Episode 411 Scott Adams - Bill Pulte Talks About Progress on Inner City Blight and More

hey everybody come on in here it's going to be a fun coffee with Scott Adams today we're going to catch up with Bill P I'll invite him to join in a moment and when he's on we will there we go I'm gonna add bill whoops in a moment we're GNA have Bill pte here to talk about the blight Authority but not until not until we enjoy our simultaneous zp uh oh I just realized that if I keep my microphone on I I won't be able to hear bill so I'm P my microphone and see what happens okay so my sound might get a little worse but then you'll be able to hear Bill Bill hey can you hear me now I can hear you now hey Scott hey everyone good morning good man um for those few people who don't know you yet I'm going to introduce you in just a moment but it has to follow the more important thing we have to do today I call it the simultaneous Sip and it goes like this you will grab your mug possibly your cup your glass your chalice maybe your Stein or even your thermos you'll fill it with your favorite liquid maybe you're already prepared and you will join me for the simultaneous sip all right um yes with with my microphone on um you could hear bill but I couldn't because I used the same plug for my microphone as I do as as I use for the headphones on the i.

Pad so this is uh thank you all for coming and uh Bill P um let's talk about the blight Authority can you give us the the quick description of what it is for the probably let's do it sure go basically what we do at the blight Authority is we take large equipment and other resources and we go into neighborhoods that are completely forgotten about in America whether that be Urban or rural neighborhoods we go into neighborhoods where the police don't want to go where frankly the government and politicians have failed the people in the neighborhoods and we go in we clean up the area we get rid of the crime we get rid of the blight and we make the areas beautiful and we're doing it neighborhood by neighborhood Scot City by City we've done great work in Detroit we did 14 city blocks in Detroit we went to Pontiac Michigan where we've only got about 99 homes to go and we're turning around America's cities one city at a time so I'm showing a few pictures that you send me so here here's the type of house in these blighted urban areas this is just a corner of it I blew it up so you can yes and the reason I sent that Scott was because this is an example of a home that is that that or structure as I call it a vacant blighted structure that needs to come down and there's a whole debate right now about whether these structures should come down but if you live in these neighborhoods it's a no-brainer it's like that structure needs to come down and so I gave that as an example Scott to basically show that's totally non-reparable now there's another one that I sent you that shows what can be repaired uh yeah that's totally not repairable just you know that needs to go but uh but some others can be fixed up now which which cities are you working on well we're working in Detroit Michigan and Pontiac Michigan we're about to veil in the next four weeks Scott a new inner city that we're going to it'll be either Atlanta B Bill P got disconnected which he will realize in a moment and then when he comes back um so he was going to tell you that we've got other cities lined up there he is he's back all right bill will be back and finish that sentence in a moment Bill P are you back yes new Option here with Periscope this pretty cool so all right so you were just saying the which which cities you mentioned Detroit and Pontiac and it'll either be Atlanta uh Baltimore St.

