Wals, Governor Wals of Minnesota to revoke illegally issued uh driver's license from non-citizens or lose 30 million in highway funding.

according according to just the news.

So Minnesota failed to follow the law says Duffy uh and illegally illegally dole down lots of trucking licenses that would be unsafe uh because the people are not qualified.

So that's happening.

30 million in federal highway funding.

Huh.

So I have a question for Governor Walsh of Minnesota.

I mean, I'm just reading the news and there are variety of things in the news about Minnesota.

And the overarching question that it makes me wonder about is did did Governor Wals do anything right?

Or or was he literally playing some kind of prank where he wanted to see if he could become governor and just do everything wrong?

Uh, I'm going to do everything wrong.

Just see what happens.

I'm just curious what'll happen if I just do everything wrong.

Can you imagine?

He could have been the vice president.

He could have been the vice president.

Oh my god.

But, you know, a lot of us, and I would put myself in this category, had an instinct about Wals like there's something wrong with this guy.

there's there's just something wrong.

And uh sure enough, there's something wrong with him.

He is not to be trusted in my opinion.

Well, the Department of Justice is suing six states, according to Fox News, for uh refusing to turn over their voter registration roles because the federal government um wants to look at them and make sure that they have, you know, legally that the people on the the voting roles are there legally.

And the the states that have refused are Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

And now they're being accused of violating federal election laws.

So my question is this, why would any of those states refuse to turn over their uh voter registration roles upon request?

What What would be the argument?

Too busy?

Oh, we're too busy.

Uh maybe they don't have the information.

Do you think Do you think it's possible they don't have voter roles?

No, they have voter roles.

Um and or they don't think that the federal government has a legitimate uh right to see that.

I don't know.

It looks like they have something to hide.

I don't know that for sure, but it looks kind of suspicious.

So, I'm glad that u the federal government's pushing on him.

Um Trump is still talking about him not getting the Nobel Prize and uh he says, "Every time I end a war," because he's allegedly ended eight wars already, according to him.

Uh, every time I end a war, they say if President Trump ends that war, he's going to get the Nobel Prize.

If I end that war, well, he won't get it for that war, but if he he might get it for the next war.

So, Trump is Trump is mocking the Nobel Prize people for not giving him, you know, the award for ending what he what he would say would be ending eight wars.

Uh you might debate whether he has ended eight wars, but he's certainly he's certainly done something in that direction.

Certainly impressive.

You know, whether it's eight or six or five, it would still be a world's record of ending wars.

Um and then he says, I should get the Nobel Prize for every war, but I don't want uh but I don't I don't want to be greedy.

I I kind of love that Trump is going after this hard because one of two things is going to happen.

Uh he's either going to get the Nobel Peace Prize eventually.

You maybe not right away.

So he's either going to get it or he's going to destroy the Nobel Peace Prize as a credible prize.

One of those two things is going to happen.

So he's created sort of like a a me or you, you know, me or them.

And I've got a feeling that he might destroy the the old Nobel Prize reputation like he did the news business.

You know, if you're sitting over there in the news business and you watch how Trump completely destroyed the credibility of the entire news industry.

Well, I think the Nobel Committee might be next.

So, Nobel Committee, if you guys want to maintain your credibility, you probably don't want to go up against the most persuasive person who's ever been mad at you.

So, watch out for that.

But, uh, I think everybody's watching the, uh, Russia Ukraine situation.

If Trump ends that, what do you think will happen?

I'm going to make a prediction.

Okay.

I'm going to predict that if Trump lit literally ended the Ukraine uh Russian war that the Nobel Prize committee would not give him not give him the peace prize because they would argue that he ended it in a way that was not let's say good for Ukraine, right?

Because you could argue anything.

You could argue, well, all he did was give away a country to an aggressor.

He gave away, you know, the the the most economically viable part of Ukraine.

He just gave it away.

We're not going to give him a You don't get an award for giving land to an aggressor, right?

So, I think the Nobel Prize Committee are are going to try to not give it to him and they will simply have some argument.

Well, yeah, he did solve eight or nine wars, but you know, they would have solved themselves and you know, they'll have they'll have some reason.

So, I suspect he will never get a Nobel Prize, but the uh cost to the Nobel Committee, I mean, can you even imagine?

Imagine if he did solve the Ukraine situation and just got a total lasting ceasefire and then would the Nobel Prize be able to ignore that?

Yes, they would.

They could.

All they'd have to do is say it wasn't a good deal for Ukraine.

That's all they'd have to say.

Well, yeah, the shooting stopped, but only because they gave away half of their country.

You know, the the best parts.

So yeah, they could weasle their way out of that, but I think that if they do so, it will forever destroy the credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Some would say it's already destroyed.

Well, I've talked at length about how the Democrats use that word affordability as a very effective propaganda.

And uh when you hear that they want to make things more affordable, as a consumer, you say to yourself, "Well, that sounds good.

I would like some affordable stuff.

Please give me some affordable things.

So, it sounds good.

And I've told you that uh it's a real problem if you're Trump.

So, what does Trump do?

Well, first of all, I'm going to give him credit for uh noticing, as I did, that the word affordability is pretty good.

You know, if you were coming up with things to say about the other side and you were a Democrat and you came up with that word affordability, you've heard me compliment that, right?

Mand mandani.

Mandami.

It's a really strong word for, you know, the common sense ordinary person who just can't pay for groceries.

We want to hear that you're fixing affordability and shut up about the rest.

Honestly, I don't I never go to bed thinking about Ukraine, but I bet a lot of people go to bed thinking about how to pay for groceries.

So, it was a super super clever, effective word.

So, that gives Trump a problem.

What does Trump do when the other side, whoever the other side is, what does he do when the other side makes a good play?

And it's based on words.

Well, he either co-opts it, which it looked like he was trying hard to do um maybe a week or two ago, but now it looks like he may have pivoted.

So, instead of co-opting it, which might look like he's just following the Democrats, which is not a good look.

Um uh I think he's mocking it out of existence.

It looks like that's the next play.

So, Trump says uh the word affordability is a Democrat a scam.

Oh, all right.

So, he's going to call it a scam.

Uh, they say it and then they go on to the next subject and everyone thinks, "Oh, they had the lower prices." No, they had the worst inflation in the history of our country.

So, I guess Trump's new approach, and maybe he's just testing it, you know, he doesn't know if it'll work yet, but testing it out, is that he did successfully call a lot of things they do fake and scams.

I think he he said, you know, climate change or at least the the alarm over it was a scam.

Got away with that.

Um, so maybe, yeah, I I would say this is just a test to see how it goes.

If he can if he can make affordability sound like a scam, he might do it.

But it would be better if he could just make stuff affordable.

Uh, apparently gas prices are falling to below $2 in some states.

Did you ever think that would happen?

I didn't.

I never thought any state would have $2 gas again, but apparently they are.

That's a pretty big deal.

Um, in California, of course, I think we're still around $5 because we got a terrible government.

Just summary.

Summarizing, we have a terrible government.

Anyway, so, uh, affordability, the word is all the Democrats have for them.

They don't have they don't have performance.

They don't have success.

They've got that word.

It's a very attractive word because we all want some affordability.

Um, but it looks like Trump is just going to take the piss out of the word so that the next time you hear affordability, you're going to think, or is it a scam?

Well, you know, I like affordability, but the way those Democrats talk about it, I don't know, maybe it's some kind of Democrat scam.

So, we'll see if Trump can sell affordability as a scam word.

It's a tough cell because it's a strong word.

Uh, and Trump has actually predicted that gas prices will fall to $2 a gallon in some places.

He blames uh Biden, Trump does for emptying out the national uh petroleum reserves.

Uh do you think that that's why the gas prices are what they are?

I don't know.

You know, maybe because refilling the reserves means that we're competing, doesn't it?

I think that's how it works.

Doesn't that mean that we would be competing in the free market to buy gas um or oil?

Is it gas or oil?

What what's in our reserves?

Uh gas or oil?

Can you even have a reserve of gas?

Um that's weird.

I feel dumb.

One of the things about doing this a podcast where you talk about the news is it does a a really good job of revealing your stupidity.

If there's something you don't know, oh, it's going to come out like it just did.

Uh, I'm seeing all.

So, a bunch of people in the comments.

Are you telling me that it's gas that's already refined and also oil?

Oil and gas both.

Okay.

Oh, but are you talking about gas that goes into your car or uh are you talking about gas that would be burned for energy?

You know, the the more gassy gas.

Okay.

I think you mean oil and the kind of gas that you pull out of the ground, not refined gas that goes in your gas tank, right?

I think.

All right.

Well, obviously I'm not the expert on that, but I don't know if that is enough to be affecting our gas prices this much.

I might make some difference, but I don't have much difference.

Well, according to the AP, Trump administration uh says it's going to withhold SNAP food aid from uh the Democrat blue states unless they provide recipient records.

So, do you see the pattern?

This would be yet another example where the federal government is trying to do something like an audit without it being exactly an audit.

They're just trying to figure out where their money is going.

and uh to make sure that they don't give money to a black hole.

Um but it kind of amazes me that there's any state that's receiving money from the government that's not willing to tell the government where the money is going.

That feels a little sketchy, doesn't it?

Now, I don't know where this is going to end up, but I definitely am backing the federal government who wants to have some kind of control on where the money goes.

I don't know if this would be an audit per se, but we need we need some kind of auditing process for our federal dollars.

M would be much harder to get that approved at a local level, but it would be ideal if we never gave any taxpayer dollars to anything unless it was fully auditable.

All right, how about this?

Oh, Ran Paul, Thomas Massie, are you listening?

I I call them out because they're the in my opinion, they're the common sense guys in the government.

How about this?

How about some legislation that says if you want to receive federal dollars, you have to demonstrate that you have an auditing function.

Boom.

What do you think?

Show me in the comments.

I I want to see some legislation that says that in the future you can only receive federal dollars only if you've demonstrated that you've set up an auditing process that would allow the federal government to see where its money went.

