Episode 3050 CWSA 12/22/25

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You're going to learn about persuasion and cussing and so much more.

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All right, let me give a little uh announcement while you're streaming in.

If you were subscribing to get Dilbert Reborn, those are the naughty and daily comic strips, you may have noticed that I missed a week while I was in the hospital.

I did post the few extra that were in the can, but uh my my uh my art director and I need to catch up.

So, I'm going to try over the next month to, you know, up my production of comics from once a day to, you know, 1.5 a day.

And uh in somewhere around a month, I should get back to current.

So, the dates on the comics will look old.

They'll be a week old and five days old and four days old because, as you know, I am genetically incapable of being lazy.

So, I I'm completely aware that you would give me a pass for being in the hospital.

Am I right?

Like there's nobody who would say, "Oh, I'm going to I'm going to unsubscribe because I missed five days of comics while you're in the hospital." I don't think you will do that.

But the reciprocity for that is I'm going to try really hard to make sure that I produce the 100%.

It's just going to take a little extra work.

Now I think I can do it because I had already I had already uh evolved into doing the writing and then just doing some art direction for my actual artist who worked with me for years and can draw Dilbert better than I can.

So you'll see a little bit of difference in the drawing probably mostly in the backgrounds.

So, at this point, uh, the characters will look exactly the way they should.

That that should be perfect.

But there might be different choices made for the background art.

And I'm also working with my artist to see if I can close that gap a little bit.

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All right, let's see what's happening this week.

It's a slow Monday, so I thought I'd start out with a reframe.

Anybody want to hear a reframe?

All right.

I was asked this morning during what is called the pre-show.

And if you didn't know it, I do a pre-show before this show.

The pre-show is only only for subscribers of the locals uh platform.

And one of the locals people asked me uh how do you how do you learn to change your mind and how do you recognize people who can do it?

And I thought that that's a really good question.

How do you learn to change your mind?

And here's the reframe.

I I'm reasonably sure that part of the reason, it's not the 100% the reason, but a big part of the reason people don't want to change their mind is that it would look like weakness and maybe you would look like, well, you're not so smart, you know, because you were wrong.

So, the reframe is this.

There's something I can guarantee you as an official smart person.

First of all, would you accept my do you accept my um starting assumption that I am a smart person?

True.

You know, even if you hate me, would you agree that I would be classified as, you know, a smarter person?

And so, I'm going to talk as an official smart person.

Nothing is smarter than being able to change your mind.

So instead of thinking of your your ability to change your mind as a weakness, you should think of it as a strength, almost a superpower.

You've seen me change my mind in front of you how many times?

I mean, how many times have you seen me change my mind?

A few, right?

Did I ever look like I got weaker?

Did it make me look stupid?

Not at all.

you you probably said to yourself, "Wow, I wish I could have done that." You might have said, "Oh, that was probably pretty hard to change your mind." So, once you realize that changing your mind, assuming you have reasons for it, is recognized by other smart people.

And this is the key.

It's not recognized this way by dumb people.

But do you care what dumb people think?

You don't care what dumb people think.

If you want to be impressive, the only people that matter are smart people.

If smart people say, "Whoa, there's somebody who can change their mind." That that's a superpower.

You You come out way ahead.

So, I think that people mistakenly believe that when I change my mind, I'm experiencing some kind of sacrifice.

I'm not.

I'm experiencing bragging.

is is closer to narcissism, you know, because I'm basically showing off.

Look, I can change my mind.

So, I've never once in my life, not once, did anybody give me a hard time for changing my mind, but a lot of times people have given me credit for changing my mind.

It really is a one-way street.

So, the answer is reframe it from, oh, no, it's not a weakness to change your mind.

It is a superpower.

Now the second part of the question was how can you recognize this superpower in other people?

And unfortunately I think the only way is to observe it.

So if you observe them changing their mind, you should immediately bump up your impression of their mental capacity.

You might even mention might even mention you know that's that's impressive.

Changed your mind.

So that's your reframe of the day.

So yesterday you remember I made a big deal about the talent stacks of a few people primarily Akira the don who's released his meaning wave music.

Well, he followed up with me and this is fascinating uh to give me a list of his actual talents because the one thing I could tell just by observing I have no musical ability whatsoever but even I could observe that whatever he was doing creating this mix of uh podcast voices including mine with musical beats however he was pulling this off had to be a combination of of a wide range of talents.

But he gave me a list of his actual talents and I thought this is so interesting.

I just have to read it to you.

So apparently when he was young, as young as seven, he was already making mixtapz.

All right.

If you've been making mixtapz since you were seven, you know, that's that's a talent.

He he was a DJ.

And as he points out, if you're a disc jockey, you get this sense of how music affects people physically.

That's a good one.

If you've experienced live what kind of music has what kind of effect on people's bodies like a DJ would.

Wow.

What what a talent.

He was a rapper for years, over a decade.

So he says it gave me a weaponsgrade sense of rhythm.

You could observe that.

I wondered I wondered where that came from.

uh when I was observing it but he had a decade of practice.

He was an ad music composer.

So he he learned to produce in any genre.

He uh he was he did music production.

He did uh ad music composer.

He learned to prod produce in any genre.

He was a music journalist and he used to interview people which was helpful for him to go through his uh podcast and transcripts and pick out the the vital points.

He was a comic artist.

I didn't even remember this, but but he does his own artwork.

So his album covers is his own artwork.

That's a hell of talent.

Of course I'm biased.

He he knows video editing.

He learned web design.

He learned marketing.

And he he adds to his list that he's been a voracious reader since he was three.

And that allowed him to delve into the philosophical writings of people and and just be aware of more types of uh human thought because they just read more than other people.

So I hope that I hope that's as interesting to you as it is to me.

I find that fascinating.

So thanks Akira the don.

If you want to see what we're talking about uh just Google Akira the don and my name or meaning wave meaning ww wave one word meaningwave and you'll find you'll find his product.

Well, there's another UFO sighting.

Apparently, according to the New York Post, a pilot saw a silver canister that was floating off off the airplane's I don't know, it was floating at the same speed as the airplane.

And there's a audio uh an audio of the air traffic controllers talking to the pilot.

And uh you know what's missing?

You won't believe this, but it does not include a grainy video.

So the pilots, there obviously there were two of them were sitting there observing a UFO that they believed was a silver canister that was matching their speed and not connected to anything.

and neither of them thought to take out their phone and snap a picture or take a video.

My advice is don't take seriously any sightings of UFOs that don't come with UFO with video.

And secondly, don't take seriously any UFO sightings have a very unclear video or photos.

It's 2026 almost people.

If if it's real, somebody's gonna have a good photo of it.

Yeah.

Well, I don't know if it could be a balloon because it was matching their speed.

And even if it were attached to something, it seems like it would be a little fluttery or something.

So, I don't know what it was.

It seems more likely it was an optical illusion of some type.

I'm going to say optical illusion, but I don't believe I don't think it showed up on radar blah blah.

So, this is a small story, but it shows you where things are going.

I guess Whimo has now been approved at least a little bit for driving on LA freeways.

Now, it had already been used in California on side streets, but allowing it on freeways.

This a big pretty big change.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Whimo is a Google company.

Is that true?

Whimo is Google, right?

And Google is so big and so connected and so powerful that I can't imagine in my wildest dreams that uh the state of California can block them from being fully autonomous as well as Tesla.

I don't think California will be able to hold out for another year.

So, my guess is that 2026, sometime during the year, will be the the the year of autonomous self-driving cars that don't require you to pay attention.

So, a Whimo does not require you to pay attention, uh, but is limited to where it can go.

Now, it's not limited to where it can go, or at least they're testing it on the freeway.

This not it's not approved fully.

is just being tested and I would say every indication uh from including what everything Elon Musk is doing and saying and then everything that Whimo is doing and saying uh would suggest we're almost there.

This is definitely the year.

Can you imagine how the world would be different with the self-driving cars?

You know, for a lot of people, especially people who commute, especially people who are living in LA traffic, this is such a gamecher.

If you told me, Scott, do you want to live in LA?

Probably the first thing I would say is, no, I can't handle the traffic.

But if you said to me, well, the traffic will be bad, but will rapidly become less bad as people start, you know, sharing sharing auto cars, etc.

And by the way, instead of being nailed to your driver's wheel, you could just do your own thing.

In which case, the commute would just be productive time.

If you said, "Scott, bring your laptop.

You have Wi-Fi presumably.

uh and you can just sit in that car and treat it like it's an office that happens to be moving.

The commute is gone.

It would be like the commute didn't exist.

It would just be extra work done.

So the way society is going to change in the next 12 months is really really interesting.

So most of you will be here for that.

So, as I predicted in my mind but did not tell you, the Epstein files have turned into the trickle strategy.

The trickle strategy is that they will continue releasing things that make us unhappy.

That's not enough.

That's not enough.

I'm going to sue you.

But wait, here are some more files.

Oh, all right.

I'll wait another day because you said you'd give me some more files.

Wait a minute.

They're redacted.

Well, wait till tomorrow.

All right, I can wait one more day.

Uh oh, wait.

We We had to pause because we haven't redacted enough.

Well, then I'm going to put you in jail.

But wait, you'll have them by tomorrow.

You don't want to put me in jail if I'm going to produce them tomorrow.

Okay, that's reasonable.

Then tomorrow comes drip, drip, drip.

So, how long can the Department of Justice or whoever is behind it uh trickle us without going to jail?

And the answer is forever.

There's really no limit to to the the ability to stall.

Now, as I said yesterday, and this is I would say is more of a Mike Benz um realization that I'm stealing is that if you assume that the real thing that's slowing things down is not so much not so much protecting the rich and powerful, but simply the intelligence agencies.

We don't know which ones, but at least the CIA.

At least if they're the ones who are stopping the progress, you're not going to see the files.

Obviously, they really, really, really don't want you to see something.

So, no, there's no hope you'll see them.

Uh, do you think that that Roana and Massie will succeed in getting some kind of impeachment of Bondi?

Doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter at all.

She might be impeached.

She might not be impeached.

But do you think that will make any difference on whether you see the files?

No.

They're not even related.

It's just something bad that might happen to Bondi.

So you if you don't like Bondi, then you'd be happy about it, I guess.

I'm not even sure if I would remove her from office.

So no, there was absolutely no recourse.

No recourse.

even if she went to jail, you're not going to see the files.

So there there's no path that would produce the files.

And I think I think Roana, and by the way, I give him credit as well as Massie, it was a pretty good try.

But as soon as they included the you can redact things for national security or to protect the victims, as soon as that was part of it, there was no chance you would see them.

You're just going to get the trickle trickle trickle.

Well, House leader, Minority Leader Hakee Jeff, I guess he predicted yesterday that they would get enough votes, I think this would be in January, to extend the subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, the ACA.

Now, why that's important is if these subsidies run out, then millions of Americans will be priced out of the uh health care market.

That would be bad.

Uh and Republicans can't seem to agree on extending it because that would look like wasting more money to them.

And Democrats, of course, insist on it.

So the question is, Scott, if you're so good at persuasion, how do you get past the fact that there's going to be a total healthc care apocalypse unless Republicans do what Republicans don't ever do, which is sign up to spend way more money than they think they should be spending.

It's not something that the Republicans are going to say, you know, well, you know, why not extend it three years because they're talking about a three-year extension.

So, I would like to offer the following path.

Republicans probably could agree, or enough of them could, that you don't have to get all of them.

You just have to get enough to have a majority with the the Democrats.

But I believe you could convince some Republicans to temporarily, maybe not three years, not three years necessarily, but temporarily extend it, but they'd have to guess something in return.

Now, what could Republicans ask for in return for this thing they definitely don't want to do, which is extend it?

uh what would they ask for that would make sense that you would say oh well if you got that I'm okay with it and I don't know what the answer is but let me just throw out an idea okay so the suggestion would be this that Republicans could demand that if they vote to extend the ACA they would have to get in return some kind of guaranteed audit and fraud reduction system that is stronger than whatever is happening now.

Now, what I've learned recently is apparently almost all big expenseless in the government do in fact come paired with a requirement to audit.

Did you know that?

So, auditing is actually built into a lot of government processes, but it doesn't work.

And I think the reason it doesn't work is that the people in charge of spending the money are the same people in charge of the audit.

So, so of course it doesn't work.

If the auditors are part of the same political party as the people who are stealing the money, they're just going to be in on it.

So apparently what happens in the real world, in the real world, there'll be a requirement to audit and they just don't do it.

or if they do do it and they get a bad result, they don't do anything about it.

Nobody goes to jail.

So when I say that the Republicans could demand some kind of audit control, I mean a different form from whatever we're doing now that doesn't work.

A different form might include um some better approach to getting let's say Republican auditors.

Suppose Republicans said if you allow Republican majority but not 100%.

Republican majority control over auditing this this domain.

We will approve the expense because there's so much fraud and waste and the only way anybody's even going to mention it or even look for it is if they're on a competing political party.

So imagine you're the Democrats and the and the Republicans offer this.

We will extend.

We will vote to extend if you vote that we're going to create auditing entities that are by a majority could be three out of five people but majority Republican.

If you let us pick the the auditing team, we will promise it will include some Democrats, but they will be in the minority.

What would Democrats say to that?

Would Democrats say no, we do not want a stronger form of auditing?

Right.

So, you tell me, is that the best idea you've heard so far?

Because as you've seen in many negotiations, it nothing gets solved until both teams can claim victory.

If the Republicans could claim victory over strengthening the anti-fraud pro- auditing part of the world, then they can claim victory.

They say, you know, it's not perfect, but we can really get to the bottom of this if you give us another year.

So I would say extend it for not three years.

You might you might get that three years down to a year or something reasonable.

But uh go for the audit.

And again it's not audit versus not audit.

You would have to revise how you audit to make it credible.

And that's the part that can be improved.

Well, here's another persuasion lesson.

Uh, I hope you've been as amused as I am that Trump is good at cursing at just the right amount and uh and Democrats are bad at it.

So when when Trump curses, it guarantees that that will be, you know, the big quote the next day.

It puts a focus on things and he never overd does it.