Louis Los Angeles we're looking at maybe even Miami so we'll have an announcement on which city we decide in the next four weeks and we'll let everybody know excellent um and so uh um Step One is to get rid of these homes which which are sources of every kind of crime corre drugs drugs prostitution rape you name it it's all happening there and when you clean it out it it gives that neighborhood a chance to uh to rebuild you know once you've gotten gotten rid of that now um You you work with the locals right that's correct entirely with the locals and as you said step one is to get rid of the crime get rid of the drugs make it a beautiful clean area again and then steps two and three is to do something different with it and I know we're going to talk about that in a second but yes we work with the locals and I say um that we bring them you know the artillery and the locals tell us where to shoot the artillery we defer to them so you work with the the city as well as the the residents and the neighborhoods who who pays for it all where's the money come from Mostly philanthropic everybody can visit blight authority.com we''ve raised a ton of money specifically in Detroit and other cities uh it goes to knocking down homes and cleaning cleaning the blight so it's all philanthropic Scott all right that's amazing and and the locals love this right when the bulldozers come in they get pretty happy don't they oh yeah and I'll tell you right now we say when the when the equipment moves in we turn on the lights and the Cockroaches scatter and I'm I'm I'm not kidding you Scott I mean we bring these big pieces of equipment in if you could just imagine these big pieces of equipment running down the street essentially I mean we've seen drug houses scram out of the area before when these people see these big machines they get the heck out of the area because they know overwhelming forces arrived and that we're not screwing around anymore all right I love the the visual persuasion that comes with you know just doing this kind of work people see real things happening you know I could imagine if you lived in one of these inner cities all you've seen is things get worse for 25 years and then for the first time you see Heavy Equipment changing things that's got to change how you think about your prospects as well so let's talk about uh some ideas let's brainstorm a little bit and maybe we can to participate if they had some ideas they would go to blight authority.com would they not yes blight authority.com and go ahead and submit your ideas we may be actually taking some of your ideas uh and putting them into practice in fact this one city that we're going to be announcing we're going to be using some of these ideas to actually put them into practice so visit us blight authority.com so I'm going to show uh the audience some ideas uh and now these ideas were not we're not suggesting these are you know the great ideas these are more for brainstorming get your mind working about what what the possibilities are once you've got urban areas that are cleared and very low cost because essentially they didn't have value before so um you know they could be obtained by various entities for whatever ideas they have so uh bill would you be able to talk to the uh the data center idea absolutely so one of the things when we go in and we take these big bulldozers Scott we remove this area is we figure out okay what can go there next and one of the things that you and I actually talked about on Fox News was this data center and we brought it up on Fox with anley airheart and had a good conversation about this this effectively as you can see here is taking vacant land and turning it into a data center that can then act as a heat source so for example imagine a city like Detroit especially with the sub you know 30 sub 40 degree temperatures you could basically have a Data Center and I think there's a lot of people looking at this by the way across Herb in America to put for for example a data center have that heat then be recycled and then use it to actually thermal uh you know take care of the thermal aspects of homes so for example you wouldn't have the heating bills you wouldn't have the gas bills Believe It or Not Scott people in Detroit don't have heat in many cases so this is an example where not only could you go in and get rid of the blight but then you could do something very cool afterwards and this actually came from one of your viewers Scott which I think is the most interesting thing about this one right and then we threw it to the picture and again these are these are just brainstorming pictures I'm not claiming that that this would be practical but uh I threw a CO2 scrubber in there you know maybe you're doing something with the rising warm air here we've got uh the Heat going under the highways and sidewalks so you don't have to shovel the snow so that that's one idea now the bigger picture here for this idea and the other ones you're going to see is the idea of Designing not just one building to go to go into these uh cleared areas but rather to design a system or to to look at a more comprehensive way to um to to design something that fits together and works together well in that area yes do you want to take that one uh so let let's well let's give one more example of the uh here's here's a hospital so uh let me talk about this one then Bill we'll talk about the residential one after this so here here's a concept where there's a essentially a teaching hospital and then around it would be a bunch of medical startups so you would conceive this from the start as a place that medical startups can go to work with a hospital that's that's connected to all the startups but also maybe uh maybe it's a way to lower health care costs because you could imagine for example that you would get better than average care but because there's a little bit of experimenting maybe they maybe you uh give them the rights to some of your data Maybe you agree to some tests that are not invasive type you know things that are safe um and and you've got several benefits so you've got maybe health care for the people maybe you've created some jobs and maybe some of the startups have some access to people in testing and experts as well that's just one idea now bill um we also talked about some res itial ideas you can see this on your screen as well can't you Bill yes I can and you know what's interesting about this one Scott is so for example the the brightmore community comes to mind in this one or uh the grand Mount rosale area for example in Detroit there are a bunch of neighborhoods that frankly could benefit from basically what you have here safety cost work food and learning um I know this sounds basic to a lot of people live in neighborhoods but safety doesn't even exist in many of these neighborhoods Scott so to people looking at this and saying you know what is this it's it's actually this is a big problem uh obviously work is a big issue in many of these urban areas Scott people can't even get work in the area so they're having to take buses you know 20 30 miles out of an urban Corridor to do it so the logic here Scott as you and I think you Drew Drew this out very nicely in in great Dilbert format here it looks beautiful is basically a neighborhood that can provide safety low cost work food food is huge now in the urban environment I mean has anybody heard about what's going on in the urban farming environment now in urban areas it's unbelievable and then learning obviously charter schools so I think the idea here basically Scott is to start to encapsulate you know some of the best ideas that are going into urban America but in a safe comfortable lowcost environment for urban neighborhoods what yeah let me give let me give just some examples of the things we're thinking about for the residential one so this picture is shown as the residence is forming a circle that's sort of a security perimeter so that once you're in you're safe and maybe you've got some uh video cameras or whatever you need for the added security but in addition we imagin that each of these homes would have an exterior entrance with possibly a space with its own bathroom that you could run a business out of it or you could rent it yes so so that so that each of these homes is both a residence but it provides a source of income by the way it was design designed so the idea here is if you design from scratch to build a system or a community where you've considered all the things that people need from transportation to safety you could imagine a charter school right in the middle because what what changes your uh Bill what what's the main thing that changes your property value getting rid of the blight well number one making it safe right right but that in terms of building something new that the school is going to be one of your biggest factors school education is huge education and safety are huge so if you if you come to my town and somebody's looking for a place to live the first question is tell me about the schools and that that that becomes the base question for how much they're willing to pay to live there and if the answer is it's the best school in in the county then they're willing to pay a lot more so you plop a um Charter School in the middle of a bad area and you you ring it with security you you've you've already