Huh?

You like it, don't you?

Now, I like that because it's not overly prescriptive.

It's not telling people they have to do a certain kind of audit in a certain kind of way, but it allows the federal government to say that's good enough or it isn't.

That's pretty good, isn't it?

Yeah.

That's not just a good idea.

That's a freaking great idea.

Now, I need somebody who's, you know, smarter than me to tell me if that would work in the in the real world.

I don't know if it'll work in the real world, but why in the world would anybody give billions and millions of dollars to anybody if they didn't know where it was going?

But some somehow we do that.

So I think you could start with that model at the federal level and then that would give people at the local level something to argue for.

So in other words, if you if you had this uh law at the federal level and it started working, then the people at the local level could say that that we need to do that.

We just need to do the local version of that much easier because if if it works at the federal level, your argument for doing it locally is trivial.

I mean, easy.

Of course, you'd want it locally.

Well, in other news, uh, China's going to tax condoms for the first time in 30 years.

And I guess they're doing this, uh, to increase the population because they know they've got a demographic problem.

They're not creating enough babies for their future survival.

So, they're going to stop taxing condoms.

I don't know how much difference that's going to make.

Do you just that one thing?

How many condoms do they use in China?

Now, they should also tax oral sex, obviously, because uh those people who are having oral sex instead of penetration, well, they're not having babies.

And if you really want to encourage the Chinese to have babies, you should put a steep tax on oral sex.

Something like $1,000.

because some people will still pay the thousand because you know it's worth it.

Um if you have the money that at least that's the going rate in the United States.

That's the going rate around here.

How do I know that?

I don't know that.

I'm just guessing.

Jay, don't clip this.

Jason, do not clip this.

This should not be a clip.

I'm just I'm just messing with you.

I'm just joking.

So, the Chinese got to pay taxes on their condoms.

Um, all right.

Speaking of NATO, uh the chief of NATO, Ruty, um says that next year countries need to give a lot of money more than a billion a month to purchase offensive and defensive weapons from the US.

Oh, all right.

Long as they're buying our weapons, I'm happy about it.

Yep.

You Europeans need to vastly increase your weapon sales, your weapons purchases of American weapons.

All right.

Um, Senator or Secretary Rubio was pointing out yesterday, I think, that Ukraine has pushed Russia back um out of a lot of territory that Russia once held.

Now, did you remember that?

Uh, to me that came as sort of a surprise.

I knew I know that some of the territory has changed hands.

So I know it's not a static situation in Ukraine, but is it true that Russia once held a lot more territory than they do and that uh little by little Ukraine pushed them out of some of it and now they have reached some kind of impass where Russia's gaining a little ground and Russia and Ukraine is not pushing anybody out of anything.

Is that what's happening?

It's fog of war.

So, I don't know exactly what's happening over there, but but Rubio claims that they used to have a lot more territory and Ukraine pushed them back.

Now, the way I would interpret that is that uh Russia didn't have the force to hold the territory that they captured.

And maybe some of it wasn't terribly strategic.

So, they may have said, "Well, we got all this territory.

we'll we'll keep the strategic stuff.

We'll let them see if they can get back the non-strategic stuff.

So, probably there's a strategic versus non-strategic element in that.

But, uh it's it's generally easier to conquer to some territory temporarily than it is to hold it for years.

So, anyway, that's interesting.

Um Putin is uh as as I like to say, he's a real good propagandist and uh I like to look at his work.

Now, if you can find it in your brain to not say I'm a Putin lover, I'm going to talk about what he's doing right in persuasion.

Can you all handle that?

I know 90% of you can handle it because you've been around my content for a while.

It doesn't mean I love Putin.

Okay?

If I say he did something right or something that's, you know, smart for Russia, doesn't mean I love Putin.

It just means he made a good play and maybe it's worth looking at.

Maybe you learned something.

So, uh, Putin said there were three things he wanted to say about, um, the war, uh, that, uh, in Russia's, specifically about Europe's involvement in in the Ukraine Russia war.

And, uh, Putin said that about Europe, uh, they were obsessed with this idea of delivering a strategic defeat to Russia.

Is that true?

Do you think Europe was obsessed with the idea of delivering a strategic defeat?

Or is it just something they wanted?

Because who doesn't want to win?

Well, this one rings a little bit true.

Again, I'm not taking sides with Putin.

I'm just talking about the propaganda game and and when he does it well and when he doesn't.

This is a good job because I don't know that this is the truest thing he's ever said, but it does match what I've seen in the news.

So, it's trueish.

It's in the realm of true true stuff.

I mean, it doesn't seem like the most important point in the world, but all given that it it rings a little bit true.

And it did look like they were somehow obsessed with spending all this money.

You know, if you spent so much money and all these people have died, you're kind of going to want to say, "But it worked, right?" So maybe the way I would put it is it's not so much they needed Russia to lose, but they had put so much of their own reputation and treasure into making a difference that it's really hard to say, "Oh well, yeah, it's kind of embarrassing, but uh we wasted uh I don't know a hundred billion dollars on absolutely nothing." So it might be more to do with the Europeans can't take a loss when they put this much into it.

So it could be that.

So that that would it's roughly what Putin said, but I'm just saying it differently.

He said number two, instead of helping the current America American administration and Trump who actually wants to negotiate a settlement.

Oh, see what he's doing.

So Putin is saying that Trump wants to negotiate a settlement and Europe doesn't.

See what he's doing there?

He's dividing the allies.

So there's already, you know, a little bit of division going on between what Europe wants and what America wants.

And America apparently is trying to negotiate a deal and then kind of coers Europe into saying yes.

And uh Putin's just very gently putting a wedge between them so that that difference is a little bit more stark.

Trump wants a wants to end the war.

Europe does not want to end the war.

Now, is that true?

It's probably not exactly true.

You know, there must be Europeans who do want to end the war, um, etc.

But it sounds right.

Right.

So propaganda wise, nice play.

Again, if you're just joining, I'm not taking Putin's side.

I'm just looking at the the game play, you know, who's making a good play and who isn't making a good play.

Um, and he says, uh, Putin says of Europe, they're the ones who walked away from serious negotiations earlier, and now they're trying to sabotage Trump's efforts as well.

Does that ring true?

Do you feel that Europe is trying to sabotage Trump's efforts?

Well, probably they're going to ask for things that they know.

Um, well, let me say number three.

This is what Putin said before I say it in my words.

I'll say it in his words.

He said they, meaning Europe again, uh, Europe have no genuine peace proposal of their own.

Okay, is that right?

I think that's true.

Right.

that Europe has not proposed a serious peace proposal.

I haven't I don't remember seeing one, but but that would be a good point.

Again, I'm not backing Putin.

I'm just saying, you know, anytime he says something that is true that bolsters his persuasion, and I think that sounds true.

And uh so he says what they really support is continuing the war.

Now, this one's a little harder to sell.

Why would Europe want to continue a war?

Why would anyone want to continue a war?

Unless you were the one under attack.

Now, if you were the one under attack, you might want to continue it to, you know, get back what you lost, etc.

But they're not Ukraine.

So, what is it that Europe um wants?

So, Putin goes on.

He says, "What they really support is continuing the war." Okay, here's where it loses me.

What is Putin's argument for why Europe would want to continue a war in Europe?

If I were in Europe, the last thing I would want is to continue a war with Russia, even winning the war in quotes, winning seems like that would be super dangerous because they're a nuclear power.

And what do they do if they get desperate?

You know, do you have to win the war?

but just barely win it so they don't want to nuke you.

I mean, it's all it's all dangerous stuff.

And then Putin says of Europe, whenever they claim to be offering improvements, he puts it in quotes, or modifications to Trump's plan, it's transparent.

They're deliberately inserting conditions that they know Russia will never agree to.

Huh.

But doesn't Russia do that, too?

Has not Russia inserted um requirements that Europe and the US would never agree to?

But maybe they've pulled back on some of them because they had I guess the US peace proposal was like 28 points but now it's got down to 20.

I don't know which ones fell away but I imagine they were the impractical ones that you know nobody would ever agree to.

I imagine don't know that for sure.

Anyway, the the thing that uh Putin leaves out from his analysis is when Europe says they're afraid that if Putin gets what he wants out of Ukraine, um he'll just keep trying to get stuff.

So, if he wins in Ukraine, will that uh embolden him to try to take a piece out of I don't know, Poland?

Um because one of the arguments we've heard a lot is if you don't stop him, it's going to be a Hitler situation.

You know, it's always a Hitler situation, but if you don't stop him, he'll try to get more of Europe because why would he stop?

If it works, it works.

So, you keep doing what works, right?

I don't know.

Um, I'm not 100% sure that Putin thinks he could take any other countries, but I'm not sure that he doesn't think it.

So, that's the part he leaves out.

Um, I think Europe has a a reasonably coherent opinion that if you don't stop him here, he will be emboldened to take another bite out of something you don't want him to bite.

either the rest of Ukraine uh or like I said Poland or maybe the Baltics or something.

So there is an argument that if he don't stop him here, he'll keep going.

And how do you know?

We're not mind readers.

Um can can you tell if he would keep going?

What do you think?

Show me in the comments.

If if we essentially appeased um Putin by saying, "All right, all right, you can keep the stuff he already took, just please don't take anymore." Do you think they'd make a play for Finland or the Baltics or Poland?

What do you think?

And how would we ever know?

and and does he have a plan or would he form a plan based on future events but doesn't really have one now I'm seeing some nos I see some yeses don't know right yeah so I think it's kind of convenient that when Putin was listing all the things that Europe was thinking the one thing they didn't that he didn't mention is that they're thinking he would keep going and try to conquer other places.

Isn't that the main thing?

That's number one, right?

Of the things that Europe is concerned about, is it not the top interest that they stop him before he gobbles up more of more of Europe.

And he doesn't even mention that one.

So, the thing that that Putin did not say, "Here's your dog not barking." You know, and for those of you who thought I was being a little too generous to Putin, now here's the counterpoint.