You know, you can you can tell that he very carefully selected where he's going to put that f-word, but it turns out that Jie Vance has the same skill.

And for why Democrats can't do this, I don't know, but the context here is that uh I guess JD Vance was giving a speech.

was at I think it was at Turning Point USA and he was defending his wife because apparently both uh uh Jen Saki and Nick Fuentes have said bad things about her.

I don't know what Jen Saki said, but Nick Fuentes is a let's say a white white supremacist.

I'm not sure what he is, but he uh he has some negative things to say about her ethnicity.

And uh I of course do not approve of that.

But JD Vance did the first thing he did right is he directly defended his wife.

You do that first.

And here's what he said.

He goes, "Let me be clear.

Anyone who attacks my wife whether their name is Jen Saki or Nick Fuentes can eat shit." Oh, he said it at unheard in an interview.

All right.

It wasn't during a speech.

was doing an interview with Unheard.

And then he he went even better.

He goes, "That's my official policy as vice president of the United States.

My official policy is that is that uh Jen Saki and Nick Fuentes can eat shit." Now the first thing that's brilliant about this is that he paired Jen Saki with Nick Fuentes which is just brilliant there because you know they don't really have much in common except maybe they said something about his wife but putting them together really makes you go what what uh and it and it dismisses uh Nick it dismisses Fuentes in a way that Republicans wouldn't mind at which is really you're like a Democrat.

He's not like a Democrat, but it's a good it's a good approach.

And I think you can confirm that JD Vance is noted as a prolific cursor.

So when he pulls out the the sword, it's in the context of protect, you know, defending his wife.

Who minds that?

Every one of you say, "Oh, okay." If you're defending your wife, your spouse, if you're defending your spouse, yeah, there there's no limit on the words.

If you're defending your spouse, there's not really any limit on what you can do.

We we all get that.

Um, let me make a an appeal that I think would be compatible with some of you, but not all.

There is definitely an anti-Indianamerican sentiment within the Republican party.

Would you agree?

Would you agree that there's a sort of a rolling anti-Indian-American sentiment in the Republican party?

Well, I think that conflates people's complaints about employment, you know, the H-1B stuff, and it conflates that with who they are as a people.

Uh I have lived in California for all my adult life and so I'm always surrounded by and especially now in my current neighborhood a very large Indian-American population.

I can tell you I promise you this is true.

The Indian-Americans are awesome people.

And if you ever get to know your Indian-American neighbor, you're going to be happy about it.

They are actually just some of the best people in the world.

They're they're funny.

They're smart.

They're hardworking.

Great great people.

So, don't do not do not conflate the ethnicity with the fact that we have an immigration issue that you would prefer to be, you know, more pro-American and not bringing in people who are from other countries as much.

Now, that's a separate it's a separate argument.

So I'm not putting up an argument that we should be flooding the country with extra Indian technology workers.

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm just saying if you're looking at the ethnicity, they're amazing people and if you if you get to know them, you'll be happy.

All right.

Uh so apparently speaking of JD Vance, people are chattering because Erica Kirk who has taken over the Turning Boy USA and had it just had a big event.

Uh she has come out and endorsed JD Vance for 2028.

Some people say it's too soon.

Do you think it's too soon?

It's not too soon.

So, uh, let me let me give you the I was trying to think what weaknesses does JD Vance have that would matter.

So, I'm thinking, all right, JD Vance, he's an amazing speaker, so they wouldn't be able to match that.

The Democrat candidate would not be would not be as good a speaker as he is.

No matter who it is, he's just gonna be better.

He's very quick-minded.

He's very smart.

obviously smart.

He also has all the right backers.

So, he's got he's got some of the most powerful and smartest backers that the Republican party can produce.

But more importantly, he's probably going to have, we assume, Trump's support.

Nobody nobody's gonna run for president as Republican unless Trump supports it.

So, if Trump supports him, you know, you're 90% there, right?

And I was thinking, what qualities does he lack?

And I'm watching him having obviously learned from Trump.

You you can see you can see that he's picking up the the most uh powerful parts of Trump, including the cursing at just the right amount.

Um, and he's learning to be provocative, but unlike Trump, he probably holds back a little bit.

And that makes sense.

He's vice president.

He's not president.

So, I would say he's definitely learning technique.

He's learning persuasion.

He would have Trump and Trump lovers backing him.

Uh, the only thing I'm worried about is that it puts a target on his back too soon.

But on the other hand, it's so obvious that he's the front runner that I guess that target would have been there anyway.

So, I'm going to say that uh Eric Kirk's early endorsement does not hurt him.

It might help him and I'm fascinated to find out if the Democrats will have any way to attack him that would be reasonable.

Does anybody I'm looking at the comments right now.

Does anybody have any idea what negative stuff you would put on them?

Because the only negativity is coming from Republicans, right?

Basically, Republicans who are a little bit anti-diversity, let's say.

That's the best thing I can say about it.

Uh, might not like who he's married to.

But are they going to vote Democrat?

Are you going to vote Democrat because you you think his wife should be whiter?

really.

So I don't know that there's anything that was slow to slow him down.

Uh and so I'm uh I I don't think that my endorsement per se is useful.

So I'll I'll put it in the form of prediction.

So prediction, not endorsement later.

I might I mean I might endorse him later, but it's too early for me.

Uh so I'll call it a prediction.

He he'll be the nominee.

Now, what about Rubio?

Rubio as very cleverly and smartly, well, that would be the same as same as clever.

Um, he's he's already taken himself out of the run under the condition that JD is running and we assume that to be true.

So, imagine if there is some kind of uh let's say opposition research or something comes up that takes JD out of the race.

I don't know what that would be, but you know, you just imagine something you don't know or something that hasn't happened, you know, hits him and takes him out.

Rubio would just be sort of loyally sitting on the sidelines, just the obvious person to step in.

So Rubio probably increased his odds of becoming president by taking himself out of the race.

Does that make sense?

By taking himself out of the race, he doesn't have a target on his back and JD does.

So, as time goes by, if the bad guys make a dent, and I don't know what that would be, but if they make a dent in JD, the the only replacement that would seem obvious would be Rubio.

And he would look like a loyal supporter.

He would um he would by then have some major accomplishments as you could say he already has major accomplishments and he would probably instantly get Trump's support under the condition that Trump agreed something took JD out.

So I think if he ran straight up against JD there's no chance he would win.

But if he sort of loyally stands aside and said, "You go first." And it doesn't work out.

Now, I don't know what the odds of it not working out are.

Let's say 10%.

You would go from 0% chance of winning to 10%.

Without any risk whatsoever.

So, good play.

Rubio being smart.

So, you've probably watched as uh the Minnesota fraud stuff makes more headlines, but as it does, people seem to agree that the California fraud and California mismanagement might be something like 10 times as big.

How in the world could Governor Nuomo ever become president under the context of by the midterm?

We're going to know a lot more about all the hundred billions of dollars that were stolen um in his state.

But not just stolen, also mismanaged because it's kind of hard to tell what is stolen, what is mismanaged.

It might end up being the same thing.

Um but here just some examples.

All right.

So by the midterms the some experts are saying that the cost of gas in California could reach as high as $10 to12 per gallon and that that cost would be almost entirely because of California mismanagement and almost entirely because California is what I call a hoax hoaxdriven government.

So the reason gas will cost so much is a variety of regulatory things that were designed to protect the climate from catastrophe.

Now there was no chance it was ever going to protect the climate from catastrophe because one state couldn't do that anyway.

But what it did do is it created this gigantic umbrella for fraud.

So the only thing that happened was our gas might go to $10.

It might go at least to5 or $7, but some say as high as 10.

We got a 20% decrease in capacity when January hits because two refiners just said that we're out.

Too much regulation.

We're out.

So there won't really be any serious argument about what caused gas prices to be out of control in this one state because all the other states will now have this problem.

And you can directly tie the cost to California believing incorrectly the hoax that we were in an existential crisis that could somehow be fixed by California alone doing things that other states were not doing.

How in the world would somebody who was the steward of that process as governor, how in the world do you get elected president?

I mean that the the fact that even Bill Gates has said we don't have an existential threat that completely pulls the rug and of the entire California strategy for the last 10 years.

So that's going to look like an disaster.

All right.

So the first example of the hoaxdriven government of California is that uh there was a climate hysteria uh or a climate crisis and he had to address it.

That's hoax number one.

But what Governor Nuome and other Democrats blamed the problem on was price gouging by the oil companies.

Price gouging.

When it was looked into, audited, there was no price gouging found.

That was a hoax.

Hoax number two, that the energy companies are the problem, not the policies of the government.

Those are big hoaxes.

Um, how about when there was a border crisis in California?

What did California say?

California said there's no border crisis.

Hoax number three.

Literally a hoax saying that there was no border crisis.

How about the homeless problem is one that can be solved by building them homes.

Was there ever any hope they could solve homelessness by building homes for the homeless?

No.

No.

There was never any chance that that would make a difference because it's based on the misperception that the homeless have a have a no home problem.

The reality is they have mental problems, drug problems, and if you gave them a home, they wouldn't be able to maintain it or live in it and wouldn't even want to live in it.

They'd rather be on the sidewalk because they're insane or they're drugged or or whatever else.

So that would be what am I up to?

The fourth hoax.

And then I'm not even throwing in reparations.

So we've got a state that's trying to pay reparations when California never had slaves.

None of the people lived here uh were victims of California slavery.

It's a complete hoax.

What about the trans issue?

That that uh you could be born one sex, but really you're the other sex.

Now, I usually stay away from that one, but I think most of you would say, "Hey, throw that one in there as another hoax." Uh, so I could probably go on, but I say that Elon Musk had replied on X that California would go bankrupt if all the federal transfer payment fraud was stopped.

So you got the federal transfer payments fraud.

I I'm not sure what the hoax is there.

That hoax might be the wrong frame for that.

It's just crime.

But here's an example of what California did that other states did not.

I think this was maybe Mario and Noel.

I saw this on X.

So apparently uh after the pandemic there there were all these stimulus funds that came from the federal government and every other state used the government funding to pay down their debt except California.

So California, instead of paying down the debt, and now we're basically bankrupt, they used it to just spend more on more stuff, which almost certainly was fraud or partially.

So the result will be that the Californian businesses are going to be hit apparently with some enormous payroll tax to compensate for the fact that California was the only only mismanaged state.

We got 50 states and only one of them didn't know how to handle the money from the federal government.

And even the other blue states didn't make this mistake.

is the worst of the worst of even the Democrat states.

How do you become president?

How in the world did the person who was presiding over all that become president?

Now, I haven't even gotten into uh I haven't even gotten into the what $50 billion for the bullet train that never happened.

How do how do you how do you possibly become president?

So, one of the things I suspect fairly strongly is that Republicans are doing the uh what is the what's the what's the movie where the Scottish warrior goes hold what's that movie?

Hold hold.

You recognize that?

Which movie is that?

I have to get the right movie.

Uh uh Braveheart.

Thank you.

Yeah, the movie Braveheart when the two armies are getting they're ready to face off and uh and then what's his name?

The actor What's the actor's name?

Well, William Wallace was the character.

Let's go with that.

William Wallace was the character.

And before he attacks, he's uh going down his Mel Gibson.

Thank you.

Mel Gibson is the actor.

And Mel Gibson is on his horse and he's going, "Hold hold." I always love that.

That that was one of my favorite movie bits.

But it feels like the smartest people in the Republican party by now they must have figured out that Nome is the weakest candidate they could possibly run.

I mean, maybe even worse than Kla Harris.

So, I I feel like the Republicans are saying, "Hold wait till he gets uh wait until he gets nominated.

That will take him out." Well, apparently uh Yale has uh no Republican uh professors across 27 of their departments.

So as you know the uh liberal elite colleges are all cesspools of uh one-sided thinking and that conservatives are basically shut out from uh from higher higher uh education.

I mean in terms of being the professors and I'm wondering if that will quickly be resolved by AI.

So what we need is a Grock college.

I don't think Grock is where it could do that yet, but it's very close.

So don't you think that maybe in a year or two you can have a choice of going to Yale or Harvard or Grock?

And if you go to Grock, it will take out the bias and you can get a degree that that your employer will say, "Oh, you mean you learned all the useful stuff?" And then somebody from Harvard comes in to apply for the job and the employer will say, "Oh, you learn to be a pain in the ass and care about all the wrong stuff." So clearly at this point in in history, it would be way better to have a Ivy League degree than some kind of madeup, you know, AI Grock degree.

But I feel like that could be completely reversed in maybe two years, two years.

So I think the free market, given the new tools, the AI and stuff that will be available, I think the free market's going to fix this.

And it won't be because the government did it and it won't be because the higher education decided that they needed to be less biased.

I don't believe it's self-correcting, but it doesn't need to be if alternatives pop up and I think maybe two years.

Well, there's a story in the news I think is no story at all, which is um Barry Weiss, who's now the CBS News news editor uh in chief, she killed a story that was 60 minutes segment about Venezuelan migrants being deported to that notorious El Salvadorian prison.

Now, the the knock against her is that the segment had already been had already been blessed by their lawyers and uh they'd done all the work and they're ready to go on Sunday and that mean old Barry Weiss told them that they should wait until they at least had some comments from the administration because apparently it was a story about what the administration did that did not include any quotes from anybody useful from the administ registration.

And so the way the reporters at 60 Minutes and others, I guess, are complaining about it is they're saying, "Hey, you're you're censoring us or you're just agreeing with the administration." I don't think that's what's happening.

If you've been involved in any kind of news or editing environment, as I have for most of my uh career, this is the most normal stuff in the world.

If if you had an option of you could see this segment right now and I guess it would have run on Sunday.

So, your options are you could see it now and it would not include any important uh opinions from the administration or you could wait a week, maybe two weeks and you could see the exact same thing except it would include um I think she wanted Steven Miller to be the uh to be the voice of the administration and that would be a good choice.

Doesn't have to be him.

What would you pick as a consumer?

Wouldn't you rather wait a week and then have some chance of seeing both sides of the argument?

Of course you would.