changed the value of that Land by I don't know a h hundredfold that's correct you've you've significantly increased depending on the neighborhood you've significantly increased the value of it if you can put safety in and education those are fundamental right and then who wants to move into a dangerous neighborhood voluntarily right no so uh also in the news you know we're hearing people talking about uh Universal guaranteed income um for some folks and while that's obviously a an impractical idea the way it's conceived think about a future where you could design homes that are better in terms of livability than what we have now but are also way less expensive so if you designed it from scratch using what we've learned maybe maybe robots are building them maybe 3D printers maybe they come in a kit form but you could imagine a lot of ways that you could get to a lower cost life at which point the universal basic income is less important because you could have a a lesser job and still pay for everything you need so if you're thinking about how to build a resident Community from from the bottom up you you you say how do they afford it how do they get an income how did they get safe how did they get a school that sort of thing so you can see that the possibilities are enormous now Scott if I could just jump in I've seen a lot of uh questions here asking you know who owns the land once you clean it it's a great question question we frankly don't even uh in terms of making sure that we're successful we want to turn the land over to the residents or we want to turn it over to the city so we view ourselves as a philanthropic organization that basically turns the Lots over to people either in the neighborhood or otherwise you can take better care of it so it's just a common question we get I saw a lot of people asking it's a great question all right and what what's the hardest part about this process I mean uh I I I don't want this to go to your head bill but this is something that probably people have wanted to do and tried to do but it's just hard what what is it what is it that you do that that gets gets through the hard part so what it's it's basically coordinating with everybody so it's coordinating with the county it's coordinating with the city and the mayor and it's coordinating with the governor and as you can imagine getting all three of those people it's like an orchestra trying to get you know all three of these people to work together and sometimes you have to say look you know this won't look so good if you keep let letting these people live like this um but you try to hope that they'll do the right thing and actually I think when we show up on the scene Scott and we say look here's the solution one two and three here are the three things that you need and they realize meaning these politicians realize that they don't need to do a lot of the work and they just let us you know basically uh you know work with each other uh it ends up turning out pretty nicely so far anyway Scott but we'll see I mean we're going to this next city that we're going to be announcing and uh hopefully we can take it across America we'd love to take it across to every city in America yeah the great thing about this is that uh you've worked out the basic process and now that's correct there's no reason it can't be cloned in in other cities to get us all to the same point and that's correct I was in one city the other day Scott and I was walking down the street with somebody and they were trying to tell me how unique it was to their city and I turned to the guy and I said look man I said I gotta be honest with you this happens in every urban city in America he says well what do you mean and we walked through it we're actually talking about trash and illegal dumping they are having a problem with illegal dumping people don't realize this but in these Urban cities Scott you have this problem with Urban dumping people from the suburbs coming in and dumping and I was explaining to this gentleman basically how when we go block by block and we clean up the area Scott what happens is people stop dumping in the areas and they know that the police are going to go after them and they know that it's going to have to be pristine and clean and uh that's how you clean up these neighborhoods Scott well now now you're making me feel bad because I've been taking all my garbage to San fr Frisco and just dumping it now now I feel that's wrong there is actually people who do this kind of stuff Scott I know it's hard for everybody to understand because it's okay Bill terrible Bill I know that uh you're you're on a schedule here today and thank you for taking the time to share this with us uh so blade authority.com is where people could go to uh give their ideas or to find out more is there anything else uh you'd like to tell us Bill no just thank you and thanks so many people the amount of momentum that we're seeing in the news media for this subject Scott I mean it's incredible the momentum that's picking up nationally for this so I think we're really changing the subject and it's because of guys like you as well you know famous people like you are influencing this so thank you for your help right uh thank you I mean you're you're doing the the hard ugly work that everybody wishes somebody else would do but you're actually doing and and you know succeeding greatly so thank you so much and I think you can you can hang up on your end thank you Scott take care byebye take care bill all right we got some other stuff to talk about um you know I like to like to talk about this topic uh every now and then keep people informed and get people interested if they want to join in but we got other things happening in the news did you see in the news that um I think Fox News has the scoop that um I'm just looking at your questions coming through oh people asked me to put back in my microphone and I think that's a good idea so let's see if I can plug this in and not lose you let's see what happens all right I'm going to guess that that works uh has Ben Carson and HUD been helping bill bill is connected with uh the administration components that he needs to connect with so he's he's made connections at HUD uh he's made connections everywhere that that make sense so that's part of his magic is that he's an amazing connector of people um so somebody says sounds great somebody says it's Buzzy might be Buzzy because where my phone is see if that makes any difference anyway uh some P some people say the phone is fine uh let's talk about the Middle East peace plan so apparently the Administration has a middle east peace plan and uh the uh the news is saying that we won't see it until April but here's what to look for I'm going to give you a preview of a middle east peace plan now now number one why would we think that a middle east peace plan would work now when it's never really worked before uh good question and here's my all right so let let me just say I see your comments that say that some of you have a great sound and some of you have a buzz please stop telling me that there's a buzz in the sound because I see the first 500 people who said that I can't fix it and there's nothing I'm going to do about it but I appreciate you told me just you don't need to send 500 more messages to say there's a buzz because there's nothing that's going to change um at the moment so here's what to look for in the Middle East peace plan number one we might get the answer to the question why has the president been so nice to Saudi Arabia I think we're going to see the answer to that question meaning that Saud Arabia is probably going to have to be an important player in whatever this peace plan is so we might see the the answer to that mystery we might also see why the president has been let's say more more uh friendly to Putin than his critics think he should be because Russia is going to be a big part of whatever happens in terms of Peace plans we're also going to see that Iran is pushed to the brink of economic collapse and I haven't seen them making a lot of noise about uh being aggressive they they've been more complaining about things than they have been militarily aggressive and they're seeing that their their you know their Ambitions are being shrunk every day over there so the table is set you've got Iran uh losing and losing and losing and they need to they need to put the tourniquet on and sign some kind of a deal to to become more productive you've got really strong players involved in terms of negotiating and willing to work with each other because whatever you think about President Trump he's a strong player right whatever you think of Putin and whatever whatever evil he's done he's a strong player whatever you think of Saudi AR and the Crown Prince and you know I know that you've got you've got your problems with them and you've got your problems with all of the players he's a strong player whatever you think of Israel and Netanyahu he's a strong player and you know I think you could go right down the line that we have we have the strongest set of capable players that we've ever had that are important to this this issue in my opinion so you have the Bold bravest smartest most flexible group of people who have ever who have ever had to deal with this this issue so I would say that uh I would say that I'm very interested