The fact that Putin never mentioned, well, you know, this is the only interest I have.

Uh, I certainly don't have any designs on Finland or Poland or Estonia.

No, no, no.

I would never attack or try to conquer them.

I have one interest only and it's these uh interests, these ethnic uh the the ethnic Russians who happen to live in what you call Ukraine but now is part of Russia.

No, no, no.

I'm just looking out for ethnic Russians.

It's kind of missing, isn't it?

the fact that he doesn't even address what I think is the number one problem which is we can't trust that he would stop there if we gave him you know if we stop fighting we don't really trust it at all so I would say that by the fact that he leaves out the number one worry suggests that Europe is right right it it you tell me in the comments All right, we're we're just going to do some mind reading here.

Um, none of us know what Putin is thinking or what he'll do or how long he'll live or anything else.

We don't know.

But what do you think?

Do you think that if he if he succeeded in gobbling up um as much of Ukraine as he already has that once he's digested that and he's got these you know drone making factories and he's ramped up his war economy so it's really humming around and and he doesn't have a gigantic mutiny yet.

You don't think you'd maybe take a little nibble, just a little nibble out of one of those other countries?

Or do you really think this is solely about, you know, protecting ethnic Russians?

Do you believe that?

Well, he's got a little bit of a Maduro problem, which is there's a belief that nobody has ever kept a deal.

Just people don't keep deals.

Maduro's allegedly made five deals he didn't keep.

Putin allegedly has made some number of deals he didn't keep.

The United States has made a number of deals with other countries that we didn't keep.

Now, I'm I'm not the historian expert, so I can't name what those things are, but I think that's true, right?

Would you agree it's true that even the United States has unfortunately, you know, promised things that we didn't fulfill, right?

So, deals are kind of sketchy just in general.

People People keep the deals when it's in their interest to do so.

they don't keep the deals when it's not in their interest and maybe they shouldn't, right?

So, I feel like uh the biggest worry is sort of unressed and I wonder how Wickoff and Jared Kushner are handling that.

Uh they're not handling it by not mentioning it, which is what Putin did.

So, we'll see.

Meanwhile, um the Trump envoys are uh in Moscow now meeting with Putin and his gang.

Breitbart News is reporting John Hayward.

Um but what's different about this meeting?

I guess Wickoff has been to Moscow and done a lot of footwork there, but this is the first time that Jared Kushner is in the room negotiating with Putin with Wickoff.

Now, here's what's interesting.

Do you know what Jared Kushner has working for him?

Does anybody know his secret sauce?

Because he got the Abraham Accords done.

Nobody saw that coming.

What What is the secret sauce that Jared Kushner has that nobody else has?

He read my book Win Bigly.

He literally read the book on persuasion before he did the Abraham Accords, which seemed impossible, but he did it.

I've got this weird optimism that if you put Jared in the room, everything changes because Jared is operating, I think, on a higher level than maybe even Wickoff.

And Wickoff is operating at a really high level.

Like Wickoff appears from a distance, you know, we're not in the room, but it appears to me that Wickoff is the real deal, like he's good at this.

He's he's just maybe good with people, good with negotiating, has a lifetime of practice.

But I don't know if he's Jared good.

This might be the first time we've had that much skill sitting in a room for that long.

So, if it turns out that they make some big breakthrough, and I'm not predicting it, by the way, but if they did, that would be further um evidence that Jared is the secret sauce.

I feel like he is.

He He's also a fresh face, so sometimes you just need the new person.

you know, maybe they're just tired of Wickoff or maybe they've decided they can get one over on Wickoff, whatever, whatever they think of him.

Um, he wasn't getting it done by himself.

So, you add this new variable, um, which they probably trust that if Jared says something that Trump will probably back it.

So, that helps.

But uh so the exciting part to me is watching if the person who in my opinion is the most capable persuader, the most capable persuader.

And I say that because he read my book.

I'm sure it's not the only thing he's read, but uh he has at least that much training.

And I think I could get it done.

If I were there, I think I could get it done because I I believe I have a a skill set that's well matched to the the job.

And I think Jared does, too.

I think he has a skill set that's really well matched to this job.

Now, he also has a track record with the Abraham Accords.

Uh, and that matters too because if you walk into the room and you have a track record of being able to solve these seemingly unsolvable problems, then everybody starts acting like maybe it's going to be solved.

Oh, we finally have a person who knows how to solve the unsolvable problems.

So then suddenly people start getting flexible because they start believing it's possible.

If they don't believe it's possible, they're not going to give up anything.

and and in order to find a middle ground, there's going to be some giving up.

So, would you give up something to Wickoff if you didn't think he could get it done?

No.

What would be the point?

But would you give up something if Jared is in the room knowing that he knows how to get this stuff done?

Well, now you might because you might say, "Well, I wasn't going to give this up, but I think Kushner can actually get a deal.

So, I want a deal.

He wants a deal.

All right, I'll be a little flexible." So, having a track record, and by the way, Wickoff has a strong track record, too.

But he didn't do the Abraham Accords.

So, maybe.

So, maybe.

All right.

you say some cruel things in the comments.

All right, I'm going to ignore that.

Um, there's a report that Putin made Wickoff and Kushner wait.

So, after they got to the Kremlin, um, Putin was not on site.

He was giving some kind of a talk nearby and made them wait until he was good and done with his talk and then he showed up.

And it's being reported that that was sort of a power play, you know, to make them cool their jets so that they know they know who's in charge.

So the first of all, they went to Moscow, so that puts them in charge.

And then he makes them cool their jets after they flew halfway across the world and he makes them wait.

Was that intentional?

I would say it's too hard to say.

It's entirely possible that Putin is not super on time for everything that he wants to be on time for.

So, it's possible that Putin didn't plan it as some kind of a, you know, power play that he just maybe he just didn't have enough time to get done what he wanted to get done.

So, I'm not entirely sure it's the way it looks.

But on the other hand, would Putin be the kind of negotiator who would do this intentionally?

Yes, he would be.

Yes.

I don't know that he did it intentionally, but is he the personality type, the kind of training where he would have seen this as a possible way to get a little advantage?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's possible.

And then Putin has warned that Russia is ready to go to war with all of Europe if that's the path that the European leaders choose.

And he says that Moscow has no intention of starting a war with Europe, but says if Europe ignites it, uh Russia will finish it off kind of quickly.

Now, I hate to say it, but uh at this point it does not look like Europe would put up much of a fight because apparently Ukraine has the strongest military in all of Europe and uh they're at a stalemate with Russia.

So, I just don't know how much of a fight Europe would put up or NATO, I guess.

So, in theory, if he went after Europe, he'd be going after NATO and the US would be in the fight and uh there's no way he'd want that.

Putin singing the Blueberry Hill song at a dinner event.

I did not see that.

Anyway, um in other news, scientists have discovered a way to recharge the aging human cells.

So, apparently there's something they can do to goose um your mitochondria, which I believe Star Wars did first.

Am I wrong?

Star Wars the force works on your mitochondria.

Do I have that wrong?

But there's a latest study from researchers at Texas A&M and they found some uh nanoflower particles that can goose your stem cells and create more mitochondria that basically uh keeps you younger.

So, are you excited about getting some strong mitochondria?

I need some.

I need some.

Yeah, I need a little extra mitochondria if you have any.

Well, Jonathan Turley is writing about how uh California is considering a billionaire tax for 2026.

They would impose a onetime 5% tax on any individual wealth exceeding a billion dollars.

Uh does that sound like a good idea?

And apparently if you tried to leave the state, they would still claw it back from whatever state you went to.

So, do you think that's think that's a good idea for for California?

I'll tell you.

Uh, I'm not a billionaire, but if I were, I would be looking for some clever way to get the hell out of this state because I would not want to live in a state where they ever, even once, had a tax on assets.

This kind of a tax.

I already have property tax.

That's bad enough.

But there's uh 5% of everything you own.

Are you kidding?

That's a lot of money.

But if you're a billionaire, I guess you could afford it.

That's why uh that's why people wouldn't care so much.

Except the billionaires have too much power.

I don't think they'll ever let that happen.

Um as I told you, uh Senator Rubio is pointing out that uh Venezuel Venezuela's Maduro Maduro has broken every past deal.

Apparently, there have been like five deals with different parties over the last 10 years and Maduro broke every one of the deals.

So, that would explain why Trump was not willing to do a deal with him.

Trump just said, "Okay, the deal is you leave." Uh, how about this?

How about I stay, but uh you control the government and I'll control the military?

Nope.

The deal is you leave.

All right.

All right.

How about I leave, but you guarantee me, you know, in the other countries a pardon?

Nope.

The deal is you leave or we kill you.

You don't have to say the second part because that's implied.

So, um, now you can see why Trump has not been dealing with him, but rather simply telling him what the deal is.

Here's the deal.

you leave.

Uh but but but nope, that's the deal.

You leave and you get nothing.

Now, if you want to stay, well, you know, I'm looking at moving my military in there and you might all be killed soon.

Do you know what's the only thing that could save Maduro at this point?

There's only one thing that could save him.

Do you know what it is?

That's right.

it would be the Dilbert calendar for 2026 because I don't think he has one and look at the trouble he's getting in.

But if he had the Dilbert calendar, which is available only on Amazon and you could order yours now.

Well, boy, there's a very loud noise in my driveway.

Huh.

But um I can guarantee you that there's not a single dictator who's ever been deposed who also had the Dilbra calendar.

Coincidence?

Oh yeah.

Let's act like that's some kind of a coincidence.

Yeah.

Uh in the entire world in the entire world of all the different dictators there's ever been.

You think it's a total coincidence?

Come on.

Really?

It's a coincidence that not a single dictator who has the Dilbert calendar has ever been deposed.

I I don't believe in coincidences, my friend.

No.

No.

That's cause and effect.

You got to have this to prevent being deposed.

All right, people.

That's all I got for today.