So, so I think that this this feels like more of a an anti-B Barry Weiss story than it is about anybody made a mistake.

This is definitely not censorship.

In the real world of news, in the real world of editing, in the real world of anybody who has an editor, this is just normal behavior.

Uh, now if you wait a few weeks and the story never runs, well then I revise my opinion.

So, we'll go back to the very first reframe that began today's podcast.

I will change my mind if this does not produce a useful counterpoint that makes the story more valuable because I think she was hired to make the news business better not worse.

And if you put me in her job, well, let me say it this way.

If you put me in her job tomorrow, I would have made the same decision.

I would say this is not ready to go.

So, I'm I'm not defending her because then you're going to say, "Oh, you're just being a pro Barry Weiss." I really don't know what Barry Weiss is up to.

I have not been following her.

I don't know if she's a, you know, good egg or a bad egg.

I don't know if I don't know if giving her any support makes the world a better place or a worse place.

I don't know.

I I have no idea.

But if you take the personalities out of it, I would do the same thing.

I say, "You're not ready." Now, how many reporters have ever finished a story, wrapped it up, and then when their boss delayed it, said, "I'm happy about that." Never.

In the history of reporters, no reporter is going to say, "I agree with my editor.

This story was not good." No, that's not going to happen.

So, I say, "Hold your opinion on this for at least two weeks.

If after two weeks you hear that uh it's just going to be banned forever and it'll never run.

I might revise my opinion.

Well, apparently the Pentag Pentagon has failed an audit for the eighth consecutive year the Epic Times is reporting.

Now, you probably knew that the Pentagon doesn't pass audits.

It's good that audits exist, but remember I've been complaining that it's not that exist or don't.

There's something about the way we do it that that guarantees they don't work or that they don't have the effect you would like, which is fixing all the problems.

But part of the problem is that auditing is such a boring story that the public hears a story, they go, "Oh, the Pentagon failed an audit.

Well, better luck next time." and then they think about something else because it's just not interesting.

So, one of the questions I have is in a cursory reading of how they failed the audit again, a lot of it is they can't find their assets or they can't account for things like spare parts.

And if you can't account for your assets, the possibility that they've been stolen and sold is pretty high or or just in general, if you can't account for your assets, uh we don't know that that signals gigantic fraud, but it does signal that we don't know if there's gigantic fraud.

So again, I would say the problem might not be the Pentagon.

The problem might be that the way we audit either doesn't have any teeth or we're doing it the wrong way or it's the wrong people doing it or some combination of all those things.

So, I would look at auditing the auditing.

It could be, and I'm I'm starting to form this opinion, that it's not it's not that something is or is not audited.

It's that the auditing doesn't work because it's also corrupt or incompetent or we don't do anything about it.

Now, let me ask you this.

Do you think anybody got fired or demoted because they they uh failed that?

Well, HEGS Seth says that they're improving and that uh they might pass their first audit by 2028.

That's their goal.

I am in favor of having a goal in this case.

It makes sense to have a target for when you got it fixed.

But it coincidentally is when they'll be out of office.

So, uh I've got an idea.

Uh, how about we promise to have everything fixed when uh I'm no longer here?

Oh, when would that be?

Uh, 2028.

So, are you happy that they have a plan that it will be fixed when they're no longer here?

Because you really don't need to fix it if you're not really going to be there.

So I would say I'm not happy with the excuse that we'll get it done by 2028.

There there's something something far more aggressive has to happen before then.

Now I will wait to 2028 if something happened that was aggressive.

So if for example they said we just shake hand our entire audit process or we just put a general in jail something like that like a like a big shocking change.

If you give me a big shocking change that clearly is directionally correct I might wait.

Yeah I might hold my opinion to 2028.

But if you're not showing me that anything is going to be different and it's going to be the same people doing the audit as did it last time and the same people hiding the hiding the assets I hid it last time.

I don't want to wait.

I'm not I I do not find that acceptable.

You know, somebody criticized me the other day on social media says uh I would be more credible if I if I ever criticized the Trump administration.

To which I say, that's true.

I would be way more credible if I ever criticized the Trump administration.

I've definitely criticized the Trump administration.

I'm doing it right here.

Are are they doing enough?

No.

No, they're not doing enough.

Are they satisfying me that they're even capable even capable of doing enough?

No.

No.

I see no signal that the Trump administration is fixing this problem.

So that is a criticism.

I think I'd say almost exactly the same thing if Democrats were in charge.

So the next time you say to me, "Hey, you never criticize your own team." I say, "Well, that's what this is." My own, By the way, let me be clear.

My team is not Republicans.

My team is not MAGA.

My team is America.

Right?

If you if you're on team America, which would include all of us, you need to get this fixed.

This is not about one side versus the other.

This is America versus the end of America, right?

It it's it's an existential problem.

It's do you exist or don't you exist?

is way beyond way beyond Democrat or Republican.

All right.

Well, apparently the US is putting more pressure on these so-called dark fleet of tankers coming out of Venezuela.

So, I guess some tankers that were incorrectly flagged, I think that's the the false flag, are being subject to a seizure.

And I believe that now the third one has been seized.

We already had two.

And some people said, "Hey, those particular tankers are exempt because they're a different flag." Well, it looks like the flags were fake.

So, so the US is taking the position, I don't know if it's, you know, valid or not, but they're taking the position that these can be seized.

And apparently we're going to we're going to um escort them to American ports and just take the oil.

Now that is a very Trumpian way to handle this, which is I'll just take your oil.

Thank you.

Now, if some of that oil, if we take it, would we use it to offset the military cost of uh of controlling or or the military cost of leading on Venezuela?

If we do, that would be a very very Trumpian thing to do.

Well, thank you for the free oil.

You know, I always say that Trump picks up free money.

If you leave free money on a table and everybody walks by it, Trump is the only one who's saying, "Does anybody own that?

Who's whose free money is that?" And after he asks maybe the second time, and nobody says it's theirs, he takes it.

He just takes it.

So, uh, clearly this is theft, but it's also free money.

So, very Trumpian.

Um, now the big mystery about the whole Venezuelan operation is does it have one purpose or does it have multiple purposes and what would they be?

And I don't know the answer to this question but it could be a three meaning that if you think of it in terms of trying to accomplish any one thing then you would be confused because it's really meant to accomplish more than one thing.

So the possible things some people say some people were not me but are smarter than me about this topic say that really it's lean that are leaning on Venezuela is also a way to lean on Cuba because Cuba and Venezuela have a economic relationship that if you hurt one you would hurt the other especially if you hurt Venezuela's oil business I think that would for Cuba the most.

So question number one is our actions at the moment are they designed to take down or control two countries uh you know via the Monroe doctrine idea that you know we're the dominant or the big dog and that if you don't do what we want and you happen to live in our part of the world or we're going to come for you.

So, I would say maybe or maybe it just makes the anti-Cuban people happy, but it's not part of the primary primary goal.

But I guess I would argue obviously it does put pressure on Cuba, but what do we expect will happen from that?

Do we expect that Cuba will have a regime change?

Have we not been expecting that for six?

Well, how many years have we assumed that if we put pressure on Cuba, they'll have a regime change?

So, I don't know what we're trying to accomplish other than making Cubans poorer.

Um, then of course the stated objective is to uh put pressure on the drug cartels.

Well, it does that, but as many people have pointed out, uh, fentinel will probably just find another way.

And by the way, Venezuela is not the big fentinel um producer in the first place.

So, yeah.

Yeah, it's bad for the cartels, but is that why we're doing it?

I I do agree with this thinking that the cartels have become so powerful that you you risk them becoming like a major military.

Now, you could argue they're already a major military, but they're not any they're not any match for the American military.

At some point, they might become so powerful that you couldn't really directly attack them because it would just be too much catastrophe.

So it could be that we're thinking ahead to make sure that the drug cartels don't reach a certain scale and power and we're worried that they're coming to some kind of crossover point.

So I don't think we're doing it.

Uh well here here's the fourth possible thing.

The fourth possible reason is that the big money people, I don't know, the big energy money billionaires may have decided that uh if we can just steal the oil from Venezuela, they will make enormous profits, which presumably would happen, right?

If Venezuela crumbled, but we we captured their uh their energy assets, would that make any American companies richer or any billionaires from anywhere richer?

The answer is maybe.

Maybe.

So, we've got at least four possible reasons that Venezuela itself is a problem and they want a regime change.

that doing that will take down Cuba somehow, but I don't see how that the drug cartels got too powerful.

It was time to knock them down.

Uh or that some rich people have some enormous enormous financial gain.

It's it's kind of a weird one.

So, I do not believe that our full military will move in and just occupy the country, but uh I do like the fact that Trump never takes that off the table.

All right, let's talk about Ukraine and Russia.

There's something interesting going on here.

So apparently there's been yet more meetings with Wickoff and Jared and Russian uh Ukraine and uh mostly Ukraine and uh they're working on their 20point plan for a multilateral security agreement.

So what Wickoff said is an interesting hint of where we're at.

He said that negotiators focused in the recent talks on quote timeliness and sequencing of next steps.

Now, it doesn't seem to me that you would talk about the timing of steps unless you thought you were close to agreeing on what the steps were.

And I don't believe that we've been close to that before.

So is his choice of words timeliness and sequencing is that telling us we've achieved some kind of minimum negotiation minimum state where we're close to agreeing on the the content but not the timing.

Because if it comes down to timing that would suggest we're close to something that could work.

And I'm not suggesting we are, but his choice of words does suggest that and I've not seen that before.

So that's that's my persuasion uh related observation.

So now US, Ukrainian and European officials earlier this week uh they said that uh the problem is security guarantees for Kev.

And here's what Lindsey Graham said.

Now remember, Lindsey Graham is a very anti-Russian guy and he said recently on Meet the Press, I guess this weekend, um that it was unclear if Putin would accept the current deal.

So the negotiations were with the Ukraine to tighten up the 20 points, but we don't know if Putin would accept it.

And he says if he doesn't accept it that the approach should be to start seizing uh oil tankers uh of that are carrying Russian oil and then to label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism for what he what he says kidnapping 20,000 Ukrainian kids.

Now, you know, one of the problems with getting a deal is that Trump will be accused of making a deal that's pro Putin, right?

That's a big problem.

How does how does Trump avoid the accusation that he's just working for Putin?

He's a he's a puppet of Putin and he's not trying to protect Ukraine.

He's not trying to protect Europe.

He's just trying to make Putin happy.

Well, it's a tough one.

uh because we're at a point where Putin's going to get something out of this deal that a lot of people don't want him to get out of the deal.

So, one way you could address that, which is not a total answer, is you could send the most anti-Putin guy onto the TV to say that he would be willing to support some kind of a deal that looks like what we have now.

So if Lindsey Graham, the most anti-Russian guy, and nobody doubts that, so there's nobody in the world who who doubts that he's anti-Russian.

If he says this deal works for us, meaning America, wouldn't that be a pretty good signal that we're not doing it for for Putin's benefit if Lindsey Graham says yes?

Now, I'm not a I'm not a giant fan of Lindsey Graham's military first, you know, kind of approach to things.

I'm simply observing that if he has a long, long track record of being anti-Putin, he's exactly the person you want to send out to say, "I could live with this deal." That would mean something.

Now, of course, no matter what happens, the Democrats will use it as an attack on on Trump.

Uh, but it would sort of weaken the attack.

So, as I've said before, you never get a solution to a war under the condition that both sides are happier fighting than not fighting, which is the current situation.

uh or if one of them loses and nobody's losing that hard yet.

Uh you could argue that Ukraine is losing, but they're not losing hard enough that they would instantly sue for peace.

So what do you do?

Well, as I've often told you, the only path would be to find a way where both sides feel like they won.

Uh so how could you create a situation with Ukraine and uh Europe and well in this case there are four sides you could say how does US Europe Ukraine and Russia how do they all win?

And I would argue that the one and only way that could happen is if they find a way to reframe the war as an economic opportunity.

Now, this is not a new idea obviously, but as soon as you say, "Hey, I've got an idea where we all get rich." Suddenly, the war doesn't seem like such a good idea.

So, let me just develop this idea a little bit.

Suppose instead of giving Russia, what's the better way to say this?

Suppose we come up with a plan where the energy and other resources of Ukraine could be equitably I don't want to say shared but be could become the launching pad for the US to make a lot of money by investing in their energy infrastructure.

Uh Ukraine could make a lot of money because their energy infrastructure could become great.

Um, Europe would be simply protected by the fact that the US would have such a big investment that if Putin attacked, he could be guaranteed that the oligarchs in the United States would say, "Unleash the army because we have too much money resting in Ukraine." So, could you create a situation where Russia would be better off economically?

you know, they'd lose their sanctions and they'd they'd give some relief.

Um, and they get to keep keep the stuff they've already conquered.

I think that's that's a given.

And the US gets rich or has so much economic opportunity that that becomes the the security guarantee.

So, we would not necessarily have to say we will place our US army on Ukrainian soil.

we would only need to say, you think we're going to make a hundred billion dollars?

No, we're going to make a trillion dollars.

So, if you could create a picture where the US could get to a trillion dollars of economic benefit just just for investing in Ukraine.

It might take a while, but you you throw the trillion in there and people's people's eyes open.

it.

Do you think that the US would employ military might if uh if Russia tried to encroach on our trillion dollar economic opportunity?

And the answer is of course we would.

You might not like it.

You know, a lot of people might disagree with it, but yes.

Yes, you could guarantee that if we had a trillion dollars at stake that our richest people would say, "Uh, you know how I have a lot of influence over the government?

Well, this is where you pay me back.

Uh, this is where you you go to war with Putin." So, I think there's some possibility that if we could tell a story where the US has a trillion dollars to to benefit uh that Putin would know that attacking it had nothing to do with uh Europe and had nothing to do with NATO, that the US would unilaterally say, "Okay, we're going to you up bad." So, maybe maybe we're getting close.

Well, apparently Trump has tapped I like how they say tapped.

He chose Louisiana governor as a special Greenland envoy.

New York Post is reporting this.

So in addition to being governor of Louisiana, uh this gentleman whose name I forgot to write down, a governor of uh Louisiana will be the special envoy to Greenland.