in this peace plan and you could be surprised as some of it um now the pelis Ians have seem seem to have been marginalized and have no have had no significant success in a long time so you know everybody's everybody's pushed to the Limit where flexibility happens and I think all parties are ready to get flexible at this point all right um did you see the uh presidential announcement of Amy kobitar in the snow we have to talk about that now I've never seen a worse first impression because for most of us let say the vast majority of the country um people didn't really know who she is right if she's not from your state you probably didn't know who she was and I would not have been able to recognize her in a crowd and I still can't because the pictures I saw she was covered with snow and I thought to myself okay I like the fact that the the snow and doing it Outdoors maybe got her a little extra attention so that part was good but I don't know if it's the right kind of attention because all I could think when I watched her out in that snowstorm is number one she doesn't care about the comfort of her supporters cuz that you know that was a bad day out there in the snow number two she does not plan well and her campaign that figured out this was a good idea they're they're not the best right this doesn't look like the best thing it looked like somebody who didn't plan well and now now you might say to yourself that's not the case Scott they did plan out this they knew what the weather would be they did it outside for for effect it was all part of the show well maybe but it doesn't come across that way it comes across as amateurs who just didn't think it through didn't think how it would look didn't plan enough for the fact it would be a driving snowstorm that would make the candidate look like look like she was it made the candidate look cold and alone you know how candidates are always standing in front of a crowd there's a big crowd of supporters behind them because then you see the candidate and you say to yourself wow that candidate has all these people behind them you know that's the visual remember the visual always wins so the visual here was she's out alone in a dangerous snowstorm and nobody's helping her and doesn't have any supporters because she's you know there's nobody behind her there were lots of supporters in front now I don't know how many supporters because I didn't I didn't uh I didn't really I didn't see the the camera pull back but I don't think there were that many the president of course took advantage of the snowstorm and to joke about her talking about climate change and global warming while she's literally covered with snow now of course all of the president's critics uh come on to his tweet and say you fool don't you know the difference between weather and climate and here's the thing at this point I'm pretty sure he knows the difference between weather and climate but I think he's having fun with it at this point because he knows it makes people crazy when he does this so I don't want to read his mind I don't want to assume what he knows and what he doesn't know about climate change but I'm pretty sure somebody's mentioned it to him at this point and that he's just having fun with it now all right um yeah cold is weather hot is climate right all right so what were the other topics what were the other topics um oh yes our friends in Iran are still chanting death to America so did you see that uh kamani uh he issued a clarification or he he gave a clarification in some speech or something and then he tweeted it and the clarification was that the phrase death to America does not mean death to the citizens of America but rather it means uh death to president Trump uh Pompeo and John Bolton so so Iran is now getting technical when we say death to America we don't mean all Americans we just mean specific Americans the ones you've chosen to be your leaders we just want to kill the leaders to which I say you know if you ever succeeded in killing our leaders we would kill all of you just putting that out there uh in the unlikely event that Iran was able to kill John Balden Mike Pompeo and president Trump Iran would last another 10 minutes and then would be vaporized so it's a bad idea maybe maybe you should not chant these things perhaps perhaps less chanting more peace so but here's here's the the good news the good news is that when you hear them chanting no no no it's really about the politics it feels like a softening in other words they're they're trying to make the case against War because if they wanted war they'd say let's let's kill all the Americans too and we have this weird situation with Iran that I don't know if I've ever seen before the Iranian people like the American people and the American people by and large like the Iranian people I I have you ever seen a case where two countries were sort of in a semi warlike posture may maybe more than semi and at the same time the the citizens all uh oh at the same time the citizens all seem to like each other I'm going to talk to Brian of London let's let's add a guest here see if this works Brian I'm I'm adding Brian of London here for a comment because I think Brian is in Israel Brian are you there I am yes I'm in Israel you're in Israel so I am and and I know that you keep up with all this stuff we've U we've communicated before um so Brian what's the view from Israel about uh the news that there might be a peace plan in the making and and what's and what what are people saying about Iran at the moment well um actually I just I pressed join when you started saying about the Iranian people versus and that's absolutely correct and you don't hear about it I don't I don't that there has always been a an an underground pro-america thing you know Iran back in 1979 was a pro-america country ruled by the Sha you know it's more complicated than this and they've been taken over by this Islamic Republic since 1979 doesn't mean everybody followed it always um on the on the Israel and the peace process though the Palestinian peace process I still I'm sitting here and it doesn't make a difference for Shia versus Sunni for for Iran versus Saudi Arabia whether we have peace in Israel it's just not Central it's not Central to what's going on in Syria um it just we're just not that you know every time I hear about Trump's peace plan I don't I just don't get the centrality with which the American Press paints it um well so that's that's a good question it seems to me that when we talk about a middle east peace plan we're no longer talking about the Palestinian Israel question that's just a part of it right I mean the bigger question what do you do with Syria you know what's what do we do with Iran and it seems to me that the um and maybe you can um inform me better on this but if Iran became serious about peace wouldn't the Palestinian Hezbollah situation also be easier to solve is Iran the biggest problem to all of that Iranian funding of Hezbollah is a huge problem because they're the ones with missiles pointed at my house um so yes but the idea to me it's just Unthinkable that the Iranians will turn around and suddenly go do an about face no matter how persuasive Trump is because they've got the Quran in their back pocket and the Quran is telling them something different to what Trump says um and and you know same with the Saudis but coming at it from a different direction because they've had this basically this battle ever since the the death of Muhammad as to who's the right Muslims you know that battle you know Israel's just a recent arrival in this this that's going to go on a lot longer than Trump uh and Israel didn't Sol that well but let me ask you this you know uh of of course there's you know the the religious um you know the religious uh overlay to all of this but but these are real human beings who have to make practical decisions and even the leaders in Iran they do see that Israel is just GNA be there right do do you think that there's do you think there's anybody in Iran and I won't ask you to read their minds but do you think that the the Ki thinks that Israel would ever go away during his lifetime or or the next does he really think that's possible I I believe that if he had the me make us go away I.E a nuclear bomb he would do heartbeat no matter what that means for Jerusalem or the Palestinians who live here the hold on we lost a little bit of a connection there but did you say that if you thought did you say that if kammani had a nuclear bomb that he would definitely use it on Israel that's my yes now I've been listening to them for 20 years they keep saying that death to America really it meant death to America and it meant death to Israel long before Trump appeared well they've also said consistently that when uh uh there may be a difference between what they say in English versus what they they say in other languages but um they have clarified and I'm not saying that we should believe this right if if I were in Israel I would assume that every threat coming out of Iran is 100% serious so there there's a way you act but then there's also looking at the odds if if you could be objective about it and it seems to me that they've also said that their problem is not the people of Israel but rather it's the the political the political situation which is that it's a Jewish State