I'm going to talk to the uh beloved local subscribers privately in about 30 seconds.

the rest of you.

I hope you enjoyed the show or learned something at least and I will see you tomorrow.

And uh my beloveds, I'm coming at you in 30 seconds, assuming all my technology works as planned.

or come on in. It's time.

You know what?

Grab a seat.

Make yourself comfortable.

And

we're just about ready to go.

Are you ready?

You're ready, right?

Not many people here yet, though.

I say we start with Adam. What do you

think? Yeah, start with Adam.

Good morning everybody and welcome to

the highlight of human civilization.

It's called Coffee with Scott Adams.

You've never had a better time. But if

you'd like to experience an elevation in

how you feel to levels that nobody can

even understand with their tiny shiny

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copper mug or a glass of tanker chin, a

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I like coffee. And join me today for the

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sip. It happens now. Go.

[sighs]

Delightful.

Well, let me make sure I can see all the

beloved locals comments.

Not that they're better than the rest of

you, but they are

the beloveds.

All right, beloveds. You are fully

functional.

All right, let's uh check the news. See

if there's anything weird in the news.

Well, according to the University of

Copenhagen,

uh the contra the women's contraceptive

pill

uh may cause people to get depressed

later in life.

Now,

how many of you did not know that the

contraceptive pill could change how you

feel? Well, it can. It can uh increase

risk of depression. Well, I knew that if

you just asked me. I could have told

you. It also changes your preferences in

men, doesn't it?

Don't we already know that? that your

preferences in men would change based on

being on the pill. That's dangerous.

So, I would advise you never get married

and then go on the pill cuz that's kind

of sketchy. You might not be attracted

to your husband anymore. Anyway, did you

know also that uh the more you engage in

social media,

the dumber you get? [laughter]

According to Scypost Karina and Petrova,

there's a new analysis that says that

the more time you spend on social media,

literally the dumber you get.

Okay. You score lower on certain tasks

of brain function.

Uh let me see. I wonder who's wonder who

scrolls more on social media. Men or

women?

What do you think? Who spends more time

on social media? Well, let's go to

Grock.

Grock says women spend 30% more time on

social media.

So, if you know a woman who's on social

media

and she recently went on the pill,

according to science, she is dumb and

depressed compared to you. Compared to

you.

So be careful about that. You don't want

the dumb and depressed people.

Well, um

Elon Musk is bragging about uh his new

Optimus robots.

The hands are the hard thing to get

because they have so many

the range of motion is so great and they

have to be able to feel what they're

doing. But apparently the new Optimus

hand is a wonder.

22 degrees of freedom. I don't know,

maybe that's a lot, but they say they're

finalizing it. The design of Optimus

version three, and it will have the

manual dexterity of a human.

Really?

Um, this would be where a crude

cartoonist would be making a joke, huh?

Let's see.

Women are going to be scrolling on

social media and getting dumber compared

to men according to science. That's not

me. That's science. And they're going to

go on uh birth control to get angrier

and more depressed.

But your Tesla Optimus robot is going to

have a humanlike hand and is going to be

happy and like you all the time.

I wonder where this is heading.

That's right.

Who will be the first person who cancels

a date to get a hand job from his robot?

You know, Alice, I'd love to go on that

date to the movie and sit there for two

hours watching somebody get tied to a

chair. Or I could just uh get my robot

to be a little friendly and a little

handsy. You know what I mean? Well, can

your robot give you a massage?

Back massage?

I don't know. But [clears throat] if one

of them learns it, then they all learn

it, right?

Well, I believe since the Optimus robots

will beworked

and presumably anything that one of them

learns will be be taught to the others

automatically.

Uh I feel like it's a

an important kind of a social thing you

can do to train your robot first to uh

you know get a little handsy and then

all the robots will be able to then you

don't have to date at all. Yeah, that's

where we're going. Now Elon Musk of

course also owns the Neurolink company

where they put a chip in your brain and

he says that uh any device can be

controlled via computer or phone that

can be controlled by computer phone can

be controlled by the Neurolink implant.

H

well that's interesting. If you were in

need of the Neurolink implant,

would it be possible that you'd be able

to someday, they can't do it yet, um,

imagine that you're in a drone

or robot and that you see what the drone

sees or the robot sees.

That's coming, right? So it could be

that our best uh warriors will be people

who are parapillegics

but they have a neurolink implant

so that they can actually be on the

battlefield without being on the

battlefield. They just use their

neurolink connection to see what the

drone sees

and uh see or see what the robot sees.

Now a question will be if the Neurolink

I'm sorry if the uh Tesla robots Optimus

suppose they're the best ones and

inexpensive

will will they be available to the

military

or will uh Tesla say we will not sell

these to the military but what if the

military said we will buy a million of

them? Well, maybe

maybe.

Uh, so yeah, I have a real question

whether the robots will ever be

militarized or will Elon just say, "I

don't want to be in that business. Use

some other robot."

I feel like maybe he will not want to be

part of that. But I don't know.

Well, the New York Times has joined

others in debunking the Washington Post

story that alleged that Secretary Hegth

ordered the killing of survivors on one

of those narco boats in September. So,

the New York Times says, "Nope, not

true."

How many of you already knew that wasn't

true because you had learned how to

detect fake news from me?

This one had all of the signs.

All of the signs for fake news that was

there. Number one, the story fit the the

Democrat narrative perfectly.

Oh, so six people are complaining about

the risk of illegal orders being

followed by the military. And then

coincidentally, there's a big national

story about some military people who may

have allegedly

uh done some illegal things by following

orders.

That is what we call two on the nose. So

clue number one was fake news. Two on

the nose. And the timing was kind of

coincidentally perfect for something

that happened in September and we waited

until now.

All right. Number two, it came from the

Washington Post. Uh well, uh well

assumed, let's say, assumed to be a

non-legitimate news source

when it comes to deep state Democrat

stuff. Maybe not in general. you know,

the the other news might be fine. But

when it comes to politics,

that would be one of the least credible

sources. So, that would be clue number

two. Two on the nose and it's the

Washington Post. What would be the third

thing? The third thing is it's from two,

it's always two. They always tell you

they're two anonymous whistleblowers.

Now, if they had been non anonymous and

we could all talk to them, maybe, you

know, but if they're anonymous,

Washington Post, too on the nose, no, we

did not need to wait for the New York

Times to debunk this. We were all there

first. So, how does it feel to know what

the future is?

That's what happened. Th those of you

that I've trained to spot fake news, as

soon as you saw that, you said a number

of people told me as soon as I saw it,

uh, your training kicked in, Scott, and

I knew it was fake news. Yep. So, you're

welcome.

Anyway, speaking of eggs, he's announced

uh I I don't know that this is new, but

um that the US is going for drone

dominance.

So, we've got to be the bestest, biggest

military drone maker to stay safe.

Almost nothing else will matter except

drones. Um, and uh we can't afford to

shoot down cheap drones with, you know,

expensive missiles. So, we're going to

have to match the cheapness of what will

be coming at us if there's a war.

My question is this.

how many of our drones that we make and

we're looking to make a gazillion of

them and you know be able to make more

than anybody else. So the only way

that's going to happen is if they're

being made by robots.

So we'll have to have Tesla robots

working in factories or other robots

making drones like crazy.

But uh will they be software upgradable?

Probably.

That's probably the the main difference

will be the software upgrades, but there

will be other hardware upgrades, too.

All right. Um, ABC News says that the

wealth of the top 1% of Americans is now

a record 52 trillion.

Wow. So if you took if you confiscated

most of the wealth of uh wealthy

Americans, if you just took it all, you

would be able to pay off our national

debt.

So how do you think the national debt

will be paid off?

Do you think it will be paid off by the

poor people? No.

Will it be paid off by

um a tremendous amount of economic

activity from robots?

Well, that's what uh Elon Musk thinks.

He thinks the only way out to pay off

our national debt is to have such a

gigantic

increase in economic activity that that

32 trillion or 39 trillion uh debt

doesn't look so big anymore. Maybe that

plus inflation could be. Um, but here's

the good news. Even though the richest

got richer by

uh 10% recently, the the bottom half

also did well. They uh increased their

wealth by 6%. Well, that's not that's

not bad. a 6% increase. But I'll bet it

doesn't feel like they increased their

wealth because everything costs more,

right? Not everything.

Well, speaking of everything costing

more, um Rand Paul is reviving a plan

that I guess Democrat AG's shot down the

last time it came up. It's a plan to

allow um health insurance to be sold

through Costco, Amazon, and Sam's Club.

Now, if I understand the idea here,

if you allow those those entities in

particular, because they're so big,

Costco, Amazon, and Sam's Club, if you

allow them to compete in the insurance

business, uh the competition would drive

the cost down.

Now, do you think that's true? Do you

think that that would be enough? All you

have to do is let these big uh

costconscious companies that are really

good at driving costs down. If you let

them compete with each other, will that

drive down the cost of healthcare?

It feels like it's worth a try, right? I

don't really see the downside.

Um but I don't know how much of a

difference that would make or how

quickly. I suspect it would not be fast.

But I also wonder if your Amazon

um has not Amazon announced that it

wants to be directly in the health care

business, not just the insurance

business, but in the providing health

care.

Um part of it makes sense because

there's a lot of health care stuff that

really depends on something being

delivered to you, right? Like you need

some crushes, you need a pill. Uh, a lot

of it is just something has to be

delivered.

So, Amazon's the obvious one to do that.

Uh, would you buy your health insurance

from Amazon if they provided the

insurance, but they also provided some

fast same day service for, you know, all

the medical things that you continually

need. I feel like I might I feel like

that that might be an attractive option.

So, I guess the last time this came up,

the Democrat AGs fought against it in

court and won.

To which I say, what was their objection

to it?

Why did the Democrats

AGS not want competition?

In what world is competition a bad

thing? Well, it must be just somebody

was making money. Yeah, it had to be the

usual. Some kind of corruption or

something. But now that the uh

Republicans have control of Congress,

there's some thought that it could get

passed. So maybe if that was the only

thing that Trump did for health care,

how much of a difference would it make?