I guess we didn't have one.

We had no special envoy.

Now, Denmark, of course, is objecting because they they think, "Oh, no, there's one more step toward you trying to strongarm us out of owning Greenland." To which I say, you know, Trump has already established that uh has already established that he's going to go strong on what looks to me like, you know, Monroe doctrine times three.

And if you're in our part of the world, you don't get to say no if we have a legitimate security interest.

And do we have a legitimate security interest in having at least a military uh military, let's say, strong association with Greenland.

And I would argue that if they don't give it to us, we're going to take it.

Not right away, but that is what I like about Trump.

He's very clear.

You're either gonna work with us or we're gonna take it.

And that's the Monroe document right there.

In my in my opinion, that's the Monroe Doctrine.

So, uh, in the context of Trump leaning on Venezuela, uh, that surely gives Denmark some pause because I don't think they expected our our navy to surround Venezuela.

Now, even though Venezuela has nothing to do with Greenland, it suggests what level of military might Trump might employ if we have an economic slash security reason to do it.

So, it's got to rattle them.

So, I would say the current context is good for Trump.

Uh he's he's kind of taken down the the verbal pressure.

Um, but it suddenly puts a little more pressure on them.

Now, here's what the New York Post says.

It says that behind closed doors, administration officials have mapped out a plan for the island, Greenland, to become independent and then enter into a compact of free association with the US, giving Washington a role in certain areas such as defense.

So, it looks like step one is to get Greenland to vote for their own independence.

Do you believe that our CIA, if it worked hard to co-opt the influential people in Greenland, we can't believe a lot of them, you know, you you could basically bribe every politician in Greenland in about five minutes because there not many.

So, between what the CIA could do to bribe people plus what they could do to threaten people plus the fact that when I say people, I'm only talking about the, you know, the most influential people who are already in Greenland.

Do you think we couldn't get them to say, you know, we should be a free country?

If we're if we're asking them to join the United States, that's too far.

we wouldn't get that.

But if you said, "Hey, what do you think of your idea of more independence?" No, we're happy being owned by Denmark, but are you are you happy being owned by Denmark?

Because the other option is you could vote for independence.

Do you think that Denmark would uh deny you your independence if let's say 70% of you voted for freedom?

No.

So, if you could get the the local leaders by bribery or incentive or I will make you rich, which wouldn't cost as much.

I mean, it would be it would be the cheapest color revolution of all time because it's a small population.

Um, we absolutely 100% could co-opt their government, the influentials into agreeing that Greenland should be independent.

We would not be able to get them to say they should join America.

But if you became independent and you no longer had the support of Denmark, could you survive unless you had really productive some kind of association with the United States and probably Canada too?

And the answer is not really.

I mean you you would have to make deals with the United States.

For example, uh you can share in our development of our natural resources if you provide e um physical security against Russia and China, which they're going to need.

They're going to need it.

So, it feels to me like they have a 100% functional long-term plan to get some kind of at least Monroe Doctrine control over Greenland's physical security, which would be paired with some kind of sharing of resources.

And I would say that if you wait long enough, we almost 100% are going to get that done.

I don't know if it could get done under the Trump administration.

It might be a 10-year thing, but if you give me 10 years, I say there's a 100% chance that this plan would work.

10 years.

I don't know if the government would be consistent for 10 years.

So the the big if is what happens if Trump leaves office or what happens if uh uh a Democrat becomes president and everything will change.

Well that story is boring.

So I saw on X that Elon Musk stated that Tim Walsh is guilty of hiding vast fraud.

Now, who would know more than that than Elon Musk because he he was doing things?

Uh, and appar and you also remember that Tim Walsh was the strongest voice uh accusing Elon Musk of being the corrupt one.

What is it we've learned about Democrat strategy?

Well, we've learned that they literally, this is not a joke, they literally uh accuse you of whatever they're doing.

So, the fact that Tim Walls made such a big deal of accusing Elon Musk of being the corrupt one, uh, that does strongly suggest that he was the corrupt, meaning Tim Walsh was.

And it's hard for me to believe that Tim Walls was not in on at least some of the corruption because he's also being accused by credible people of of moving against whistleblowers.

So at the same time that he was accusing Elon Musk of being corrupt, he was frying whistleblowers in his own state who were the ones who would have outed him and others for being the corrupt ones.

So just hold in your mind for a moment that Nuome and and Tim Walsh are two of the most prominent Democrats.

And I would say almost certainly they have a lot to to answer for.

A lot to answer for.

Anyway, I don't know if I even care about this next story, but Israel approved 19 new settlements.

Obviously, they're trying to make it impossible to have a two-state settlement, but that is no that's no surprise.

And I guess Israel is bombing and attacking Hezbollah and Beirut.

They think they can they think they're very close to completely destroying the military of Hezbollah.

So that's just more more of the same.

Uh I will remind you that Israel is not my country.

So I observe what they do.

It's not up to me to approve it or to deny it.

It's not my country.

So I I simply observe um if it affects America then I get I get involved.

So according to the University of Minnesota there's been a breakthrough in lab grown spinal cords.

So apparently they use 3D printing to create a a structure that stem cells can be attached to that become lab grown tissues that can repair nerve fibers in spinal cords.

I might need that.

Uh apparently the problem with uh repairing nerve uh nerve cells is that you you can't control them when they're growing and you need them to be sort of on a on a straight path.

But I think the 3D printing allows you to take the lab grown uh cells and put them in a path that connects broken tissues or broken nerve endings.

I guess that might be exactly what I need to walk someday.

So, hurry up.

Hurry up.

So, the national debt's going to approach a trillion dollars in just interest payments.

And I saw somebody estimate that uh we're doomed by 2035, which is longer than I would have expected.

Um, and I always wonder why we're not more worried about debt because it seems like the biggest problem that's coming.

Um, but then I wonder is the reason that we don't obsess about our debt problem because the only things we ever obsess about are things that some billionaire with dark money makes us think is the top priority.

Do you ever wonder about that?

with with all the problems in the world, how do we decide which are the big ones that we talk about and address?

I don't think it's because of the big ones.

I think it's because nothing becomes a big story, whether it's climate change or anything else, unless there's some gigantic big money, dark money thing driving the story.

And I don't think any of them are driving the story about her debt is too high.

that that's like there's no billionaire who is putting money on that story.

So that might be why we don't worry about as much.

We just haven't been trained to worry about as much as we should.

But I do wonder if Elon Musk is right that uh in the AI and robot future which is coming up fast that that will make money worthless because everybody will have everything for free.

the the robots and the AI will just do all the hard work and we will just enjoy the abundance.

Now, if that's true, does that give us some kind of escape path from debt because money wouldn't mean anything?

So, even if you said, "Hey, we're going to cancel our debt.

We're not going to pay you back." That even the even the people who owned the debt would say, "Oh, sure, whatever." you know, you can pay me back, but the money isn't worth anything because everything's free.

So, that's pretty optimistic.

I I can't quite get there.

That's a lot of optimism, but it's not impossible.

And I don't want to bet against Elon Musk's view.

That's always a bad idea.

But I wonder in a related story, uh, you know, Scott Bessent is pushing the, uh, the Trump accounts where where every baby that's born is $1,000 in an account, but you could add several thousand if you're a parent, up to $5,000 a year.

So that by the time the kid becomes 18, they would have a nice little nest egg.

But here's the here's the problem that automatically falls out from that.

So these accounts would be available to rich and poor.

And whether you're rich or poor, you get $1,000 in your account.

But whether you're rich or poor, you also get to add your own parental money.

Say $5,000 a year.

If the rich people add the $5,000 a year, but the poor people obviously do not, what happens when the poor kid and the rich kid turn 18?

The rich kid will have 10 times as much money than the poor kid.

So, if what you're worried about is income, you know, inequality, doesn't this guarantee that it's going to be really, really bad?

So, I wonder how they'll deal with that.

I do think that that raising money for babies is easier than raising money for other things because even I'm thinking I think huh maybe I should donate some money to that thing that that looks like but then I think wait a minute in 18 years which is when the first kid would get the benefit from it money might not be worth anything.

So either the debt will have killed us by then or Elon Musk is right and money will have no value.

So we've got this weird situation where if if it were a steady state, which it never is, this would be one of the best ideas ever.

But because we absolutely cannot predict what the world looks like in five years, much less 10 years, much less 18, it's hard to imagine that things would stay as stable as they are now such that this goes the way you think it would go.

The the changes in the world are just so big.

You know, debt plus AI plus robots.

I don't know.

I'm not opposed to this idea.

It's just hard for me to imagine everything works out.

Anyway, there's a Russian general that got killed with a bomb under his car in Moscow.

So, in Moscow is the key point here.

And I thought to myself, wouldn't that be the perfect murder if you wanted to kill a Russian general because everybody assumes Ukraine did it?

But suppose you had some other reason to do it.

You just wanted to murder that guy.

You could so get away with it because because the Russians would just assume that the Ukrainians did it that I don't even think they would look anywhere else.

It' be the perfect murder.

But it does make me wonder if Ukraine has taken a decapitation strategy like Israel.

So you know how Israel just consistently kills leaders of their their enemy countries?

They just never stop doing it.

Well, there's a head of Hamas.

Well, there's a head of this.

Well, there's a head of that.

And I've always said that taking out the top leaders is an excellent long-term strategy because eventually you eventually you've taken out all the capable people and the only people left to assume control are less capable.

But also if you're in a context of negotiating for peace, if you're the generals, and generals would have some influence with Putin.

Um if you could convince the generals that if they stop now, they are not um targets.

But if they don't stop now or convince Putin to make pace, if they don't do it, that there will be continuous assassinations of generals.

So, as a strategy, I would call that the Israel strategy.

And I think it's a strong one.

It doesn't mean it's going to work, but as a strategy, it looks pretty strong.

All right, that is everything I wanted to say today.

Would anybody like a closing sip?

How many people we got today?

Now, we got a pretty good crowd.

I think you have earned the closing sip.

So, what did you like about today's show?

While I'm sipping with you, tell me in the comments which points you liked.

Did you like the reframe?

Uh, did you like I don't know.

Is there any part of this do you like more than any other part or do you or do you just like hanging out?

Tell me.

Remember I was telling you yesterday that I'm a proud narcissist, but only only if I'm creating value for other people.

So I would be happy to be praised for what I did right, but only if it made a difference.

You like the reframe.

You like hanging out.

All right, let me pause some of these comments.

Just like hanging out.

That's perfectly acceptable.

And you like me destroying the Democratic party?

Like the reframe?

Yeah, the hangout.

You like my blanket and my attitude.

Uh what else?

Reframe and the start about smart people changing their mind.

Good.

You know, I I felt that that was valuable.

A true narcissist only cares about adding value to themselves.

That's That's not true.

That is not true.

Uh well, it's a definition.

So, I guess you can you can have your own definition.

That's fair.

Oh, drawing the map for Republican success.

Okay.

The persuasion talk is the most beneficial.

It might be you like seeing me be resilient.

Sorry.

You like my non-tribal approach.

Good.

I get too much credit for uh what I do because a lot of it is, you know, what choice do I have?

Uh daily or BS radar.

A I love you too.

All right.

>> >> you you're so wrong.

I see some racist comments which I do not approve of.

Um you know, you're entitled to your opinion, but the the racist comments I just I just think they're uninformed.

Just totally uninformed.

talking about JV.

All right.

Uh, we don't need privatized social security.

Yeah.

Um, so somebody is reminding the locals people that I've given one person uh permission to be inappropriate.

So, so on the locals platform, one individual was consistently over the line, you know, just unacceptable uh kind of public opinions.

And instead of banning him, I I uh with his agreement, he is now defined as our jester.

So, the jester says things that are absolutely inappropriate, just 100%.

but he's the only one who's allowed to do it, right?

Only one person.

So, that's worked really well because there's a little bit of outlet for that behavior, but we reframe it as the gesture so that it doesn't have too much of a sticky quality to it.

All right, we're just testing that.

All right, everybody.

Time to go.

It's been tremendous spending time with you.

I hate to leave, but nothing lasts forever.

I'll see you tomorrow.

Bye for now.

Come on in. Let me make sure my setup is

working.

Come on in. Good morning. Happy Monday.

Let me get my locals comments separate.

We're going to have a good show today.

Oh, so good.

You're going to learn about persuasion

and cussing and so much more.

So much more.

Oh, so good. Oh, what?

That shouldn't have happened.

Let me try this.

We We are getting a different

There we go. That's better.

There we go. Come on in. Come on in.

All right, let me give a little uh

announcement while you're streaming in.

If you were subscribing to get Dilbert

Reborn, those are the naughty and daily

comic strips, you may have noticed that

I missed a week while I was in the

hospital.

I did post the few extra that were in

the can, but uh my my uh my art director

and I need to catch up. So, I'm going to

try over the next month to, you know, up

my production of comics from once a day

to, you know, 1.5 a day. And uh in

somewhere around a month, I should get

back to current. So, the dates on the

comics will look old. They'll be a week

old and five days old and four days old

because, as you know, I am genetically

incapable of being lazy.

So, I I'm completely aware that you

would give me a pass for being in the

hospital. Am I right? Like there's

nobody who would say, "Oh, I'm going to

I'm going to unsubscribe because I

missed five days of comics while you're

in the hospital." I don't think you will

do that. But the reciprocity for that is

I'm going to try really hard to make

sure that I produce the 100%. It's just

going to take a little extra work. Now I

think I can do it because I had already

I had already uh evolved into doing the

writing and then just doing some art

direction for my actual artist who

worked with me for years and can draw

Dilbert better than I can. So you'll see

a little bit of difference in the

drawing

probably mostly in the backgrounds.

So, at this point, uh, the characters

will look exactly the way they should.

That that should be perfect. But there

might be different choices made for the

background art. And I'm also working

with my artist to see if I can close

that gap a little bit.

All right. So, that's enough about that.

How would you like the simultaneous sip?

I know why you're here.