and Etc the people are Jews and the only way we can express our Jud ism is to be a Jewish State because we've tried living as a minority under other people and that that hasn't worked and and we got the message 70 years ago and said no more of this minority stuff you know America's a safe place but not the Middle East but my point is that nuking Israel would not accomplish their goals because it wouldn't be useful I mean nobody could use Israel after it been nuk and they would be immediately destroyed so it's not like they could take advantage of it and and and they would have killed the people of Israel which they claim are not their enemies rather it's the political situation whether or not you believe that I'm just saying there would be an inconsistency with what they're saying so from the outside I I always believe I believe this with North Korea and that seemed to have been true remember uh if you were following the North Korea situation we assume that Kim Jun was literally crazy yeah literally crazy and that he would nuke things and die and he you know he didn't care who died and all that and then as soon as you test that assumption you find out that he's probably closer to a reasonable guy than whatever we thought before and then suddenly there's progress I feel like as crazy as we believe the the mullo are that if you if you were ever in a room with them and they could speak honestly they would say something like well I know we're never going to destroy Israel I the thing is I've read the Quran for a number of years I've read the the stories of the life of Muhammad and so on and I agree with you on North Korea because I don't think they wake up every morning saying a prayer that says they've got to take over the world for their God whereas the Iranians actually do you know it's screamed from the loudest from from from the top of the mosque um you know come to prayer and they you know Muhammad's Farewell Address said you know I have been ordered to conquer fight all men until they say there is no God but Allah that is an ideological problem if it's repeated into your brain every day five times six seven 18 times a day um whereas the North Korean I agree the North Koreans as far as I can see do not have an expansionist desire to turn the entire world into North Koreans whereas Islam unfortunately has shown over 14400 years that it does have an expansionist aim and it does want to convert people all right but but let me let me put this in another context and again I will say that if I were in Israel and even as an ally of Israel you have to treat all of those threats as 100% realistic so in terms of decisions you pretty much have to treat them as real but um I I like to drill down on this just in case there you know we can get a better understanding or something now it would also be true therefore that Iran has plans to conquer China in terms of Islam is that would would that not also be part of their grand plan it's not just Israel rather they would like to conquer China but do they but do they wake up in the morning and say yeah any moment now it might take a while but we're going to get China because God say so I really do believe that they would go after China but there is a good theological reason why Jews why it's more important that they cancel Jews first you know that that there we Jews were around in the time of the Prophet Muhammad their Prophet Muhammad the Chinese are not mentioned um Jews rejected Muhammad as a prophet you know we did and we got slaughtered for it in Arabia and we got chucked out of Arabia so there's there's there's history you know and so we we matter more because they know you know I think deep down they do know that all right so I get so I get that there's you know a special history and a a a special dislike for you know for Israel the the Jewish people among the Iranians or at least the Iranian leadership for sure um but there's but still people are of two brains all the time in other words people can carry with them their religious belief and and actually legitimately believe it well in their daily life they don't act that way that that's fairly common right that people don't actually act the way their beliefs sincere beliefs tell them they should act it's that's the most common thing is to be is to be two people at once and it seems to me that there's some there's got to be a practical understanding that Iran would be destroyed far before Israel would be destroyed and since that's that will never be their ambition to destroy their own country it seems like on some level they know they're going to have to reach an accommodation now let me let me suggest this if they could ever come up with some way to believe that they could politically Prevail in the long run um would that satisfy their religious need or do they have to conquer by violence in other words could they ever be convinced that they can spread their Islamic beliefs through the internet through friendly connections through immigration you know could they ever be convinced that they don't have to Nuke somebody or or kill them to get it done is that would that fit within their belief system I I think it already does I think um the very first spreading of Islam is the the al-hijra that the move from Mecca to Medina and that you know that was an immigration to found an Islam State that's what alhed means that's the start of the calendar so I I I don't believe that they they don't necessarily say that it must be done through violence and Conquest they actually you know that they'll do it any way uh that they can but you know to get something back to just one little thing you said there um when you they do hold this in two ways in their heads you know I think it's a very important thing they're not all behaving um uh at all the time religiously and thing but the the for Islam politics and religion are the same thing they that that's their entire Outlook it's mixed and you know we can't take any risks the only reason they I grew up as a child of the the the cold war with the Russians okay you know sting song do the Russians love their children too and I still fundamentally believe that based on the sort of Christian cult that that Russia came from even though the Soviets sort of try to suppress that they do love their children in the same way do so I don't believe in mutualist or destruction as a deterrent with the with the Iranians um but it has worked wouldn't wouldn't you say that uh if Iran wanted to attack Israel at the risk of not even risk but uh at certain annihilation in other words if Iran wanted to just conquer Israel it didn't care about surviving as a country didn't care how many people died doing it they could take a shot at it right now so well they have taken they were involved in the attacks in ' 67 and 72 uh 73 so they've they've done they've tried but since since the sort of nuclear era they haven't had nuclear weapons but that's why you know that's why we reating with such unbelievable horror to Obama because we just didn't perceive that it that that it was going to give us the shity that they wouldn't have these terrible weapons that could take us out in one F swop but but my point is they are already acting against their own religion by not attacking already the fact the fact that they would not win should not in any way no no no no no no there's a there's a religious commandment to say if you can't if you don't think you can win you get you take what is called a Hooda it's a up 10 year and then it's a renewable every 10 year it's a truce that Waits until the Muslims are strong enough to attack it's called that actually their word for peace Buna which is this temporary it's a temporary restraining order until such time as they feel strong enough to attack properly right so as long what we're living under but but the strong enough to attack mean that you you would attack and survive or would it be good attack and win they're not stupid uh they're very very much not stupid uh the Iranians are very very smart people and they're very industrious and they they have the technical capabilities to to to fight and fight well but they they wouldn't launch they might launch a suicidal attack if it achieved the aim that they wanted which was our destruction no our destruction ranks higher than than I think their survival so in your view the lead years of of Iran if they could completely destroy Israel but it would also guarantee their own complete destruction they would take that choice I think that there are enough of the crazy people there and they hold enough of the levers of power to make me very scared if those levers of power connected to nuclear weapons on on on launched ballistic missiles yeah I agree so let me just iterate for one other time if I were in Israel or even as an ally of Israel which we are we are we have to treat all of those risks as 100% certain you know threats yeah you know you don't you don't really have the the the luxury of say well I don't think they really mean it so so I'm completely on the side of treating it like it's 100% guaranteed risk um and and thank you for giving us a little uh background on that this was great fun thanks very much for having me all right thanks Brian um and you you can just sign off on your own there all right that's all I'm going to talk about for today and I will talk to you all tomorrow