Maybe a lot. By a lot, I would say

20%. I mean, it's not gonna it's not

going to, you know, turn it upside down,

but you could get a probably a solid

20%.

Well, Trump is doubling down on his uh

anti- Biden auto pen stuff. Um, and he's

wants to make sure that everybody who

got a pardon and of that knows that it's

canled.

I've got a problem with this.

I got a problem.

You know, the uh is a constitutional um

ban against double jeopardy. So, you

can't be tried for the same thing twice

if the first time you got off, right?

And we all we understand that to be

fair, don't we? Don't you think that's

fair? If you've been tried for something

once and you were found not guilty, it's

not really cool to try you again. It

just we like that. It seems fair. But uh

what happens if you got a autopen pardon

or commutation

and then the next president tries to

take it away?

Doesn't that feel like a little double

jeopardyish?

To me, it does. So, as much as I think

people like Fouchy and whoever else need

to um they need to be responsible for

what they allegedly did. I don't know

what they did or didn't do, but it feels

like people should be responsible for,

you know, any bad things they did. On

the other hand,

it's really double jeopardyish.

I I just don't know if I want to be part

of a system that can tell somebody, "All

right, you're safe. You know, go live

your life." And then

next president comes in and says, "Oh,

no. You have to go back to jail."

Are there people who will be literally

put back in jail because of the auto

patent? That's not cool. You know, even

if I don't like those people and even if

I think, you know, they got away with

murder,

I don't know.

You know, I I don't think anybody has

been put back in jail because of it yet.

But how would you feel

watching somebody being handcuffed and

taken back to jail after they thought

that their all their problems were over

and they'd been pardoned?

It wouldn't be a good feeling, but I

imagine there are a few really bad

characters that, you know, maybe would.

Now, there is an allegation that maybe

there's no there's no proof of this

whatsoever,

uh that maybe the uh the Biden people

sold some of the pardons or commutations

or clemency or whatever the hell that's

called.

But I don't think we've seen evidence of

that or and I don't think we would

necessarily even if it were true.

So I'm uncomfortable with that, but I

understand why it's being done.

Uh let's see. Scott Jennings apparently

spent some time with President Trump and

uh there was some report that Trump fell

asleep during a a meeting, cabinet

meeting. Is that true?

How in the world

could it be true that Trump fell asleep

during a cabinet meeting and there's no

video of it?

Was there a part of the meeting where it

was not videoed?

I don't know. Seems like we'd be seeing

that all over the news if that were

true. But they say he dozed off. Now, I

wouldn't care. You know, if if somebody

dozes off in a meeting that's so boring

that anybody would doze off, I don't

really care.

Do you?

I I feel like if your job is going from

one meeting to another and you sleep

four hours a night and one of these is

just so boring you fall asleep,

I don't want you impeached over that. I

just think you should have shorter

meetings or have somebody sitting next

to you to wake you up. But it wouldn't

be the worst thing in the world, but

Scott Jennings is pushing back on that.

I saw a man a few days ago in the Oval

Office for about an hour. He looked and

sounded fine. Wide range of issues.

People were coming and going. It was

bustling.

He was listening attentively and running

the entire three-hour marathon cabinet

meeting.

So

maybe that's another fake news.

So I don't know.

Uh the video won't be shown on the news

stations I watch. What do you mean? I

watch I watch uh both sides of the news.

How many of you think I don't watch CNN?

I do watch CNN.

I I don't watch MSNBC so much because

that's not even trying to be news. CNN

at least is trying to be news most of

the time, you know, and they they may

stray a little bit from perfection. Um,

but if you look at them lately, not not

five years ago, but if you look at them

lately,

it looks like they're trying to do news.

Um, so I always sample

CNN and all the regular mainstream news.

So no, I would definitely have seen it

if it were circulating,

but uh, it was a good accusation.

Well, uh, President Trump has called

Elon Omar garbage.

Now, compare compare the outrage or lack

of it with what Trump said this week to

how much outrage there would have been

in his first term.

And it's completely different. So, this

this is something Trump actually said.

Quote, Elon Omar is garbage.

She's garbage. Her friends are garbage.

These aren't people that work. Uh these

aren't people that say, "Let's go. Come

on. Uh let's make this place great."

These are people that do nothing but

complain.

When they come from hell and they

complain and do nothing but this

is actually what Trump said. Do nothing

but We don't want them in our

country. Let them go back to where they

came from and fix it.

All right. So,

was that racist? Was

it

sexist?

What was it? Was it racist or sexist?

And are you surprised at how little push

back there is on this? There's a little

bit, but it doesn't feel like it would

have fell five years ago, does it? Five

years ago, this would have been the only

story and they would have slammed it

over and over again and it would all be

about uh he wouldn't call a white person

this and if it were a white person he

wouldn't do that. Uh if it were a man he

wouldn't do that even if he would.

So, does it seem to you that Trump has

uh cornered the Democrats because their

one play their go-to all the time was

identity politics.

So, he goes right in the middle of the

identity politics and does a tap dance

on top of it. It's like

watch this. Uh they're garbage

when they come from hell and they

complain and do nothing but We

don't want you in our country.

Yes, you're garbage.

All your friends are garbage.

Oh, and and he basically just gets away

with it

because I think I think the Democrats

have finally caught on that if they if

they take the bait and they go down the

identity politics, it doesn't get them

to be the next president.

They

people don't care.

Most Americans don't really care about

whether he's insulting Somalians who are

ripping off the country.

They're not all ripping off the country.

Let me say that because I'm no racist.

But uh there are some prominent stories

of Somalian crooks stealing a billion

dollars from Minneapolis, Minnesota I

should say. So uh yeah, but it's not

every one of them. So don't be like

that. There are plenty of good

Somalians.

I don't know any Simoleons, but I'm just

assuming.

I assume there's some good ones.

Anyway,

Elon Omar is garbage and all of her

friends are garbage. All right. Well,

that was fun. Um, they're not all

garbage. Come on. They're people.

They're human beings. People, stop being

that way.

But it is pretty funny when Trump is

that way.

Well, the Trump administration has

officially

uh halted immigration and naturalization

from 19 third world countries.

So, I remember when doing that was a

racist act. But now, not so much. Not so

much. Doesn't seem so racist now, does

it? And have Democrats learned that

pushing back about uh against identity

politics or embracing it, I guess,

doesn't work.

Have they or do they just not have any

leadership?

Because it seems to me and see if you

agree that Trump is giving them all

kinds of red meat. Just all kinds of red

meat and they don't seem to be chopping

on it. But they're also not doing

anything else that's working. Maybe they

just think they can outweigh him, which

they can, by the way. They could wait

him out.

Anyway, um

it it does make me wonder if Democrats

have

literally had a meeting and said, "All

right, we can't let him bait us like

this. Every time he baits us into this

identity politics things, he wins and we

lose. So just don't take the bait." Do

you think that's happening or is it just

some lack of leadership that they can't

organize a counterattack? I don't know.

I don't know.

Uh meanwhile, a town has squashed a plan

to build in their town a large Muslim

school.

And uh locals say they don't want to

become like Dearborn or Great Britain,

which I imagine means they don't want to

have too many uh too many Muslims in

their town.

But the reason that they gave for

turning it down had to do with traffic.

Do you believe that?

And do you believe that Alabama turned

down the Muslim school because the

impact it would have on traffic?

Well, maybe. I I mean, traffic's real

and maybe, but that was kind of

convenient because then they didn't have

to, you know, have a uh let's say a

deeper argument about what their

concerns were.

So, we'll see if there's more of that or

less of that.

Um,

I wonder why you can't just turn it down

for being a Muslim school.

Like, that's that's not a good enough

reason.

Now, I get that we're America, blah blah

blah, but wouldn't a Muslim school be

sort of at odds with the um whatever

standards there are for American

schools? I feel like a Muslim school

would have a tough time meeting the

requirements of a regular school.

So, I got questions. Anyway,

um so Duffy,

uh what's his first name? Secretary Shan

Duffy, Transportation Secretary. Uh

he warned that uh he warned Wals,

Governor Wals of Minnesota to revoke

illegally issued uh driver's license

from non-citizens or lose 30 million in

highway funding. according according to

just the news. So Minnesota failed to

follow the law says Duffy

uh and illegally illegally dole down

lots of trucking licenses that would be

unsafe

uh because the people are not qualified.

So that's happening. 30 million in

federal highway funding. Huh. So I have

a question for Governor Walsh of

Minnesota.

I mean, I'm just reading the news and

there are variety of things in the news

about Minnesota.

And the overarching question that it

makes me wonder about is did

did Governor Wals

do anything right? Or or was he

literally playing some kind of prank

where he wanted to see if he could

become governor and just do everything

wrong? Uh, I'm going to do everything

wrong. Just see what happens. I'm just

curious what'll happen if I just do

everything wrong.

Can you imagine? He could have been the

vice president.

He could have been the vice president.

Oh my god.

But, you know, a lot of us, and I would

put myself in this category, had an

instinct about Wals like there's

something wrong with this guy. there's

there's just something wrong.

And uh sure enough, there's something

wrong with him. He is not to be trusted

in my opinion.

Well, the Department of Justice is suing

six states, according to Fox News, for

uh refusing to turn over their voter

registration roles because the federal

government

um wants to look at them and make sure

that they have, you know, legally

that the people on the the voting roles

are there legally. And the the states

that have refused are Delaware,

Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island,

Vermont, and Washington.

And now they're being accused of

violating federal election laws.

So my question is this,

why would any of those states refuse to

turn over their uh voter registration

roles upon request?

What What would be the argument? Too

busy?

Oh, we're too busy. Uh maybe they don't

have the information.

Do you think Do you think it's possible

they don't have voter roles? No, they

have voter roles. Um and or they don't

think that the federal government has a

legitimate uh right to see that. I don't

know. It looks like they have something

to hide.