All you need is a copper mug or a glass

of tanker shells or ststein canteen

sugar flask a vessel of any kind. Fill

it with your favorite liquid. I like

coffee. And join me now for the

unparalleled pleasure. The dopamine hit

of the day. The thing makes everything

better. It's cold. That's right. The

simultaneous sip. Go.

Oh, so good.

So, so good.

All right, let's see what's happening

this week. It's a slow Monday, so I

thought I'd start out with a reframe.

Anybody want to hear a reframe?

All right. I was asked this morning

during what is called the pre-show. And

if you didn't know it, I do a pre-show

before this show. The pre-show is only

only for subscribers

of the locals uh platform.

And one of the locals people asked me uh

how do you how do you learn to change

your mind

and how do you recognize people who can

do it? And I thought that that's a

really good question. How do you learn

to change your mind? And here's the

reframe.

I I'm reasonably sure that part of the

reason, it's not the 100% the reason,

but a big part of the reason people

don't want to change their mind is that

it would look like weakness

and maybe you would look like, well,

you're not so smart, you know, because

you were wrong. So, the reframe is this.

There's something I can guarantee you as

an official smart person. First of all,

would you accept my do you accept my um

starting assumption that I am a smart

person? True. [laughter]

You know, even if you hate me, would you

agree that I would be classified as, you

know, a smarter person? And so, I'm

going to talk as an official smart

person.

Nothing is smarter than being able to

change your mind. So instead of thinking

of your your ability to change your mind

as a weakness,

you should think of it as a strength,

almost a superpower. You've seen me

change my mind in front of you how many

times? I mean, how many times have you

seen me change my mind? A few, right?

Did I ever look like I got weaker?

Did it make me look stupid?

Not at all. you you probably said to

yourself, "Wow, I wish I could have done

that." You might have said, "Oh, that

was probably pretty hard to change your

mind." So, once you realize that

changing your mind,

assuming you have reasons for it, is

recognized by other smart people. And

this is the key. It's not recognized

this way by dumb people. But do you care

what dumb people think? You don't care

what dumb people think.

If you want to be impressive,

the only people that matter are smart

people. If smart people say, "Whoa,

there's somebody who can change their

mind." That that's a superpower.

You You come out way ahead.

So, I think that people mistakenly

believe that when I change my mind, I'm

experiencing some kind of sacrifice. I'm

not. I'm experiencing bragging.

is is closer to narcissism, you know,

because I'm basically showing off. Look,

I can change my mind. So, I've never

once in my life, not once,

did anybody give me a hard time for

changing my mind, but a lot of times

people have given me credit for changing

my mind.

It really is a one-way street. So, the

answer is reframe it from, oh, no, it's

not a weakness to change your mind. It

is a superpower. Now the second part of

the question was how can you recognize

this superpower in other people? And

unfortunately I think the only way is to

observe it. So if you observe them

changing their mind, you should

immediately bump up your impression of

their mental capacity. You might even

mention might even mention you know

that's that's impressive. Changed your

mind. So that's your reframe of the day.

So yesterday you remember I made a big

deal about the talent stacks of a few

people primarily Akira the don who's

released his meaning wave music. Well,

he followed up with me and this is

fascinating uh to give me a list of his

actual talents because the one thing I

could tell just by observing I have no

musical ability whatsoever but even I

could observe that whatever he was doing

creating this mix of uh podcast voices

including mine with musical beats

however he was pulling this off had to

be a combination

of of a wide range of talents. But he

gave me a list of his actual talents and

I thought this is so interesting. I just

have to read it to you. So apparently

when he was young, as young as seven, he

was already making mixtapz.

All right. If you've been making mixtapz

since you were seven,

you know, that's that's a talent. He he

was a DJ. And as he points out, if

you're a disc jockey, you get this sense

of how music affects people physically.

That's a good one. If you've experienced

live what kind of music has what kind of

effect on people's bodies like a DJ

would. Wow. What what a talent. He was a

rapper for years, over a decade. So he

says it gave me a weaponsgrade sense of

rhythm. You could observe that. I

wondered I wondered where that came

from. uh when I was observing it but he

had a decade of practice. He was an ad

music composer. So he he learned to

produce in any genre.

He

uh he was he did music production. He

did uh ad music composer.

He learned to prod produce in any genre.

He was a music journalist

and he used to interview people which

was helpful for him to go through his uh

podcast and transcripts and pick out the

the vital points. He was a comic artist.

I didn't even remember this, but but he

does his own artwork. So his album

covers is his own artwork. That's a hell

of talent. Of course I'm biased. He he

knows video editing. He learned web

design. He learned marketing. And he he

adds to his list that he's been a

voracious reader since he was three. And

that allowed him to delve into the

philosophical writings of people and and

just be aware of more types of uh human

thought because they just read more than

other people. So I hope that I hope

that's as interesting to you as it is to

me. I find that fascinating. So thanks

Akira the don. If you want to see what

we're talking about uh just Google Akira

the don and my name or meaning wave

meaning ww wave one word meaningwave

and you'll find you'll find his product.

Well, there's another UFO sighting.

Apparently, according to the New York

Post,

a pilot saw a silver canister that was

floating off off the airplane's I don't

know, it was floating at the same speed

as the airplane. And there's a audio

uh an audio of the air traffic

controllers talking to the pilot.

And [snorts] uh you know what's missing?

You won't believe this, but it does not

include a grainy video.

So the pilots, there obviously there

were two of them were sitting there

observing a UFO that they believed was a

silver canister that was matching their

speed and not connected to anything. and

neither of them thought to take out

their phone and snap a picture or take a

video.

[gasps] My advice

is don't take seriously any sightings of

UFOs that don't come with UFO with

video. And secondly, don't take

seriously any UFO sightings have a very

unclear video or photos.

It's 2026 almost people.

If if it's real, somebody's gonna have a

good photo of it. Yeah. Well, I don't

know if it could be a balloon because it

was matching their speed. And even if it

were attached to something, it seems

like it would be a little fluttery or

something. So, I don't know what it was.

It seems more likely it was an optical

illusion of some type.

I'm going to say optical illusion,

but I don't believe I don't think it

showed up on radar blah blah.

So, this is a small story, but it shows

you where things are going. I guess

Whimo has now been approved at least a

little bit for driving on LA freeways.

Now, it had already been used in

California on side streets, but allowing

it on freeways. This a big pretty big

change. Now, correct me if I'm wrong,

but Whimo is a Google company. Is that

true? Whimo is Google, right? And Google

is so big and so connected and so

powerful that I can't imagine in my

wildest dreams that uh the state of

California can block them from being

fully autonomous as well as Tesla. I

don't think California will be able to

hold out for another year. So, my guess

is that 2026, sometime during the year,

will be the the the year of autonomous

self-driving cars that don't require you

to pay attention.

So, a Whimo does not require you to pay

attention,

uh, but is limited to where it can go.

Now, it's not limited to where it can

go, or at least they're testing it on

the freeway. This not it's not approved

fully. is just being tested

and I would say every indication

uh from including what everything Elon

Musk is doing and saying and then

everything that Whimo is doing and

saying uh would suggest we're almost

there. This is definitely the year. Can

you imagine how the world would be

different

with the self-driving cars?

You know, for a lot of people,

especially people who commute,

especially people who are living in LA

traffic, this is such a gamecher.

If you told me, Scott, do you want to

live in LA? Probably the first thing I

would say is, no, I can't handle the

traffic. But if you said to me, well,

the traffic will be bad, but will

rapidly become less bad as people start,

you know, sharing sharing auto cars,

etc. And by the way, instead of being

nailed to your driver's wheel, you could

just do your own thing. In which case,

the commute would just be productive

time. If you said, "Scott, bring your

laptop. You have Wi-Fi presumably.

uh and you can just sit in that car and

treat it like it's an office that

happens to be moving.

The commute is gone. It would be like

the commute didn't exist. It would just

be extra work done. So the way society

is going to change in the next 12 months

is really really interesting.

So

most of you will be here for that.

So, as I predicted in my mind but did

not tell you, the Epstein files have

turned into the trickle strategy. The

trickle strategy is that they will

continue releasing things that make us

unhappy. That's not enough. That's not

enough. I'm going to sue you. But wait,

here are some more files. Oh, all right.

I'll wait another day because you said

you'd give me some more files. Wait a

minute. They're redacted. Well, wait

till tomorrow. All right, I can wait one

more day. Uh oh, wait. We We had to

pause because we haven't redacted

enough. Well, then I'm going to put you

in jail.

But wait, you'll have them by tomorrow.

You don't want to put me in jail if I'm

going to produce them tomorrow. Okay,

that's reasonable. Then tomorrow comes

drip, drip, drip. So, how long can the

Department of Justice or whoever is

behind it uh trickle us without going to

jail? And the answer is forever.

There's really no limit to to the the

ability to stall. Now, as I said

yesterday, and this is I would say is

more of a Mike Benz um realization that

I'm stealing is that if you assume that

the real thing that's slowing things

down is not so much not so much

protecting the rich and powerful, but

simply the intelligence agencies. We

don't know which ones, but at least the

CIA.

At least if they're the ones who are

stopping the progress, you're not going

to see the files.

Obviously, they really, really, really

don't want you to see something. So, no,

there's no hope you'll see them. Uh, do

you think that that Roana and Massie

will succeed in getting some kind of

impeachment of Bondi? Doesn't matter. It

doesn't matter at all. She might be

impeached. She might not be impeached.

But do you think that will make any

difference on whether you see the files?

No. They're not even related. [laughter]

It's just something bad that might

happen to Bondi. So you if you don't

like Bondi, then you'd be happy about

it, I guess. I'm not even sure if I

would remove her from office. So no,

there was absolutely no recourse.

No recourse. even if she went to jail,

you're not going to see the files.

So there there's no path that would

produce the files. And I think I think

Roana, and by the way, I give him credit

as well as Massie, it was a pretty good

try. But as soon as they included the

you can redact things for national

security or to protect the victims, as

soon as that was part of it, there was

no chance you would see them.

You're just going to get the trickle

trickle trickle.

Well, House leader, Minority Leader

Hakee Jeff,

I guess he predicted yesterday that they

would get enough votes, I think this

would be in January, to extend the

subsidies under the Affordable Care Act,

the ACA. Now, why that's important is if

these subsidies run out, then millions

of Americans will be priced out of the

uh health care market. That would be

bad. Uh and Republicans can't seem to

agree on extending it because that would

look like wasting more money to them.

And Democrats, of course, insist on it.

So the question is, Scott, if you're so

good at persuasion, how do you get past

the fact that there's going to be a

total healthc care apocalypse unless

Republicans do what Republicans don't

ever do, which is sign up to spend way

more money than they [clears throat]

think they should be spending.

It's not something that the Republicans

are going to say, you know, well, you

know, why not extend it three years

because they're talking about a

three-year extension. So, I would like

to offer the following

path.

Republicans probably could agree, or

enough of them could, that you don't

have to get all of them. You just have

to get enough to have a majority with

the the Democrats. But I believe you

could convince some Republicans

to temporarily, maybe not three years,

not three years necessarily, but

temporarily extend it, but they'd have

to guess something in return.

Now, what could Republicans ask for in

return for this thing they definitely

don't want to do, which is extend it? uh

what would they ask for that would make

sense that you would say oh well if you

got that

I'm okay with it and I don't know what

the answer is but let me just throw out

an idea okay so the suggestion would be

this that Republicans could demand that

if they vote to extend the ACA they

would have to get in return some kind of

guaranteed audit and fraud reduction

system that is stronger than whatever is

happening now. Now, what I've learned

recently is apparently almost all big

expenseless in the government do in fact

come paired with a requirement to audit.

Did you know that? So, auditing is

actually built into a lot of government

processes,

but it doesn't work. And I think the

reason it doesn't work is that the

people in charge of spending the money

are the same people in charge of the

audit.

So, [gasps and clears throat]

so of course it doesn't work. If the

auditors are part of the same political

party as the people who are stealing the

money,

they're just going to be in on it. So

apparently what happens in the real

world, in the real world, there'll be a

requirement to audit and they just don't

do it.

or if they do do it and they get a bad

result, they don't do anything about it.

Nobody goes to jail. So when I say that

the Republicans could demand some kind

of audit control, I mean a different

form from whatever we're doing now that

doesn't work. A different form might

include

um some better approach to getting let's

say Republican auditors. Suppose

Republicans said if you allow Republican

majority but not 100%.

Republican majority control over

auditing this this domain. We will

approve the expense because there's so

much fraud and waste and the only way

anybody's even going to mention it or

even look for it is if they're on a

competing political party. So imagine

you're the Democrats and the and the

Republicans offer this. We will extend.

We will vote to extend if you vote that

we're going to create auditing entities

that are by a majority could be three

out of five people but majority

Republican. If you let us pick

the the auditing team, we will promise

it will include some Democrats, but they

will be in the minority.

What would Democrats say to that? Would

Democrats say no, we do not want a

stronger form of auditing?

Right.

So, you tell me, is that the best idea

you've heard so far?

Because as you've seen in many

negotiations, it nothing gets solved

until both teams can claim victory.

If the Republicans could claim victory

over strengthening the anti-fraud

pro- auditing part of the world, then

they can claim victory. They say, you

know, it's not perfect, but we can

really get to the bottom of this if you

give us another year. So I would say

extend it for not three years. You might

you might get that three years down to a

year or something reasonable.

But uh go for the audit. And again it's

not audit versus not audit. You would

have to revise how you audit to make it

credible. And that's the part that can

be improved.

Well, here's another

persuasion lesson. Uh, I hope you've

been as amused as I am that Trump is

good at cursing at just the right amount

and uh and Democrats are bad at it. So

when when Trump curses, it guarantees

that that will be, you know, the big

quote the next day. It puts a focus on

things and he never overd does it. You

know, you can you can tell that he very

carefully selected where he's going to

put that f-word,

but it turns out that Jie Vance has the

same skill. And for why Democrats can't

do this, I don't know, but the context

here is that uh I guess JD Vance was

giving a speech. was at I think it was

at Turning Point USA and he was

defending his wife because apparently

both uh uh Jen Saki and Nick Fuentes

have said bad things about her. I don't

know what Jen Saki said, but Nick

Fuentes

is a let's say a white white

supremacist. I'm not sure what he is,

but he uh he has some negative things to

say about her ethnicity.