[Music]

hey everybody come on in here it's going

to be a fun coffee with Scott Adams

today we're going to catch up with Bill

P I'll invite him to join in a

moment and when he's on we will there we

go I'm gonna add bill

whoops in a

moment we're GNA have Bill pte here to

talk about the blight Authority but not

until not until we enjoy our

simultaneous

zp

uh oh I just

realized that if I keep my microphone on

I I won't be able to hear bill so I'm P

my microphone and see what happens okay

so my sound might get a little worse but

then you'll be able to hear

Bill Bill hey can you hear me now I can

hear you now hey Scott hey everyone good

morning good man um for those few

people who don't know you yet I'm going

to introduce you in just a moment but it

has to follow the more important thing

we have to do today I call it the

simultaneous

Sip and it goes like this you will grab

your mug possibly your cup your glass

your chalice maybe your Stein or even

your thermos you'll fill it with your

favorite liquid maybe you're already

prepared and you will join me for the

simultaneous

sip all

right

um yes with with my microphone on um you

could hear bill but I couldn't because I

used the same plug for my microphone as

I do as as I use for the headphones on

the iPad so this is

uh thank you all for coming and uh Bill

P

um let's talk about the blight Authority

can you give us the the quick

description of what it is for the

probably let's do it sure go basically

what we do at the blight Authority is we

take large equipment and other resources

and we go into neighborhoods that are

completely forgotten about in America

whether that be Urban or rural

neighborhoods we go into neighborhoods

where the police don't want to go where

frankly the government and politicians

have failed the people in the

neighborhoods and we go in we clean up

the area we get rid of the crime we get

rid of the blight and we make the areas

beautiful and we're doing it

neighborhood by neighborhood Scot City

by City we've done great work in Detroit

we did 14 city blocks in Detroit we went

to Pontiac Michigan where we've only got

about 99 homes to go and we're turning

around America's cities one city at a

time so I'm showing a few pictures that

you send me so here here's the type of

house in these blighted urban areas this

is just a corner of it I blew it up so

you can yes and the reason I sent that

Scott was because this is an example of

a home that is that that or structure as

I call it a vacant blighted structure

that needs to come down and there's a

whole debate right now about whether

these structures should come down but if

you live in these neighborhoods it's a

no-brainer it's like that structure

needs to come down and so I gave that as

an example Scott to basically show

that's totally non-reparable now there's

another one that I sent you that shows

what can be repaired uh yeah that's

totally not repairable just you know

that needs to

go but uh but some others can be fixed

up now which which cities are you

working on well we're working in Detroit

Michigan and Pontiac Michigan we're

about to veil in the next four weeks

Scott a new inner city that we're going

to it'll be either Atlanta

B Bill P got disconnected which he will

realize in a

moment and then when he comes back um so

he was going to tell you that we've got

other cities lined up there he is he's

back all right bill will be back and

finish that sentence in a moment

Bill P are you

back yes new Option here with Periscope

this pretty cool so all right so you

were just saying the which which cities

you mentioned Detroit and Pontiac and

it'll either be Atlanta uh Baltimore St

Louis Los Angeles we're looking at maybe

even Miami so we'll have an announcement

on which city we decide in the next four

weeks and we'll let everybody know

excellent um and so uh um Step One is to

get rid of these homes which which are

sources of every kind of crime corre

drugs drugs prostitution rape you name

it it's all happening there and when you

clean it out it it gives that

neighborhood a chance to uh to rebuild

you know once you've gotten gotten rid

of that now um You you work with the

locals right that's correct entirely

with the locals and as you said step one

is to get rid of the crime get rid of

the drugs make it a beautiful clean area

again and then steps two and three is to

do something different with it and I

know we're going to talk about that in a

second but yes we work with the locals

and I say um that we bring them you know

the artillery and the locals tell us

where to shoot the artillery we defer to

them so you work with the the city as

well as the the residents and the

neighborhoods who who pays for it all

where's the money come from Mostly

philanthropic everybody can visit blight

authority.com we''ve raised a ton of

money specifically in Detroit and other

cities uh it goes to knocking down homes

and cleaning cleaning the blight so it's

all philanthropic Scott all right that's

amazing and and the locals love this

right when the bulldozers come in they

get pretty happy don't they oh yeah and

I'll tell you right now we say when the

when the equipment moves in we turn on

the lights and the Cockroaches scatter

and I'm I'm I'm not kidding you Scott I

mean we bring these big pieces of

equipment in if you could just imagine

these big pieces of equipment running

down the street essentially I mean we've

seen drug houses scram out of the area

before when these people see these big

machines they get the heck out of the

area because they know overwhelming

forces arrived and that we're not

screwing around anymore all right I love

the the visual persuasion that comes

with you know just doing this kind of

work people see real things happening

you know I could imagine if you lived in

one of these inner cities all you've

seen is things get worse for 25 years

and then for the first time you see

Heavy Equipment changing things that's

got to change

how you think about your prospects as

well so let's talk about uh some ideas

let's brainstorm a little bit and maybe

we

can to participate if they had some

ideas they would go to blight

authority.com would they not yes blight

authority.com and go ahead and submit

your ideas we may be actually taking

some of your ideas uh and putting them

into practice in fact this one city that

we're going to be announcing we're going

to be using some of these ideas to

actually put them into practice so visit

us blight authority.com

so I'm going to show uh the audience

some ideas uh and now these ideas were

not we're not suggesting these are you

know the great ideas these are more for

brainstorming get your mind working

about what what the possibilities are

once you've got urban areas that are

cleared and very low cost because

essentially they didn't have value

before so um you know they could be

obtained by various entities for

whatever ideas they have so uh bill

would you be able to talk to the uh the

data center idea absolutely so one of

the things when we go in and we take

these big bulldozers Scott we remove

this area is we figure out okay what can

go there next and one of the things that

you and I actually talked about on Fox

News was this data center and we brought

it up on Fox with anley airheart and had

a good conversation about this this

effectively as you can see here is

taking vacant land and turning it into a

data center that can then act as a heat

source so for example imagine a city

like Detroit especially with the sub you

know 30 sub 40 degree temperatures you

could basically have a Data Center and I

think there's a lot of people looking at

this by the way across Herb in America

to put for for example a data center

have that heat then be recycled and then

use it to actually thermal uh you know

take care of the thermal aspects of

homes so for example you wouldn't have

the heating bills you wouldn't have the

gas bills Believe It or Not Scott people

in Detroit don't have heat in many cases

so this is an example where not only

could you go in and get rid of the

blight but then you could do something

very cool afterwards and this actually

came from one of your viewers Scott

which I think is the most interesting

thing about this one right and then we

threw it to the picture and again these

are these are just brainstorming

pictures I'm not claiming that that this

would be practical but uh I threw a CO2

scrubber in there you know maybe you're

doing something with the rising warm air

here we've got uh the Heat going under

the highways and sidewalks so you don't

have to shovel the snow so that that's

one idea now the bigger picture here for

this idea and the other ones you're

going to see is the idea of Designing

not just one building to go to go into

these uh cleared areas but rather to

design a system or to to look at a more

comprehensive way to um to to design

something that fits together and works

together well in that area yes do you

want to take that one uh so let let's

well let's give one more example of the

uh here's here's a

hospital so uh let me talk about this

one then Bill we'll talk about the

residential one after this so here

here's a concept where there's a

essentially a teaching hospital and then

around it would be a bunch of medical

startups so you would conceive this from

the start as a place that medical

startups can go to work with a hospital

that's that's connected to all the

startups but also maybe uh maybe it's a

way to lower health care costs because