I don't know that for sure, but it looks

kind of suspicious.

So, I'm glad that u the federal

government's pushing on him.

Um Trump is still talking about him not

getting the Nobel Prize and uh he says,

"Every time I end a war," because he's

allegedly ended eight wars already,

according to him. Uh, every time I end a

war, they say if President Trump ends

that war, he's going to get the Nobel

Prize. If I end that war, well, he won't

get it for that war, but if he he might

get it for the next war. So, Trump is

Trump is mocking the Nobel Prize people

for not giving him, you know, the award

for ending what he what he would say

would be ending eight wars.

Uh you might debate whether he has ended

eight wars, but he's certainly he's

certainly done something in that

direction. Certainly impressive. You

know, whether it's eight or six or five,

it would still be a world's record of

ending wars.

Um and then he [clears throat] says, I

should get the Nobel Prize for every

war, but I don't want

uh but I don't I don't want to be

greedy. [laughter]

I I kind of love that Trump is going

after this hard because one of two

things is going to happen. Uh he's

either going to get the Nobel Peace

Prize eventually. You maybe not right

away. So he's either going to get it or

he's going to destroy the Nobel Peace

Prize as a credible prize. One of those

two things is going to happen. So he's

created sort of like a a me or you, you

know, me or them. And I've got a feeling

that he might destroy the the old Nobel

Prize reputation like he did the news

business. You know, if you're sitting

over there in the news business and you

watch how Trump completely destroyed the

credibility of the entire news industry.

Well, I think the Nobel Committee might

be next. So, Nobel Committee, if you

guys want to maintain your credibility,

you probably don't want to go up against

the most persuasive person who's ever

been mad at you. So, watch out for that.

But, uh, I think everybody's watching

the, uh, Russia Ukraine situation. If

Trump ends that, what do you think will

happen?

I'm going to make a prediction. Okay.

I'm going to predict that if Trump lit

literally ended the Ukraine uh Russian

war that the Nobel Prize committee would

not give him not give him the peace

prize because they would argue that he

ended it in a way that was not let's say

good for Ukraine,

right? Because you could argue anything.

You could argue, well, all he did was

give away a country to an aggressor.

He gave away, you know, the the the most

economically viable part of Ukraine. He

just gave it away. We're not going to

give him a You don't get an award for

giving land to an aggressor,

right? So, I think the Nobel Prize

Committee are are going to try to not

give it to him and they will simply have

some argument. Well, yeah, he did solve

eight or nine wars, but you know, they

would have solved themselves and you

know, they'll have they'll have some

reason. So, I suspect he will never get

a Nobel Prize, but the uh cost to the

Nobel Committee, I mean, can you even

imagine? Imagine if he did solve the

Ukraine situation and just got a total

lasting ceasefire

and then would the Nobel Prize be able

to ignore that?

Yes, they would. They could. All they'd

have to do is say it wasn't a good deal

for Ukraine. That's all they'd have to

say. Well, yeah, the shooting stopped,

but only because they gave away half of

their country. You know, the the best

parts.

So yeah, they could weasle their way out

of that, but I think that if they do so,

it will forever destroy the credibility

of the Nobel Peace Prize. Some would say

it's already destroyed.

Well, I've talked at length about how

the Democrats use that word

affordability as a very effective

propaganda. And uh when you hear that

they want to make things more

affordable, as a consumer, you say to

yourself, "Well, that sounds good. I

would like some affordable stuff. Please

give me some affordable things. So, it

sounds good. And I've told you that uh

it's a real problem if you're Trump. So,

what does Trump do? Well, first of all,

I'm going to give him credit for uh

noticing, as I did, that the word

affordability is pretty good. You know,

if you were coming up with things to say

about the other side and you were a

Democrat and you came up with that word

affordability,

you've heard me compliment that, right?

Mand mandani. Mandami. It's a really

strong word for, you know, the common

sense ordinary person who just can't pay

for groceries. We want to hear that

you're fixing affordability and shut up

about the rest. Honestly, I don't I

never go to bed thinking about Ukraine,

but I bet a lot of people go to bed

thinking about how to pay for groceries.

So, it was a super super clever,

effective word. So, that gives Trump a

problem. What does Trump do when the

other side, whoever the other side is,

what does he do when the other side

makes a good play? And it's based on

words.

Well, he either co-opts it, which it

looked like he was trying hard to do um

maybe a week or two ago, but now it

looks like he may have pivoted. So,

instead of co-opting it, which might

look like he's just following the

Democrats, which is not a good look. Um

uh I think he's mocking it out of

existence. It looks like that's the next

play. So, Trump says uh the word

affordability is a Democrat a scam. Oh,

all right. So, he's going to call it a

scam. Uh, they say it and then they go

on to the next subject and everyone

thinks, "Oh, they had the lower prices."

No, they had the worst inflation in the

history of our country. So, I guess

Trump's new approach, and maybe he's

just testing it, you know, he doesn't

know if it'll work yet, but testing it

out, is that he did successfully call a

lot of things they do fake and scams. I

think he he said, you know, climate

change or at least the the alarm over it

was a scam. Got away with that.

Um, so maybe, yeah, I I would say this

is just a test to see how it goes. If he

can if he can make affordability sound

like a scam, he might do it. But it

would be better if he could just make

stuff affordable.

Uh, apparently gas prices are falling to

below $2 in some states. Did you ever

think that would happen? I didn't. I

never thought any state would have $2

gas again, but apparently they are.

That's a pretty big deal.

Um, in California, of course, I think

we're still around $5 because we got a

terrible government.

Just summary. Summarizing, we have a

terrible government. Anyway, so, uh,

affordability, the word is all the

Democrats have for them. They don't have

they don't have performance. They don't

have success. They've got that word.

It's a very attractive word because we

all want some affordability.

Um, but it looks like Trump is just

going to take the piss out of the word

so that the next time you hear

affordability, you're going to think, or

is it a scam? Well, you know, I like

affordability, but the way those

Democrats talk about it, I don't know,

maybe it's some kind of Democrat scam.

So, we'll see if Trump can sell

affordability

as a scam word. It's a tough cell

because it's a strong word.

Uh, and Trump has actually predicted

that gas prices will fall to $2 a gallon

in some places. He blames uh Biden,

Trump does for emptying out the national

uh petroleum reserves.

Uh do you think that that's why the gas

prices are what they are? I don't know.

You know, maybe because refilling the

reserves means that we're competing,

doesn't it? I think that's how it works.

Doesn't that mean that we would be

competing in the free market to buy gas

um or oil? Is it gas or oil?

What what's in our reserves?

Uh gas or oil?

Can you even have a reserve of gas?

Um that's weird. I feel dumb.

One of the things about doing this a

podcast where you talk about the news is

it does a a really good job of revealing

your stupidity. [laughter]

If there's something [clears throat] you

don't know, oh, it's going to come out

like it just did. Uh, I'm seeing all.

So, a bunch of people in the comments.

Are you telling me that it's gas

that's already refined and also oil? Oil

and gas both. Okay.

Oh, but are you talking about gas that

goes into your car or uh are you talking

about gas that would be burned for

energy? You know, the the more gassy

gas.

Okay. I think you mean oil and the kind

of gas that you pull out of the ground,

not refined gas that goes in your gas

tank, right? I think. All right. Well,

obviously I'm not the expert on that,

but I don't know if that is enough to be

affecting our gas prices this much. I

might make some difference, but I don't

have much difference.

Well, according to the AP, Trump

administration uh says it's going to

withhold SNAP food aid from uh the

Democrat blue states unless they provide

recipient records.

So, do you see the pattern? This would

be yet another example where the federal

government is trying to do something

like an audit

without it being exactly an audit.

They're just trying to figure out where

their money is going. and uh to make

sure that they don't give money to a

black hole.

Um but it kind of amazes me that there's

any state that's receiving money from

the government that's not willing to

tell the government where the money is

going. That feels a little sketchy,

doesn't it? Now, I don't know where this

is going to end up, but I definitely am

backing the federal government who wants

to have some kind of control on where

the money goes. I don't know if this

would be an audit per se, but we need we

need some kind of auditing process for

our federal dollars.

M would be much harder to get that

approved at a local level, but it would

be ideal if we never gave any taxpayer

dollars to anything unless it was fully

auditable. All right, how about this?

Oh, Ran Paul, Thomas Massie, are you

listening? I I call them out because

they're the in my opinion, they're the

common sense guys in the government. How

about this? How about some legislation

that says if you want to receive federal

dollars, you have to demonstrate that

you have an auditing function. Boom.

What do you think? Show me in the

comments.

I I want to see some legislation that

says that in the future you can only

receive federal dollars only if you've

demonstrated that you've set up an

auditing process that would allow the

federal government to see where its

money went.

Huh?

You like it, don't you? Now, I like that

because it's not overly prescriptive.

It's not telling people they have to do

a certain kind of audit in a certain

kind of way, but it allows the federal

government to say that's good enough or

it isn't.

That's pretty good, isn't it? [laughter]

[clears throat] Yeah. That's not just a

good idea. That's a freaking great idea.

Now, I need somebody who's, you know,

smarter than me to tell me if that would

work in the in the real world. I don't

know if it'll work in the real world,

but why in the world would anybody give

billions and millions of dollars to

anybody if they didn't know where it was

going? But some somehow we do that.

So I think you could start with that

model at the federal level and then that

would give people at the local level

something to argue for. So in other

words, if you if you had this uh law at

the federal level and it started

working, then the people at the local

level could say that that we need to do

that. We just need to do the local

version of that much easier because if

if it works at the federal level,

your argument for doing it locally is

trivial. I mean, easy. Of course, you'd

want it locally.

Well, in other news,

uh, China's going to tax condoms

for the first time in 30 years. And I

guess they're doing this, uh, to

increase the population because they

know they've got a demographic problem.

They're not creating enough babies for

their future survival.

So, they're going to stop taxing

condoms.