And uh I of course do not approve of

that. But JD Vance did the first thing

he did right is he directly defended his

wife.

You do that first. And here's what he

said. He goes, "Let me be clear. Anyone

who attacks my wife whether their name

is Jen Saki or Nick Fuentes can eat

shit."

Oh, he said it at unheard in an

interview. All right. It wasn't during a

speech. was doing an interview with

Unheard.

And then he he went even better. He

goes, "That's my official policy as vice

president of the United States.

My official [clears throat] policy is

that is that uh Jen Saki and Nick

Fuentes can eat shit." Now the first

thing that's brilliant about this is

that he paired Jen Saki with Nick

Fuentes

which is just brilliant there because

you know they don't really have much in

common except maybe they said something

about his wife but putting them together

really makes you go what what uh and it

and it dismisses

uh Nick it dismisses Fuentes in a way

that Republicans wouldn't mind at

which is really you're like a Democrat.

He's not like a Democrat, but it's a

good it's a good approach.

And I think you can confirm that JD

Vance is noted as a prolific cursor. So

when he pulls out the the sword, it's in

the context of protect, you know,

defending his wife. Who minds that?

Every one of you say, "Oh, okay." If

you're defending your wife, your spouse,

if you're defending your spouse, yeah,

there there's no limit on the words. If

you're defending your spouse, there's

not really any limit on what you can do.

We we all get that.

Um, let me make a an appeal that I think

would be compatible with some of you,

but not all.

There is definitely an

anti-Indianamerican

sentiment within the Republican party.

Would you agree?

Would you agree that there's a sort of a

rolling anti-Indian-American

sentiment in the Republican party? Well,

I think that conflates

people's complaints about employment,

you know, the H-1B stuff, and it

conflates that with who they are as a

people.

Uh I have lived in California for all my

adult life and so I'm always surrounded

by and especially now in my current

neighborhood a very large

Indian-American

population. I can tell you I promise you

this is true. The Indian-Americans are

awesome people. And if you ever get to

know your Indian-American neighbor,

you're going to be happy about it. They

are actually just some of the best

people in the world. They're they're

funny. They're smart. They're

hardworking.

Great great people. So, don't do not do

not conflate the ethnicity

with the fact that we have an

immigration issue that you would prefer

to be, you know, more pro-American and

not bringing in people who are from

other countries as much. Now, that's a

separate it's a separate argument. So

I'm not putting up an argument that we

should be flooding the country with

extra Indian technology workers. That's

not what I'm saying. I'm just saying if

you're looking at the ethnicity,

they're amazing people and if you if you

get to know them, you'll be happy.

All right.

Uh

so apparently speaking of JD Vance,

people are chattering because Erica Kirk

who has taken over the Turning Boy USA

and had it just had a big event. Uh she

has come out and endorsed JD Vance for

2028.

Some people say it's too soon. Do you

think it's too soon?

It's not too soon.

So, uh, let me let me give you the I was

trying to think what weaknesses

does JD Vance have that would matter.

So, I'm thinking, all right, JD Vance,

he's an amazing speaker,

so they wouldn't be able to match that.

The Democrat candidate would not be

would not be as good a speaker as he is.

No matter who it is, he's just gonna be

better. He's very quick-minded. He's

very smart. obviously smart. He also has

all the right backers.

So, he's got he's got some of the most

powerful and smartest backers

that the Republican party can produce.

But more importantly, he's probably

going to have, we assume, Trump's

support. Nobody nobody's gonna run for

president as Republican unless Trump

supports it. So, if Trump supports him,

you know, you're 90% there, right?

And I was thinking, what qualities does

he lack? And I'm watching him having

obviously learned from Trump. You you

can see you can see that he's picking up

the the most uh powerful parts of Trump,

including the cursing at just the right

amount. Um, and he's learning to be

provocative,

but unlike Trump, he probably holds back

a little bit. And that makes sense. He's

vice president. He's not president. So,

I would say he's definitely learning

technique. He's learning persuasion. He

would have Trump and Trump lovers

backing him. Uh, the only thing I'm

worried about is that it puts a target

on his back too soon. But on the other

hand, it's so obvious that he's the

front runner that I guess that target

would have been there anyway. So, I'm

going to say that uh Eric Kirk's early

endorsement

does not hurt him. It might help him and

I'm fascinated to find out if the

Democrats will have any way to attack

him that would be reasonable. Does

anybody I'm looking at the comments

right now. Does anybody have any idea

what negative stuff you would put on

them? Because the only negativity is

coming from Republicans,

right? [laughter]

Basically, Republicans who are a little

bit anti-diversity, let's say. That's

the best thing I can say about it. Uh,

might not like who he's married to. But

are they going to vote Democrat?

Are you going to vote Democrat because

you you think his wife should be whiter?

really. So I don't know that there's

anything that was slow to slow him down.

Uh and so I'm uh I I don't think that my

endorsement per se is useful. So I'll

I'll put it in the form of prediction.

So prediction, not endorsement later. I

might I mean I might endorse him later,

but it's too early for me. Uh so I'll

call it a prediction. He he'll be the

nominee.

Now, what about Rubio?

Rubio as very cleverly and smartly,

well, that would be the same as same as

clever. Um, he's he's already taken

himself out of the run under the

condition that JD is running and we

assume that to be true. So, imagine if

there is some kind of uh let's say

opposition research or something comes

up that takes JD out of the race. I

don't know what that would be, but you

know, you just imagine something you

don't know or something that hasn't

happened, you know, hits him and takes

him out. Rubio would just be sort of

loyally sitting on the sidelines,

just the obvious person to step in. So

Rubio probably increased his odds of

becoming president by taking himself out

of the race. Does that make sense? By

taking himself out of the race, he

doesn't have a target on his back and JD

does. So, as time goes by, if the bad

guys make a dent, and I don't know what

that would be, but if they make a dent

in JD, the the only replacement that

would seem obvious would be Rubio. And

he would look like a loyal supporter. He

would um

[snorts] he would by then

have some major accomplishments as you

could say he already has major

accomplishments and he would probably

instantly get Trump's support under the

condition that Trump agreed something

took JD out. So I think if he ran

straight up against JD there's no chance

he would win. But if he sort of loyally

stands aside and said, "You go first."

And it doesn't work out.

Now, I don't know what the odds of it

not working out are. Let's say 10%. You

would go from 0% chance of winning to

10%.

Without any risk whatsoever.

So, good play. Rubio being smart.

So,

you've probably watched as uh the

Minnesota fraud stuff makes more

headlines, but as it does, people seem

to agree that the California fraud and

California mismanagement might be

something like 10 times as big. How in

the world could Governor Nuomo ever

become president under the context of by

the midterm? We're going to know a lot

more about all the hundred billions of

dollars that were stolen

[snorts]

um in his state. But not just stolen,

also mismanaged because it's kind of

hard to tell what is stolen, what is

mismanaged. It might end up being the

same thing.

Um

but here just some examples. All right.

So by the midterms the some experts are

saying that the cost of gas in

California could reach as high as $10

to12 per gallon

and that that cost would be almost

entirely because of California

mismanagement

and almost entirely because California

is what I call a hoax hoaxdriven

government. So the reason gas will cost

so much is a variety of regulatory

things that were designed to protect the

climate from catastrophe. Now there was

no chance it was ever going to protect

the climate from catastrophe because one

state couldn't do that anyway. But what

it did do is it created this gigantic

umbrella for fraud.

So the only thing that happened was our

gas might go to $10. It might go at

least to5 or $7, but some say as high as

10. We got a 20% decrease in capacity

when January hits because two refiners

just said that we're out. Too much

regulation. We're out. So there won't

really be any serious argument about

what caused gas prices to be out of

control in this one state because all

the other states will now have this

problem. And you can directly tie the

cost to California believing incorrectly

the hoax that we were in an existential

crisis that could somehow be fixed by

California alone doing things that other

states were not doing.

How in the world would somebody who was

the steward of that process as governor,

how in the world do you get elected

president?

I mean that the the fact that even Bill

Gates has said we don't have an

existential threat that completely pulls

the rug and of the entire California

strategy for the last 10 years. So

that's going to look like an disaster.

All right. So the first example of the

hoaxdriven

government of California

is that uh there was a climate hysteria

uh or a climate crisis and he had to

address it. That's hoax number one. But

what Governor Nuome and other Democrats

blamed the problem on was price gouging

by the oil companies. Price gouging.

When it was looked into, audited, there

was no price gouging found.

That was a hoax. Hoax number two, that

the energy companies are the problem,

not the policies of the government.

Those are big hoaxes.

Um, how about when there was a border

crisis in California? What did

California say? California said there's

no border crisis.

Hoax number three.

Literally a hoax saying that there was

no border crisis. How about the homeless

problem is one that can be solved by

building them homes.

Was there ever any hope they could solve

homelessness by building homes for the

homeless? No. No. There was never any

chance that that would make a difference

because it's based on the misperception

that the homeless have a have a no home

problem. The reality is they have mental

problems, drug problems, and if you gave

them a home, they wouldn't be able to

maintain it or live in it and wouldn't

even want to live in it. They'd rather

be on the sidewalk because they're

insane or they're drugged or or whatever

else. So that would be what am I up to?

The fourth hoax.

And then I'm not even throwing in

reparations.

So we've got a state that's trying to

pay reparations when California never

had slaves. None of the people lived

here

uh were victims of California slavery.

It's a complete hoax. What about the

trans issue? That that uh you could be

born one sex, but really you're the

other sex. Now, I usually stay away from

that one, but I think most of you would

say, "Hey, throw that one in there as

another hoax." Uh,

so I could probably go on, but I say

that Elon Musk had replied on X that

California would go bankrupt if all the

federal transfer payment fraud was

stopped.

So you got the federal transfer payments

fraud. I I'm not sure what the hoax is

there. That hoax might be the wrong

frame for that. It's just crime. But

here's an example of what California did

that other states did not. I think this

was maybe Mario and Noel. I saw this on

X. So apparently uh after the pandemic

there there were all these stimulus

funds that came from the federal

government and every other state used

the government funding to pay down their

debt except California.

So California, instead of paying down

the debt, and now we're basically

bankrupt, they used it to just spend

more on more stuff, which almost

certainly was fraud or partially.

So the result will be that the

Californian businesses are going to be

hit apparently with some enormous

payroll tax to compensate for the fact

that California was the only only

mismanaged state. We got 50 states and

only one of them didn't know how to

handle the money from the federal

government. And even the other blue

states didn't make this mistake. is the

worst of the worst of even the Democrat

states. How do you become president? How

in the world did the person who was

presiding over all that become

president? Now, I haven't even gotten

into uh I haven't even gotten into the

what $50 billion for the bullet train

that never happened. How do how do you

how do you possibly

become president?

So, one of the things I suspect

fairly strongly is that Republicans are

doing the uh

what is the what's the what's the movie

where the Scottish warrior goes hold

what's that movie? Hold

hold. You recognize that?

Which movie is that? I have to get the

right movie.

Uh

uh Braveheart. Thank you. Yeah, the

movie Braveheart when the two armies are

getting they're ready to face off and uh

and then what's his name? The actor

What's the actor's name? Well, William

Wallace was the character.

Let's go with that. William Wallace was

the character.

And before he attacks, he's uh going

down his Mel Gibson. Thank you. Mel

Gibson is the actor. And Mel Gibson is

on his horse and he's going, "Hold

hold."

I always love that. That that was one of

my favorite movie bits. But it feels

like the smartest people in the

Republican party by now they must have

figured out that Nome is the weakest

candidate they could possibly run. I

mean, maybe even worse than Kla Harris.

So, I I feel like the Republicans are

saying, "Hold

[laughter]

wait till he gets uh wait until he gets

nominated. That will take him out."

Well, apparently uh Yale has uh no

Republican

uh professors across 27 of their

departments.

So as you know the uh liberal elite

colleges are all cesspools of uh

one-sided thinking and that

conservatives are basically shut out

from uh from higher higher uh education.

I mean in terms of being the professors

and I'm wondering if that will quickly

be resolved by AI.

So what we need is a Grock college. I

don't think Grock is where it could do

that yet, but it's very close. So don't

you think that maybe in a year or two

you can have a choice of going to Yale

or Harvard or Grock?

And if you go to Grock, it will take out

the bias

and you can get a degree that that your

employer will say, "Oh, you mean you

learned all the useful stuff?" And then

somebody from Harvard comes in to apply

for the job and the employer will say,

"Oh, you learn to be a pain in the ass

and care about all the wrong stuff."

So clearly at this point in in history,

it would be way better to have a Ivy

League degree

than some kind of madeup, you know, AI

Grock degree. But I feel like that could

be completely reversed in maybe two

years, two years. So I think the free

market, given the new tools, the AI and

stuff that will be available, I think

the free market's going to fix this. And

it won't be because the government did

it and it won't be because the higher

education decided that they needed to be

less biased. I don't believe it's

self-correcting, but it doesn't need to

be if alternatives pop up and I think

maybe two years.

[snorts] Well, there's a story in the

news I think is no story at all, which

is um Barry Weiss, who's now the CBS

News news editor uh in chief, she killed

a story that was 60 minutes segment

about Venezuelan migrants being deported

to that notorious El Salvadorian prison.

Now, the the knock against her is that

the segment had already been had already

been blessed by their lawyers and uh

they'd done all the work and they're

ready to go on Sunday and that mean old

Barry Weiss told them that they should

wait until they at least had some

comments from the administration because

apparently it was a story about what the

administration did that did not include

any quotes from anybody useful from the

administ registration.

And so the way the reporters at 60

Minutes and others, I guess, are

complaining about it is they're saying,

"Hey, you're you're censoring us or

you're just agreeing with the

administration."

I don't think that's what's happening.

If you've been involved in any kind of

news or editing environment, as I have

for most of my uh career, this is the

most normal stuff in the world.