you could imagine for example that you

would get better than average care but

because there's a little bit of

experimenting maybe they maybe you uh

give them the rights to some of your

data Maybe you agree to some tests that

are not invasive type you know things

that are safe um and and you've got

several benefits so you've got maybe

health care for the people maybe you've

created some jobs and maybe some of the

startups have some access to people in

testing and experts as well that's just

one idea now bill um we also talked

about some res itial ideas you can see

this on your screen as well can't you

Bill yes I can and you know what's

interesting about this one Scott is so

for example the the brightmore community

comes to mind in this one or uh the

grand Mount rosale area for example in

Detroit there are a bunch of

neighborhoods that frankly could benefit

from basically what you have here safety

cost work food and learning um I know

this sounds basic to a lot of people

live in neighborhoods but safety doesn't

even exist in many of these

neighborhoods Scott so to people looking

at this and saying you know what is this

it's it's actually this is a big problem

uh obviously work is a big issue in many

of these urban areas Scott people can't

even get work in the area so they're

having to take buses you know 20 30

miles out of an urban Corridor to do it

so the logic here Scott as you and I

think you Drew Drew this out very nicely

in in great Dilbert format here it looks

beautiful is basically a neighborhood

that can provide safety low cost work

food food is huge now in the urban

environment I mean has anybody heard

about what's going on in the urban

farming environment now in urban areas

it's unbelievable and then learning

obviously charter schools so I think the

idea here basically Scott is to start to

encapsulate you know some of the best

ideas that are going into urban America

but in a safe comfortable lowcost

environment for urban neighborhoods what

yeah let me give let me give just some

examples of the things we're thinking

about for the residential one so this

picture is shown as the residence is

forming a circle that's sort of a

security perimeter so that once you're

in you're safe and maybe you've got some

uh video cameras or whatever you need

for the added security but in addition

we imagin that each of these homes would

have an exterior entrance with possibly

a space with its own bathroom that you

could run a business out of it or you

could rent it yes so so that so that

each of these homes is both a residence

but it provides a source of income by

the way it was design designed so the

idea here is if you design from scratch

to build a system or a community where

you've considered all the things that

people need from transportation to

safety you could imagine a charter

school right in the middle because what

what changes your uh Bill what what's

the main thing that changes your

property value getting rid of the blight

well number one making it safe right

right but that in terms of building

something new that the school is going

to be one of your biggest factors school

education is huge education and safety

are huge so if you if you come to my

town and somebody's looking for a place

to live the first question is tell me

about the schools and that that that

becomes the base question for how much

they're willing to pay to live there and

if the answer is it's the best school in

in the county then they're willing to

pay a lot more so you plop a um Charter

School in the middle of a bad area and

you you ring it with security

you you've you've already changed the

value of that Land by I don't know a h

hundredfold that's correct you've you've

significantly increased depending on the

neighborhood you've significantly

increased the value of it if you can put

safety in and education those are

fundamental right and then who wants to

move into a dangerous neighborhood

voluntarily right no so uh also in the

news you know we're hearing people

talking about uh Universal guaranteed

income um for some folks and while

that's

obviously a an impractical idea the way

it's conceived think about a future

where you could design homes that are

better in terms of livability than what

we have now but are also way less

expensive so if you designed it from

scratch using what we've learned maybe

maybe robots are building them maybe 3D

printers maybe they come in a kit form

but you could imagine a lot of ways that

you could get to a lower cost life at

which point the universal basic income

is less important because you could have

a a lesser job and still pay for

everything you need so if you're

thinking about how to build a resident

Community from from the bottom up you

you you say how do they afford it how do

they get an income how did they get safe

how did they get a school that sort of

thing so you can see that the

possibilities are enormous now Scott if

I could just jump in I've seen a lot of

uh questions here asking you know who

owns the land once you clean it it's a

great question question we frankly don't

even uh in terms of making sure that

we're successful we want to turn the

land over to the residents or we want to

turn it over to the city so we view

ourselves as a philanthropic

organization that basically turns the

Lots over to people either in the

neighborhood or otherwise you can take

better care of it so it's just a common

question we get I saw a lot of people

asking it's a great question all right

and what what's the hardest part about

this process I mean uh I I I don't want

this to go to your head bill but this is

something that probably people have

wanted to do and tried to do but it's

just hard what what is it what is it

that you do that that gets gets through

the hard part so what it's it's

basically coordinating with everybody so

it's coordinating with the county it's

coordinating with the city and the mayor

and it's coordinating with the governor

and as you can imagine getting all three

of those people it's like an orchestra

trying to get you know all three of

these people to work together and

sometimes you have to say look you know

this won't look so good if you keep let

letting these people live like this um

but you try to hope that they'll do the

right thing and actually I think when we

show up on the scene Scott and we say

look here's the solution one two and

three here are the three things that you

need and they realize meaning these

politicians realize that they don't need

to do a lot of the work and they just

let us you know basically uh you know

work with each other uh it ends up

turning out pretty nicely so far anyway

Scott but we'll see I mean we're going

to this next city that we're going to be

announcing and uh hopefully we can take

it across America we'd love to take it

across to every city in America yeah the

great thing about this is that uh you've

worked out the basic process and now

that's correct there's no reason it

can't be cloned in in other cities to

get us all to the same point and that's

correct I was in one city the other day

Scott and I was walking down the street

with somebody and they were trying to

tell me how unique it was to their city

and I turned to the guy and I said look

man I said I gotta be honest with you

this happens in every urban city in

America he says well what do you mean

and we walked through it we're actually

talking about trash and illegal dumping

they are having a problem with illegal

dumping people don't realize this but in

these Urban cities Scott you have this

problem with Urban dumping people from

the suburbs coming in and dumping and I

was explaining to this gentleman

basically how when we go block by block

and we clean up the area Scott what

happens is people stop dumping in the

areas and they know that the police are

going to go after them and they know

that it's going to have to be pristine

and clean and uh that's how you clean up

these neighborhoods Scott well now now

you're making me feel bad because I've

been taking all my garbage to San fr

Frisco and just dumping

it now now I feel that's

wrong there is actually people who do

this kind of stuff Scott I know it's

hard for everybody to understand because

it's okay Bill terrible Bill I know that

uh you're you're on a schedule here

today and thank you for taking the time

to share this with us uh so blade

authority.com is where people could go

to uh give their ideas or to find out

more is there anything else uh you'd

like to tell us Bill no just thank you

and thanks so many people the amount of

momentum that we're seeing in the news

media for this subject Scott I mean it's

incredible the momentum that's picking

up nationally for this so I think we're

really changing the subject and it's

because of guys like you as well you

know famous people like you are

influencing this so thank you for your

help right uh thank you I mean you're

you're doing the the hard ugly work that

everybody wishes somebody else would do

but you're actually doing and and you

know succeeding greatly so thank you so

much and I think you can you can hang up

on your end thank you Scott take care

byebye take care bill all right we got

some other stuff to talk

about

um you know I like to like to talk about

this topic uh every now and then keep

people informed and get people

interested if they want to join in but

we got other things happening in the

news did you see in the news that um I

think Fox News has the scoop that