I don't know how much difference that's

going to make. Do you

just that one thing? How many condoms do

they use in China?

Now, they should also tax oral sex,

obviously, because uh those people who

are having oral sex instead of

penetration, well, they're not having

babies. And if you really want to

encourage the Chinese to have babies,

you should put a steep tax on oral sex.

Something like $1,000.

because some people will still pay the

thousand because you know it's worth it.

Um if you have the money

that [clears throat]

at least that's the going rate in the

United States.

That's the going rate around here.

[laughter]

How do I know that? I don't know that.

I'm just guessing.

Jay, don't clip this. Jason, do not clip

this.

This should not be a clip. I'm just I'm

just messing with you. I'm just joking.

So, the Chinese got to pay taxes on

their condoms.

Um, all right.

Speaking of NATO, uh the chief of NATO,

Ruty,

um says that next year countries need to

give a lot of money more than a billion

a month to purchase offensive and

defensive weapons from the US. Oh, all

right. Long as they're buying our

weapons, I'm happy about it. Yep. You

Europeans need to vastly increase your

weapon sales, your weapons purchases of

American weapons.

All right. Um, Senator or Secretary

Rubio

was pointing out yesterday, I think,

that Ukraine has pushed Russia back um

out of a lot of territory that Russia

once held. Now, did you remember that?

Uh, to me that came as sort of a

surprise. I knew I know that some of the

territory has changed hands. So I know

it's not a static situation in Ukraine,

but is it true that Russia once held a

lot more territory than they do and that

uh little by little Ukraine pushed them

out of some of it and now they have

reached some kind of impass where

Russia's gaining a little ground and

Russia and Ukraine is not pushing

anybody out of anything. Is that what's

happening?

It's fog of war. So, I don't know

exactly what's happening over there, but

but Rubio

claims that they used to have a lot more

territory and Ukraine pushed them back.

Now, the way I would interpret that

is that uh Russia didn't have the force

to hold the territory that they

captured. And maybe some of it wasn't

terribly strategic. So, they may have

said, "Well, we got all this territory.

we'll we'll keep the strategic stuff.

We'll let them see if they can get back

the non-strategic stuff. So, probably

there's a strategic versus non-strategic

element in that. But, uh it's it's

generally easier to conquer to some

territory temporarily than it is to hold

it for years.

So, anyway, that's interesting. Um

Putin is uh as as I like to say, he's a

real good propagandist

and uh I like to look at his work. Now,

if you can find it in your brain to not

say I'm a Putin lover, I'm going to talk

about what he's doing right in

persuasion.

Can you all handle that? I know 90% of

you can handle it because you've been

around my content for a while. It

doesn't mean I love Putin.

Okay? If I say he did something right or

something that's, you know, smart for

Russia, doesn't mean I love Putin. It

just means he made a good play and maybe

it's worth looking at. Maybe you learned

something.

So, uh, Putin said there were three

things he wanted to say about, um, the

war, uh, that, uh, in Russia's,

specifically about Europe's involvement

in in the Ukraine Russia war. And, uh,

Putin said that about Europe, uh, they

were obsessed with this idea of

delivering a strategic defeat to Russia.

Is that true? Do you think Europe was

obsessed with the idea of delivering a

strategic defeat?

Or is it just something they wanted?

Because who doesn't want to win? Well,

this one rings a little bit true. Again,

I'm not taking sides with Putin. I'm

just talking about the propaganda game

and and when he does it well and when he

doesn't. This is a good job

because I don't know that this is the

truest thing he's ever said, but it does

match what I've seen in the news. So,

it's trueish. It's in the realm of true

true stuff. I mean, it doesn't seem like

the most important point in the world,

but all given that it it rings a little

bit true. And it did look like they were

somehow obsessed with

spending all this money. You know, if

you spent so much money and all these

people have died, you're kind of going

to want to say, "But it worked, right?"

So maybe the way I would put it is it's

not so much they needed Russia to lose,

but they had put so much of their own

reputation and treasure into making a

difference that it's really hard to say,

"Oh well, yeah, it's kind of

embarrassing, but uh we wasted uh I

don't know a hundred billion dollars on

absolutely nothing."

So it might be more to do with the

Europeans can't take a loss when they

put this much into it. So it could be

that. So that that would it's roughly

what Putin said, but I'm just saying it

differently.

He said number two, instead of helping

the current America American

administration and Trump who actually

wants to negotiate a settlement. Oh, see

what he's doing. So Putin is saying that

Trump wants to negotiate a settlement

and Europe doesn't. See what he's doing

there? He's dividing the allies. So

there's already, you know, a little bit

of division going on between what Europe

wants and what America wants. And

America apparently is trying to

negotiate a deal and then kind of coers

Europe into saying yes. And uh Putin's

just very gently

putting a wedge between them so that

that difference is a little bit more

stark. Trump wants a wants to end the

war. Europe does not want to end the

war. Now, is that true?

It's probably not exactly true. You

know, there must be Europeans who do

want to end the war, um, etc. But it

sounds right. Right. So propaganda wise,

nice play. Again, if you're just

joining, I'm not taking Putin's side.

I'm just looking at the the game play,

you know, who's making a good play and

who isn't making a good play. Um, and he

says, uh, Putin says of Europe, they're

the ones who walked away from serious

negotiations earlier, and now they're

trying to sabotage Trump's efforts as

well. Does that ring true? Do you feel

that Europe is trying to sabotage

Trump's efforts? Well,

probably they're going to ask for things

that they know. Um, well, let me say

number three. This is what Putin said

before I say it in my words. I'll say it

in his words. He said they, meaning

Europe again, uh, Europe have no genuine

peace proposal of their own. Okay, is

that right? I think that's true. Right.

that Europe has not proposed

a serious peace proposal. I haven't I

don't remember seeing one, but but that

would be a good point. Again, I'm not

backing Putin. I'm just saying, you

know, anytime he says something that is

true that bolsters his persuasion, and I

think that sounds true. And uh so he

says what they really support is

continuing the war. Now, this one's a

little harder to sell. Why would Europe

want to continue a war? Why would anyone

want to continue a war? Unless you were

the one under attack. Now, if you were

the one under attack, you might want to

continue it to, you know, get back what

you lost, etc. But they're not Ukraine.

So, what is it that Europe

um wants?

So, Putin goes on. He says, "What they

really support is continuing the war."

Okay, here's where it loses me.

What is Putin's argument for why Europe

would want to continue a war in Europe?

If I were in Europe, the last thing I

would want is to continue a war with

Russia, even winning the war in quotes,

winning seems like that would be super

dangerous because they're a nuclear

power. And what do they do if they get

desperate?

You know, do you have to win the war?

but just barely win it so they don't

want to nuke you. I mean, it's all it's

all dangerous stuff.

And then Putin says of Europe, whenever

they claim to be offering improvements,

he puts it in quotes, or modifications

to Trump's plan, it's transparent.

They're deliberately inserting

conditions that they know Russia will

never agree to. Huh.

But doesn't Russia do that, too?

Has not Russia inserted

um requirements that Europe and the US

would never agree to?

But maybe they've pulled back on some of

them because they had I guess the US

peace proposal was like 28 points but

now it's got down to 20. I don't know

which ones fell away but I imagine they

were the impractical ones that you know

nobody would ever agree to. I imagine

don't know that for sure.

Anyway, the the thing that uh Putin

leaves out from his analysis is when

Europe says they're afraid that if Putin

gets what he wants out of Ukraine,

um he'll just keep trying to get stuff.

So, if he wins in Ukraine, will that uh

embolden him to try to take a piece out

of I don't know, Poland?

Um because one of the arguments we've

heard a lot is if you don't stop him,

it's going to be a Hitler situation. You

know, it's always a Hitler situation,

but if you don't stop him, he'll try to

get more of Europe because why would he

stop? If it works, it works. So, you

keep doing what works, right? I don't

know.

Um, I'm not 100% sure that Putin thinks

he could take any other countries, but

I'm not sure that he doesn't think it.

So, that's the part he leaves out. Um, I

think Europe has a a reasonably coherent

opinion that if you don't stop him here,

he will be emboldened to take another

bite out of something you don't want him

to bite. either the rest of Ukraine

uh or like I said Poland or maybe the

Baltics or something. So there is an

argument that if he don't stop him here,

he'll keep going.

And how do you know? We're not mind

readers. Um can can you tell if he would

keep going? What do you think? Show me

in the comments. If if we essentially

appeased

um Putin by saying, "All right, all

right, you can keep the stuff he already

took, just please don't take anymore."

Do you think they'd make a play for

Finland or the Baltics or Poland?

What do you think? And how would we ever

know?

and and does he have a plan or would he

form a plan based on future events but

doesn't really have one now

I'm seeing some nos I see some yeses

don't know right

yeah so I think it's kind of convenient

that when Putin was listing all the

things that Europe was thinking the one

thing they didn't that he didn't mention

is that they're thinking he would keep

going and try to conquer other places.

Isn't that the main thing?

That's number one, right? Of the things

that Europe is concerned about, is it

not the top interest that they stop him

before he gobbles up more of more of

Europe. And he doesn't even mention that

one. So, the thing that that Putin did

not say, "Here's your dog not barking."

You know, and for those of you who

thought I was being a little too

generous to Putin, now here's the

counterpoint. The fact that Putin never

mentioned,

well, you know, this is the only

interest I have. Uh, I certainly don't

have any designs on Finland or Poland or

Estonia. No, no, no. I would never

attack or try to conquer them. I have

one interest only and it's these uh

interests, these ethnic uh the the

ethnic Russians who happen to live in

what you call Ukraine but now is part of

Russia. No, no, no. I'm just looking out

for ethnic Russians.

It's kind of missing, isn't it? the

[snorts] fact that he doesn't even

address

what I think is the number one problem

which is we can't trust that he would

stop there if we gave him you know if we

stop fighting we don't really trust it

at all

so I would say that by the fact that he

leaves out the number one worry suggests

that Europe is right

right it it you tell me in the comments

All

right, we're we're just going to do some

mind reading here. Um, none of us know

what Putin is thinking or what he'll do

or how long he'll live or anything else.