If if you had an option of you could see

this segment

right now and I guess it would have run

on Sunday. So, your options are you

could see it now and it would not

include any important uh opinions from

the administration

or you could wait a week, maybe two

weeks and you could see the exact same

thing except it would include um I think

she wanted Steven Miller to be the uh to

be the voice of the administration and

that would be a good choice. Doesn't

have to be him. What would you pick as a

consumer? Wouldn't you rather wait a

week

and then have some chance of seeing both

sides of the argument?

Of course you would. So, so I think that

this this feels like more of a

an anti-B Barry Weiss story than it is

about anybody made a mistake.

This is definitely not censorship.

In the real world of news, in the real

world of editing, in the real world of

anybody who has an editor, this is just

normal behavior.

Uh, now if you wait a few weeks

and the story never runs,

well then I revise my opinion. So, we'll

go back to the very first reframe that

began today's podcast. I will change my

mind

if this does not produce a useful

counterpoint that makes the story more

valuable

because I think she was hired to make

the news business better not worse.

And if you put me in her job, well, let

me say it this way. If you put me in her

job tomorrow, I would have made the same

decision. I would say this is not ready

to go.

So, I'm I'm not defending her because

then you're going to say, "Oh, you're

just being a pro Barry Weiss." I really

don't know what Barry Weiss is up to. I

have not been following her. I don't

know if she's a, you know, good egg or a

bad egg. I don't know if I don't know if

giving her any support makes the world a

better place or a worse place. I don't

know. I I have no idea. But if you take

the personalities out of it, I would do

the same thing. I say, "You're not

ready." Now, how many reporters have

ever finished a story, wrapped it up,

and then when their boss delayed it,

said, "I'm happy about that." Never. In

the history of reporters, no reporter is

going to say, "I agree with my editor.

This story was not good." No, that's not

going to happen.

So, I say, "Hold your opinion on this

for at least two weeks. If after two

weeks you hear that uh it's just going

to be banned forever and it'll never

run.

I might revise my opinion. Well,

apparently the Pentag Pentagon has

failed an audit for the eighth

consecutive year the Epic Times is

reporting. Now, you probably knew that

the Pentagon doesn't pass audits.

It's good that audits exist,

but remember I've been complaining that

it's not that exist or don't. There's

something about the way we do it that

that guarantees they don't work or that

they don't have the effect you would

like, which is fixing all the problems.

But part of the problem is that auditing

is such a boring story that the public

hears a story, they go, "Oh, the

Pentagon failed an audit. Well, better

luck next time." and then they think

about something else because it's just

not interesting.

So,

one of the questions I have is in a

cursory reading of how they failed the

audit again, a lot of it is they can't

find their assets or they can't account

for things like spare parts. And if you

can't account for your assets, the

possibility that they've been stolen and

sold is pretty high or or just in

general, if you can't account for your

assets, uh we don't know that that

signals gigantic fraud,

but it does signal that we don't know if

there's gigantic fraud. So again, I

would say the problem might not be the

Pentagon. The problem might be that the

way we audit either doesn't have any

teeth

or we're doing it the wrong way or it's

the wrong people doing it or some

combination of all those things. So, I

would look at auditing the auditing.

It could be, and I'm I'm starting to

form this opinion, that it's not it's

not that something is or is not audited.

It's that the auditing doesn't work

because it's also corrupt or incompetent

or we don't do anything about it. Now,

let me ask you this. Do you think

anybody got fired or demoted because

they they uh failed that? Well, HEGS

Seth says that they're improving and

that uh they might pass their first

audit by 2028. That's their goal. I am

in favor of having a goal in this case.

It makes sense to have a target for when

you got it fixed.

But it coincidentally is when they'll be

out of office.

So, uh I've got an idea. Uh, how about

we promise to have everything fixed when

uh I'm no longer here? Oh, when would

that be? Uh, 2028.

So, are you happy that they have a plan

that it will be fixed when they're no

longer here? Because you really don't

need to fix it if you're not really

going to be there.

So I would say I'm not happy with the

excuse that we'll get it done by 2028.

There there's something something far

more aggressive has to happen before

then. Now I will wait to 2028

if something happened that was

aggressive.

So if for example they said we just

shake hand our entire audit process or

we just put a general in jail

something like that like a like a big

shocking change. If you give me a big

shocking change that clearly is

directionally correct

I might wait. Yeah I might hold my

opinion to 2028. But if you're not

showing me that anything is going to be

different and it's going to be the same

people doing the audit as did it last

time and the same people hiding the

hiding the assets I hid it last time. I

don't want to wait. I'm not I I do not

find that acceptable. You know, somebody

criticized me the other day on social

media says uh I would be more credible

if I if I ever criticized the Trump

administration.

To which I say, that's true. I would be

way more credible if I ever criticized

the Trump administration.

I've definitely criticized the Trump

administration. I'm doing it right here.

Are are they doing enough? No. No,

they're not doing enough. Are they

satisfying me that they're even capable

even capable of doing enough? No. No. I

see no signal that the Trump

administration is fixing this problem.

So that is a criticism.

I think I'd say almost exactly the same

thing if Democrats were in charge. So

the next time you say to me, "Hey,

you never criticize your own team." I

say, "Well, that's what this is." My

own, By the way, let me be clear. My

team is not Republicans.

My team is not MAGA.

My team is America.

Right? If you if you're on team America,

which would include all of us, you need

to get this fixed.

This is not about one side versus the

other. This is America versus the end of

America, right? It it's it's an

existential problem. It's do you exist

or don't you exist? is way beyond way

beyond Democrat or Republican.

All right. Well, apparently the US is

putting more pressure on these so-called

dark fleet of tankers coming out of

Venezuela. So, I guess some tankers that

were incorrectly flagged, I think that's

the the

false flag,

are being subject to a seizure. And I

believe that now the third one has been

seized. We already had two. And some

people said, "Hey, those particular

tankers are exempt because they're a

different flag." Well, it looks like the

flags were fake. So,

so [snorts] the US is taking the

position, I don't know if it's, you

know, valid or not, but they're taking

the position that these can be seized.

And apparently we're going to we're

going to um

escort them to American ports and just

take the oil.

Now that is a very Trumpian way to

handle this,

which is I'll just take your oil. Thank

you. Now, if some of that oil, if we

take it, would we use it to offset

the military cost of uh of controlling

or or the military cost of leading on

Venezuela?

If we do, that would be a very very

Trumpian thing to do. Well, thank you

for the free oil. You know, I always say

that Trump picks up free money. If you

leave free money on a table and

everybody walks by it, Trump is the only

one who's saying, "Does anybody own

that?

Who's whose free money is that?" And

after he asks maybe the second time, and

nobody says it's theirs, he takes it.

He just takes it. So, uh, clearly this

is theft, but it's also free money.

So, very Trumpian.

Um, now the big mystery about the whole

Venezuelan operation is does it have one

purpose or does it have multiple

purposes and what would they be? And I

don't know the answer to this question

but it could be a three

meaning that if you think of it in terms

of trying to accomplish any one thing

then you would be confused because it's

really meant to accomplish more than one

thing. So the possible things some

people say some people were not me but

are smarter than me about this topic say

that really it's lean that are leaning

on Venezuela is also a way to lean on

Cuba because Cuba and Venezuela have a

economic relationship that if you hurt

one you would hurt the other especially

if you hurt Venezuela's oil business I

think that would for Cuba the most.

So question number one is our actions at

the moment are they designed to take

down or control two countries

uh you know via the Monroe doctrine

idea that you know we're the dominant or

the big dog and that if you don't do

what we want and you happen to live in

our part of the world or we're going to

come for you. So, I would say maybe or

maybe it just makes the anti-Cuban

people happy, but it's not part of the

primary

primary goal. But I guess I would argue

obviously it does put pressure on Cuba,

but what do we expect will happen from

that? Do we expect that Cuba will have a

regime change?

Have we not been expecting that for six?

Well, how many years have we assumed

that if we put pressure on Cuba, they'll

have a regime change? So, I don't know

what we're trying to accomplish other

than making Cubans poorer.

Um, then of course the stated objective

is to uh put pressure on the drug

cartels. Well, it does that, but as many

people have pointed out, uh, fentinel

will probably just find another way. And

by the way, Venezuela is not the big

fentinel

um producer in the first place. So,

yeah. Yeah, it's bad for the cartels,

but is that why we're doing it?

I I do agree with this thinking that the

cartels have become so powerful that you

you risk them becoming like a major

military.

Now, you could argue they're already a

major military, but they're not any

they're not any match for the American

military.

At some point, they might become so

powerful that you couldn't really

directly attack them because it would

just be too much catastrophe. So it

could be that we're thinking ahead

to make sure that the drug cartels don't

reach a certain scale and power and

we're worried that they're coming to

some kind of crossover point.

So I don't think we're doing it. Uh well

here here's the fourth possible thing.

The fourth possible reason is that the

big money people, I don't know, the big

energy money billionaires may have

decided that uh if we can just steal the

oil from Venezuela,

they will make enormous profits,

which presumably would happen, right? If

Venezuela crumbled, but we we captured

their uh their energy assets,

would that make any American companies

richer or any billionaires from anywhere

richer? The answer is maybe. Maybe. So,

we've got at least four possible reasons

that Venezuela itself is a problem and

they want a regime change. that doing

that will take down Cuba somehow, but I

don't see how that the drug cartels got

too powerful. It was time to knock them

down. Uh or that some rich people have

some enormous enormous financial gain.

It's it's kind of a weird one.

So, I do not believe that our full

military will move in and just occupy

the country, but uh I do like the fact

that Trump never takes that off the

table.

All right, let's talk about Ukraine and

Russia. There's something interesting

going on here.

So apparently there's been yet more

meetings with Wickoff and Jared and

Russian uh Ukraine and uh mostly Ukraine

and uh they're working on their 20point

plan for a multilateral security

agreement. So what Wickoff said is an

interesting hint of where we're at. He

said that negotiators focused in the

recent talks on quote timeliness and

sequencing of next steps. Now, it

doesn't seem to me that you would talk

about the timing of steps unless you

thought you were close to agreeing on

what the steps were. And I don't believe

that we've been close to that before. So

is his choice of words

timeliness and sequencing is that

telling us we've achieved some kind of

minimum negotiation

minimum state where we're close to

agreeing on the the content but not the

timing.

Because if it comes down to timing that

would suggest we're close to something

that could work. And [snorts] I'm not

suggesting we are, but his choice of

words does suggest that and I've not

seen that before. So that's that's my

persuasion

uh related observation.

So now US, Ukrainian and European

officials earlier this week uh they said

that uh the problem is security

guarantees for Kev.

And here's what Lindsey Graham said. Now

remember, Lindsey Graham is a very

anti-Russian

guy

and he said recently on Meet the Press,

I guess this weekend,

um that it was unclear if Putin would

accept the current deal. So the

negotiations were with the Ukraine to

tighten up the 20 points, but we don't

know if Putin would accept it. And he

says if he doesn't accept it that the

approach should be to start seizing uh

oil tankers

uh of that are carrying Russian oil

and then to label Russia a state sponsor

of terrorism for what he what he says

kidnapping 20,000 Ukrainian kids.

Now,

you know, one of the problems with

getting a deal is that Trump will be

accused of making a deal that's pro

Putin, right? That's a big problem. How

does how does Trump avoid the accusation

that he's just working for Putin? He's a

he's a puppet of Putin and he's not

trying to protect Ukraine. He's not

trying to protect Europe. He's just

trying to make Putin happy. Well, it's a

tough one.

uh because we're at a point where

Putin's going to get something out of

this deal that a lot of people don't

want him to get out of the deal. So, one

way you could address that, which is not

a total answer, is you could send the

most anti-Putin guy onto the TV to say

that he would be willing to support some

kind of a deal that looks like what we

have now. So if Lindsey Graham, the most

anti-Russian guy, and nobody doubts

that, so there's nobody in the world who

who doubts that he's anti-Russian. If he

says this deal works for us, meaning

America,

wouldn't that be a pretty good signal

that we're not doing it for for Putin's

benefit if Lindsey Graham says yes? Now,

I'm not a I'm not a giant fan of Lindsey

Graham's military first, you know, kind

of approach to things.

I'm simply observing that if he has a

long, long track record of being

anti-Putin, he's exactly the person you

want to send out to say, "I could live

with this deal."

That would mean something. Now, of

course, no matter what happens, the

Democrats will use it as an attack on on

Trump. Uh, but it would sort of weaken

the attack. So, as I've said before,

you never get a solution to a war under

the condition that both sides are

happier fighting than not fighting,

which is the current situation.

uh or if one of them loses

and nobody's losing that hard yet. Uh

you could argue that Ukraine is losing,

but they're not losing hard enough that

they would instantly sue for peace. So

what do you do? Well, as I've often told

you, the only path would be to find a

way where both sides feel like they won.

Uh so how could you create a situation

with Ukraine and uh Europe and well in

this case there are four sides you could

say how does US Europe Ukraine and

Russia how do they all win?

And I would argue that the one and only

way that could happen is if they find a

way to reframe the war as an economic

opportunity.

Now, this is not a new idea obviously,

but as soon as you say, "Hey, I've got

an idea where we all get rich."

Suddenly, the war doesn't seem like such

a good idea. So, let me just develop

this idea a little bit. Suppose instead

of giving Russia,

what's the better way to say this?

Suppose we come up with a plan where the

energy and other resources of Ukraine

could be equitably I don't want to say

shared but be could become the launching

pad for the US to make a lot of money by

investing in their energy

infrastructure. Uh Ukraine could make a

lot of money because their energy

infrastructure could become great. Um,

Europe would be simply protected

by the fact that the US would have such

a big investment that if Putin attacked,

he could be guaranteed that the

oligarchs in the United States would

say, "Unleash the army because we have

too much money resting in Ukraine."

So,

could you create a situation where

Russia would be better off economically?

you know, they'd lose their sanctions

and they'd they'd give some relief. Um,

and they get to keep keep the stuff

they've already conquered. I think

that's that's a given. And the US gets

rich or has so much economic opportunity

that that becomes the the security

guarantee.