We don't know. But what do you think?

Do you think that if he if he succeeded

in gobbling up um as much of Ukraine as

he already has that once he's digested

that and he's got these you know drone

making factories and he's ramped up his

war economy so it's really humming

around and and he doesn't have a

gigantic mutiny yet. You don't think

you'd

maybe take a little nibble,

just a little nibble out of one of those

other countries?

Or do you really think this is solely

about,

you know, protecting ethnic Russians? Do

you believe that?

Well, he's got a little bit of a Maduro

problem, which is there's a belief that

nobody has ever kept a deal. Just people

don't keep deals. Maduro's allegedly

made five deals he didn't keep. Putin

allegedly has made some number of deals

he didn't keep. The United States has

made a number of deals with other

countries that we didn't keep. Now, I'm

I'm not the historian expert, so I can't

name what those things are, but I think

that's true, right? Would you agree it's

true that even the United States has

unfortunately,

you know, promised things that we didn't

fulfill, right? So, deals are kind of

sketchy just in general. People People

keep the deals when it's in their

interest to do so. they don't keep the

deals when it's not in their interest

and maybe they shouldn't, right?

So, I feel like uh the biggest worry is

sort of unressed and I wonder how

Wickoff and Jared Kushner are handling

that.

Uh they're not handling it by not

mentioning it, which is what Putin did.

So, we'll see. Meanwhile, um the Trump

envoys are uh in Moscow now meeting with

Putin and his gang. Breitbart News is

reporting John Hayward. Um but what's

different about this meeting? I guess

Wickoff has been to Moscow and done a

lot of footwork there, but this is the

first time that Jared Kushner is in the

room negotiating with Putin with

Wickoff. Now, here's what's interesting.

Do you know what Jared Kushner has

working for him?

Does anybody know his secret sauce?

Because he got the Abraham Accords done.

Nobody saw that coming. What What is the

secret sauce that Jared Kushner has that

nobody else has?

He read my book Win Bigly.

He literally [clears throat] read the

book on persuasion

before he did the Abraham Accords, which

seemed impossible, but he did it.

I've got this weird optimism that if you

put Jared in the room, everything

changes because Jared is operating, I

think, on a higher level than maybe even

Wickoff. And Wickoff is operating at a

really high level. Like Wickoff appears

from a distance, you know, we're not in

the room, but it appears to me that

Wickoff is the real deal, like he's good

at this. He's he's just maybe good with

people, good with negotiating, has a

lifetime of practice. But I don't know

if he's Jared good.

This might be the first time we've had

that much skill sitting in a room for

that long. So, if it turns out that they

make some big breakthrough,

and I'm not predicting it, by the way,

but if they did, that would be further

um evidence that Jared is the secret

sauce. I feel like he is. He He's also a

fresh face,

so sometimes you just need the new

person. you know, maybe they're just

tired of Wickoff or maybe they've

decided they can get one over on

Wickoff, whatever, whatever they think

of him. Um, he wasn't getting it done by

himself. So, you add this new variable,

um, which they probably trust

that if Jared says something that Trump

will probably back it. So, that helps.

But uh so the exciting part to me is

watching if the person who in my opinion

is the most capable persuader,

the most capable persuader. And I say

that because he read my book.

I'm sure it's not the only thing he's

read, but uh he has at least that much

training. And I think I could get it

done. If I were there, I think I could

get it done because I I believe I have a

a skill set

that's well matched to the the job. And

I think Jared does, too. I think he has

a skill set that's really well matched

to this job. Now, he also has a track

record with the Abraham Accords. Uh, and

that matters too because if you walk

into the room and you have a track

record of being able to solve these

seemingly unsolvable problems, then

everybody starts acting like maybe it's

going to be solved. Oh, we finally have

a person who knows how to solve the

unsolvable problems. So then suddenly

people start getting flexible because

they start believing it's possible. If

they don't believe it's possible,

they're not going to give up anything.

and and in order to find a middle

ground, there's going to be some giving

up. So, would you give up something to

Wickoff if you didn't think he could get

it done? No. What would be the point?

But would you give up something if Jared

is in the room knowing that he knows how

to get this stuff done? Well, now you

might because you might say, "Well, I

wasn't going to give this up, but I

think Kushner can actually get a deal.

So, I want a deal. He wants a deal. All

right, I'll be a little flexible." So,

having a track record, and by the way,

Wickoff has a strong track record, too.

But he didn't do the Abraham Accords.

So, maybe.

So, maybe. All right. [snorts]

you say some cruel things

in the comments.

All right, I'm going to ignore that.

Um, there's a report that Putin made

Wickoff and Kushner wait. So, after they

got to the Kremlin, um, Putin was not on

site. He was giving some kind of a talk

nearby and made them wait until he was

good and done with his talk and then he

showed up. And it's being reported that

that was sort of a power play, you know,

to make them cool their jets so that

they know they know who's in charge. So

the first of all, they went to Moscow,

so that puts them in charge. And then he

makes them cool their jets after they

flew halfway across the world and he

makes them wait. Was that intentional?

I would say it's too hard to say. It's

entirely possible that Putin is not

super on time for everything that he

wants to be on time for. So, it's

possible

that Putin didn't plan it as some kind

of a, you know, power play that he just

maybe he just didn't have enough time to

get done what he wanted to get done. So,

I'm not entirely sure it's the way it

looks. But on the other hand, would

Putin be the kind of negotiator who

would do this intentionally?

Yes, he would be. Yes. I don't know that

he did it intentionally, but is he the

personality type, the kind of training

where he would have seen this as a

possible way to get a little advantage?

Yeah. Yeah, it's possible.

And then Putin has warned that Russia is

ready to go to war with all of Europe if

that's the path that the European

leaders choose. And he says that Moscow

has no intention of starting a war with

Europe, but says if Europe ignites it,

uh Russia will finish it off kind of

quickly. Now, I hate to say it, but

uh at this point it does not look like

Europe would put up much of a fight

because apparently Ukraine has the

strongest military in all of Europe and

uh they're at a stalemate with Russia.

So, I just don't know how much of a

fight Europe would put up or NATO, I

guess. So, in theory, if he went after

Europe, he'd be going after NATO and the

US would be in the fight and uh there's

no way he'd want that.

Putin singing the Blueberry Hill song at

a dinner event.

I did not see that.

Anyway, um in other news,

scientists have discovered a way to

recharge the aging human cells.

So, apparently there's something they

can do to goose um your mitochondria,

which I believe Star Wars did first.

Am I wrong? Star Wars the force works on

your mitochondria. Do I have that wrong?

But there's a latest study from

researchers at Texas A&M and they found

some uh nanoflower particles that can

goose your stem cells and create more

mitochondria that basically uh keeps you

younger.

So, are you excited about getting some

strong mitochondria?

I need some. I need some. Yeah, I need a

little extra mitochondria if you have

any.

Well, Jonathan Turley is writing about

how uh California is considering a

billionaire tax for 2026. They would

impose a onetime 5% tax on any

individual wealth exceeding a billion

dollars.

Uh does that sound like a good idea? And

apparently if you tried to leave the

state,

they would still claw it back from

whatever state you went to.

So, do you think that's think that's a

good idea for for California? I'll tell

you. Uh, I'm not a billionaire,

but if I were, I would be looking for

some clever way to get the hell out of

this state because I would not want to

live in a state where they ever, even

once, had a tax on assets. This kind of

a tax. I already have property tax.

That's bad enough. But there's uh 5% of

everything you own. Are you kidding?

That's a lot of money.

But if you're a billionaire, I guess you

could afford it. That's why uh that's

why people wouldn't care so much. Except

the billionaires have too much power. I

don't think they'll ever let that

happen.

[snorts] Um as I told you, uh Senator

Rubio is pointing out that uh Venezuel

Venezuela's Maduro

Maduro has broken every past deal.

Apparently, there have been like five

deals with different parties over the

last 10 years and Maduro broke every one

of the deals.

So, that would explain why Trump was not

willing to do a deal with him. Trump

just said, "Okay, the deal is you

leave." Uh, how about this? How about I

stay, but uh you control the government

and I'll control the military? Nope. The

deal is you leave. All right. All right.

How about I leave, but you guarantee me,

you know, in the other countries a

pardon?

Nope. The deal is you leave [laughter]

or we kill you. You don't have to say

the second part because that's implied.

So, um, now you can see why Trump has

not been dealing with him, but rather

simply telling him what the deal is.

Here's the deal.

you leave. Uh but but but nope, that's

the deal. You leave and you get nothing.

Now, if you want to stay,

well, you know, I'm looking at moving my

military in there and you might all be

killed soon. Do you know what's the only

thing that could save Maduro at this

point? There's only one thing that could

save him. Do you know what it is? That's

right. it would be the Dilbert calendar

for 2026

because I don't think he has one and

look at the trouble he's getting in. But

if he had the Dilbert calendar, which is

available only on Amazon and you could

order yours now. Well,

boy, there's a very loud noise in my

driveway. Huh. But um I can guarantee

you that there's not a single dictator

who's ever been deposed who also had the

Dilbra calendar. Coincidence? Oh yeah.

Let's act like that's some kind of a

coincidence.

Yeah. Uh in the entire world in the

entire world of all the different

dictators there's ever been. You think

it's a total coincidence? Come on.

Really? It's a coincidence that not a

single dictator who has the Dilbert

calendar has ever been deposed.

I I don't believe in coincidences, my

friend. No. No. That's cause and effect.

You got to have this to prevent being

deposed.

All right, people. That's all I got for

today. I'm going to talk to the uh

beloved local subscribers privately in

about 30 seconds. the rest of you. I

hope you enjoyed the show or learned

something at least and I will see you

tomorrow. And uh my beloveds, I'm coming

at you in 30 seconds,

assuming all my technology works as

planned.