So, we would not necessarily have to say

we will place our US army on Ukrainian

soil. we would only need to say, you

think we're going to make a hundred

billion dollars? No, we're going to make

a trillion dollars. So, if you could

create a picture where the US could get

to a trillion dollars of economic

benefit just just for investing in

Ukraine. It might take a while, but you

you throw the trillion in there and

people's people's eyes open. it. Do you

think that the US would employ military

might if uh if Russia tried to encroach

on our trillion dollar economic

opportunity? And the answer is of course

we would. You might not like it. You

know, a lot of people might disagree

with it, but yes. Yes, you could

guarantee that if we had a trillion

dollars at stake that our richest people

would say, "Uh, you know how I have a

lot of influence over the government?

Well, this is where you pay me back. Uh,

this is where you you go to war with

Putin." So, I think there's some

possibility

that if we could tell a story where the

US has a trillion dollars to to benefit

uh that Putin would know that attacking

it had nothing to do with uh Europe and

had nothing to do with NATO, that the US

would unilaterally say, "Okay, we're

going to you up bad."

So, maybe maybe we're getting close.

Well, apparently Trump has tapped

I like how they say tapped. He chose

Louisiana governor as a special

Greenland envoy. New York Post is

reporting this. So in addition to being

governor of Louisiana,

uh this gentleman whose name I forgot to

write down, a governor of uh Louisiana

will be the special envoy to Greenland.

I guess we didn't have one. We had no

special envoy. Now, Denmark, of course,

is objecting because they they think,

"Oh, no, there's one more step toward

you trying to strongarm us out of owning

Greenland." To which I say, you know,

Trump has already established that uh

has already established that he's going

to go strong on what looks to me like,

you know, Monroe doctrine times three.

And if you're in our part of the world,

you don't get to say no if we have a

legitimate security interest. And do we

have a legitimate security interest in

having at least a military

uh military, let's say, strong

association with Greenland. And I would

argue that if they don't give it to us,

we're going to take it. Not right away,

but that is what I like about Trump.

He's very clear. You're either gonna

work with us or we're gonna take it. And

that's the Monroe document right there.

In my in my opinion, that's the Monroe

Doctrine.

So, uh, in the context of Trump leaning

on Venezuela,

uh, that surely gives Denmark some pause

because I don't think they expected our

our navy to surround Venezuela. Now,

even though Venezuela has nothing to do

with Greenland, it suggests what level

of military might Trump might employ if

we have an economic slash security

reason to do it. So, it's got to rattle

them. So, I would say the current

context is good for Trump. Uh he's he's

kind of taken down the the verbal

pressure.

Um, but it suddenly puts a little more

pressure on them. Now, here's what the

New York Post says. It says that behind

closed doors, administration officials

have mapped out a plan for the island,

Greenland, to become independent and

then enter into a compact of free

association with the US, giving

Washington a role in certain areas such

as defense. So, it looks like step one

is to get Greenland to vote for their

own independence.

Do you believe that our CIA,

if it worked hard to co-opt the

influential people in Greenland, we

can't believe a lot of them, you know,

you you could basically bribe every

politician in Greenland in about five

minutes because there not many. So,

between what the CIA could do to bribe

people plus what they could do to

threaten people plus the fact that when

I say people, I'm only talking about

the, you know, the most influential

people who are already in Greenland. Do

you think we couldn't get them to say,

you know, we should be a free country?

If we're if we're asking them to join

the United States, that's too far. we

wouldn't get that. But if you said,

"Hey, what do you think of your idea of

more independence?" No, we're happy

being owned by Denmark, but are you are

you happy being owned by Denmark?

Because the other option is you could

vote for independence. Do you think that

Denmark would uh deny you your

independence if let's say 70% of you

voted for freedom?

No. So, if you could get the the local

leaders by bribery or incentive or I

will make you rich, which wouldn't cost

as much. I mean, it would be it would be

the cheapest color revolution of all

time

because it's a small population. Um, we

absolutely 100%

could co-opt their government, the

influentials into agreeing that

Greenland should be independent.

We would not be able to get them to say

they should join America. But if you

became independent and you no longer had

the support of Denmark, could you

survive unless you had really productive

some kind of association with the United

States and probably Canada too? And the

answer is not really. I mean you you

would have to make deals with the United

States. For example, uh you can share in

our development of our natural resources

if you provide e um physical security

against Russia and China, which they're

going to need. They're going to need it.

So, it feels to me like they have a 100%

functional long-term plan to get some

kind of at least Monroe Doctrine control

over Greenland's physical security,

which would be paired with some kind of

sharing of resources.

And I would say that if you wait long

enough, we almost 100% are going to get

that done. I don't know if it could get

done under the Trump administration. It

might be a 10-year thing, but if you

give me 10 years, I say there's a 100%

chance that this plan would work. 10

years.

I don't know if the government would be

consistent for 10 years. So the the big

if is what happens if Trump leaves

office or what happens if uh uh a

Democrat becomes president and

everything will change.

Well

that story is boring.

So I saw on X that Elon Musk stated that

Tim Walsh is guilty of hiding vast

fraud. Now, who would know more than

that

than Elon Musk because he he was doing

things?

Uh, and appar and you also remember that

Tim Walsh was the strongest voice

uh accusing Elon Musk of being the

corrupt one. What is it we've learned

about Democrat strategy?

Well, we've learned that they literally,

this is not a joke, they literally uh

accuse you of whatever they're doing.

So, the fact that Tim Walls made such a

big deal of accusing Elon Musk of being

the corrupt one,

uh, that does strongly suggest that he

was the corrupt, meaning Tim Walsh was.

And it's hard for me to believe that Tim

Walls was not in on at least some of the

corruption because he's also being

accused by credible people of of moving

against whistleblowers.

So at the same time that he was accusing

Elon Musk of being corrupt, he was

frying whistleblowers in his own state

who were the ones who would have outed

him and others for being the corrupt

ones. So

just hold in your mind for a moment that

Nuome and and Tim Walsh are two of the

most prominent Democrats. And I would

say almost certainly they have a lot to

to answer for.

A lot to answer for.

Anyway, I don't know if I even care

about this next story, but Israel

approved 19 new settlements. Obviously,

they're trying to make it impossible to

have a two-state settlement, but that is

no that's no surprise. And I guess

Israel is bombing and attacking

Hezbollah and Beirut. They think they

can they think they're very close to

completely destroying the military of

Hezbollah.

So that's just more more of the same.

Uh I will remind you that Israel is not

my country.

So I observe what they do. It's not up

to me to approve it or to deny it. It's

not my country. So

I I simply observe

um

if it affects America then I get I get

involved.

So

according to the University of Minnesota

there's been a breakthrough in lab grown

spinal cords. So apparently they use 3D

printing to create a a structure that

stem cells can be attached to that

become lab grown tissues that can repair

nerve fibers in spinal cords. I might

need that.

Uh apparently the problem with uh

repairing nerve

uh nerve cells is that you you can't

control them when they're growing and

you need them to be sort of on a on a

straight path. But I think the 3D

printing

allows you to take the lab grown uh

cells and put them in a path that

connects broken tissues or broken nerve

endings. I guess that might be exactly

what I need to walk someday. So, hurry

up. Hurry up.

So, the national debt's going to

approach a trillion dollars in just

interest payments. And I saw somebody

estimate that uh we're doomed by 2035,

which is longer than I would have

expected.

Um, and I always wonder why we're not

more worried about debt because it seems

like the biggest problem that's coming.

Um, but then I wonder is the reason that

we don't obsess about our debt problem

because the only things we ever obsess

about are things that some billionaire

with dark money makes us think is the

top priority. Do you ever wonder about

that? with with all the problems in the

world, how do we decide which are the

big ones that we talk about and address?

I don't think it's because of the big

ones. I think it's because nothing

becomes a big story, whether it's

climate change or anything else, unless

there's some gigantic big money, dark

money thing driving the story. And I

don't think any of them are driving the

story about her debt is too high. that

that's like there's no billionaire who

is putting money on that story. So that

might be why we don't worry about as

much. We just haven't been trained to

worry about as much as we should.

But I do wonder if Elon Musk is right

that uh in the AI and robot future which

is coming up fast that that will make

money worthless because everybody will

have everything for free.

the the robots and the AI will just do

all the hard work and we will just enjoy

the abundance. Now, if that's true, does

that give us some kind of escape path

from debt because money wouldn't mean

anything? So, even if you said, "Hey,

we're going to cancel our debt. We're

not going to pay you back." That even

the even the people who owned the debt

would say, "Oh, sure, whatever." you

know, you can pay me back, but the money

isn't worth anything because

everything's free. So, that's pretty

optimistic.

I I can't quite get there.

That's a lot of optimism, but it's not

impossible. And I don't want to bet

against Elon Musk's view. That's always

a bad idea.

But I wonder

in a related story, uh, you know, Scott

Bessent

is pushing the, uh, the Trump accounts

where where every baby that's born is

$1,000 in an account, but you could add

several thousand if you're a parent, up

to $5,000 a year. So that by the time

the kid becomes 18,

they would have a nice little nest egg.

But here's the here's the problem that

automatically falls out from that. So

these accounts would be available to

rich and poor. And whether you're rich

or poor, you get $1,000 in your account.

But whether you're rich or poor, you

also get to add your own parental money.

Say $5,000 a year. If the rich people

add the $5,000 a year, but the poor

people obviously do not, what happens

when the poor kid and the rich kid turn

18? The rich kid will have 10 times as

much money than the poor kid. So, if

what you're worried about is income, you

know, inequality,

doesn't this guarantee that it's going

to be really, really bad?

So, I wonder how they'll deal with that.

I do think that that raising money for

babies

is easier than raising money for other

things because even I'm thinking I think

huh maybe I should donate some money to

that thing that that looks like

but then I think wait a minute in 18

years

which is when the first kid would get

the benefit from it

money might not be worth anything. So

either the debt will have killed us by

then or Elon Musk is right and money

will have no value. So we've got this

weird situation where if if it were a

steady state, which it never is, this

would be one of the best ideas ever.

But because we absolutely cannot predict

what the world looks like in five years,

much less 10 years, much less 18, it's

hard to imagine that things would stay

as stable as they are now such that this

goes the way you think it would go. The

the changes in the world are just so

big. You know, debt plus AI plus robots.

I don't know. I'm not opposed to this

idea.

It's just hard for me to imagine

everything works out. [snorts] Anyway,

there's a Russian general that got

killed with a bomb under his car in

Moscow. So, in Moscow is the key point

here. And I thought to myself, wouldn't

that be the perfect murder if you wanted

to kill a Russian general because

everybody assumes Ukraine did it? But

suppose you had some other reason to do

it. You just wanted to murder that guy.

You could so get away with it because

because the Russians would just assume

that the Ukrainians did it that I don't

even think they would look anywhere

else. It' be the perfect murder. But it

does make me wonder if Ukraine has taken

a decapitation strategy like Israel.

So you know how Israel just consistently

kills leaders of their their enemy

countries? They just never stop doing

it. Well, there's a head of Hamas. Well,

there's a head of this. Well, there's a

head of that. And I've always said that

taking out the top leaders is an

excellent long-term strategy because

eventually you eventually you've taken

out all the capable people and the only

people left to assume control are less

capable.

But also if you're in a context of

negotiating for peace, if you're the

generals, and generals would have some

influence with Putin. Um if you could

convince the generals that if they stop

now, they are not um targets. But if

they don't stop now or convince Putin to

make pace, if they don't do it, that

there will be continuous assassinations

of generals. So, as a strategy,

I would call that the Israel strategy.

And I think it's a strong one. It

doesn't mean it's going to work, but as

a strategy, it looks pretty strong. All

right, that is everything I wanted to

say today.

Would anybody like a closing sip?

How many people we got today?

Now, we got a pretty good crowd. I think

you have earned the closing sip.

So, what did you like about today's

show? While I'm sipping with you, tell

me in the comments which points

you liked. Did you like the reframe?

Uh, did you like

[snorts]

I don't know. Is there any part of this

do you like more than any other part or

do you or do you just like hanging out?

Tell me. Remember

I was telling you yesterday that I'm a

proud narcissist,

but only only if I'm creating value for

other people. So I would be happy to be

praised for what I did right, but only

if it made a difference.

You like the reframe. You like hanging

out.

All right, let me pause some of these

comments.

Just like hanging out. That's perfectly

acceptable. And you like me destroying

the Democratic party?

Like the reframe?

Yeah, the hangout.

You like my blanket and my attitude.

Uh what else?

Reframe and the start about smart people

changing their mind. Good. You know, I I

felt that that was valuable.

A true narcissist only cares about

adding value to themselves. That's

That's not true.

That is not true.

Uh well, it's a definition. So, I guess

you can you can have your own

definition. That's fair.

Oh, drawing the map for Republican

success.

Okay.

The persuasion talk is the most

beneficial.

It might be

you like seeing me be resilient.

Sorry.

You like my non-tribal approach. Good.

I get too much credit for uh

what I do because a lot of it is, you

know, what choice do I have?

Uh daily or BS radar.

A I love you too.

All right.

>> [snorts]

>> you you're so wrong. I see some racist

comments

which I do not approve of.

Um

you know, you're entitled to your

opinion, but the the racist comments I

just I just think they're uninformed.

Just totally uninformed.

talking about JV.

All right.

Uh, we don't need privatized social

security.

Yeah. Um, so somebody is reminding the

locals people that I've given one person

uh permission to be inappropriate.

So, so on the locals platform,

one individual was consistently

over the line, you know, just

unacceptable

uh kind of public opinions. And instead

of banning him,

I I uh with his agreement, he is now

defined as our jester. So, the jester

says things that are absolutely

inappropriate, just 100%. but he's the

only one who's allowed to do it, right?

Only one person. So, that's worked

really well because there's a little bit

of outlet for that behavior, but we

reframe it as the gesture so that it

doesn't have too much of a sticky

quality to it. All right, we're just

testing that.

All right, everybody. Time to go. It's

been tremendous spending time with you.

I hate to leave,

but nothing lasts forever. I'll see you

tomorrow.

Bye for now.