um I'm just looking at your questions

coming through oh people asked me to put

back in my microphone and I think that's

a good idea so let's see if I can plug

this in and not lose you let's see what

happens all right I'm going to guess

that that

works uh has Ben Carson and HUD been

helping bill bill is connected with

uh the

administration components that he needs

to connect with so he's he's made

connections at HUD uh he's made

connections everywhere that that make

sense so that's part of his magic is

that he's an amazing connector of

people

um so somebody says sounds great

somebody says it's Buzzy might be Buzzy

because where my phone

is see if that makes any difference

anyway

uh some P some people say the phone is

fine uh let's talk about the Middle East

peace plan so apparently the

Administration has a middle east peace

plan and

uh the uh the news is saying that we

won't see it until April but here's what

to look for I'm going to give you a

preview of a middle east peace plan now

now number one why would we think that a

middle east peace plan would work now

when it's never really worked

before uh good question and here's my

all right so let let me just say I see

your comments that say that some of you

have a great sound and some of you have

a buzz please stop telling me that

there's a buzz in the sound because I

see the first 500 people who said that I

can't fix it and there's nothing I'm

going to do about it but I appreciate

you told me just you don't need to send

500 more messages to say there's a buzz

because there's nothing that's going to

change um at the moment so here's what

to look for in the Middle East peace

plan number one we might get the answer

to the question why has the president

been so nice to Saudi

Arabia I think we're going to see the

answer to that question meaning that

Saud Arabia is probably going to have to

be an important player in whatever this

peace plan is so we might see the the

answer to that mystery we might also see

why the president has been let's say

more more uh friendly to Putin than his

critics think he should be because

Russia is going to be a big part of

whatever happens in terms of Peace

plans we're also going to see that Iran

is pushed to the brink of economic

collapse and I haven't seen them making

a lot of noise about uh being

aggressive they they've been more

complaining about things than they have

been militarily aggressive and they're

seeing that their their you know their

Ambitions are being shrunk every day

over there so the table is set you've

got Iran uh losing and losing and losing

and they need to they need to put the

tourniquet on and sign some kind of a

deal to to become more productive you've

got really strong players involved in

terms of negotiating and willing to work

with each other because whatever you

think about President Trump he's a

strong player right whatever you think

of Putin and whatever whatever evil he's

done he's a strong player whatever you

think of Saudi AR and the Crown Prince

and you know I know that you've got

you've got your problems with them and

you've got your problems with all of the

players he's a strong player whatever

you think of Israel and Netanyahu he's a

strong player and you know I think you

could go right down the line that we

have we have the strongest set of

capable

players that we've ever had that are

important to this this issue in my

opinion so you have the Bold

bravest

smartest most

flexible group of people who have ever

who have ever had to deal with this this

issue so I would say that

uh I would say that I'm very interested

in this peace plan and you could be

surprised as some of

it um now the pelis

Ians have seem seem to have been

marginalized and have no have had no

significant success in a long time so

you know everybody's everybody's pushed

to the

Limit where flexibility happens and I

think all parties are ready to get

flexible at this

point all right

um did you see the uh presidential

announcement of Amy

kobitar in the snow we have to talk

about that now I've never seen a worse

first

impression because for most of us let

say the vast majority of the country um

people didn't really know who she is

right if she's not from your state you

probably didn't know who she was and I

would not have been able to recognize

her in a crowd and I still can't because

the pictures I saw she was covered with

snow and I thought to myself okay I like

the fact that the the snow and doing it

Outdoors maybe got her a little extra

attention so that part was

good but I don't know if it's the right

kind of attention because all I could

think when I watched her out in that

snowstorm is number one she doesn't care

about the comfort of her supporters cuz

that you know that was a bad day out

there in the snow number two she does

not plan well and her campaign that

figured out this was a good idea they're

they're not the best right this doesn't

look like the best thing it looked like

somebody who didn't plan well and now

now you might say to yourself that's not

the case Scott they did plan out this

they knew what the weather would be they

did it outside for for effect it was all

part of the show well maybe but it

doesn't come across that way it comes

across as amateurs who just didn't think

it through didn't think how it would

look didn't plan enough for the fact it

would be a driving snowstorm that would

make the candidate look like look like

she was it made the candidate look

cold and

alone you know how candidates are always

standing in front of a crowd there's a

big crowd of supporters behind them

because then you see the candidate and

you say to yourself wow that candidate

has all these people behind them you

know that's the visual remember the

visual always wins so the visual here

was she's out alone in a dangerous

snowstorm and nobody's helping her and

doesn't have any supporters because

she's you know there's nobody behind her

there were lots of supporters in front

now I don't know how many supporters

because I didn't I didn't uh I didn't

really I didn't see the the camera pull

back but I don't think there were that

many the president of course took

advantage of the snowstorm and to joke

about her talking about climate change

and global warming while she's literally

covered with snow now of course all of

the president's

critics uh come on to his tweet and say

you fool don't you know the difference

between weather and climate and here's

the thing at this point I'm pretty sure

he knows the difference between weather

and climate but I think he's having fun

with it at this point because he knows

it makes people crazy when he does this

so I don't want to read his mind I don't

want to assume what he knows and what he

doesn't know about climate change but

I'm pretty sure somebody's mentioned it

to him at this point and that he's just

having fun with it

now all right

um yeah cold is weather hot is

climate right all right so what were the

other

topics what were the other

topics

um oh yes our friends in Iran are still

chanting death to America so did you see

that uh

kamani uh he issued a clarification or

he he gave a clarification in some

speech or something and then he tweeted

it and the clarification was that the

phrase death to America does not mean

death to the citizens of America but

rather it means uh death to president

Trump uh Pompeo and John

Bolton so so Iran is now getting

technical when we say death to America

we don't mean all Americans we just mean

specific Americans the ones you've

chosen to be your leaders we just want

to kill the

leaders to which I say you know if you

ever succeeded in killing our leaders we

would kill all of

you just putting that out there uh in

the unlikely event that Iran was able to

kill John Balden Mike Pompeo and

president

Trump Iran would last another 10 minutes

and then would be

vaporized so it's a bad idea maybe maybe

you should not chant these things

perhaps perhaps less chanting more peace

so but here's here's the the good

news the good news is that when you hear

them chanting no no no it's really about

the politics it feels like a softening

in other words they're they're trying to

make the case against War

because if they wanted war they'd say

let's let's kill all the Americans too

and we have this weird situation with

Iran that I don't know if I've ever seen

before the Iranian

people like the American people and the

American people by and large like the

Iranian

people I I have you ever seen a case

where two countries were sort of in a

semi warlike posture may maybe more than

semi and at the same time the the

citizens all uh oh at the same time the

citizens all seem to like each other I'm

going to talk to Brian of London let's

let's add a guest here see if this

works

Brian I'm I'm adding Brian of London

here for a comment because I think Brian

is

in Israel Brian are you there I am yes

I'm in Israel you're in Israel so I

am and and I know that you keep up with

all this stuff we've U we've

communicated before um so Brian what's

the view from Israel about uh the news

that there might be a peace plan in the

making and and what's and what what are

people saying about Iran at the moment

well um actually I just I pressed join

when you started saying about the

Iranian people versus and that's

absolutely correct and you don't hear

about it I don't I don't that there has

always been a an an underground

pro-america thing you know Iran back in

1979 was a pro-america country ruled by

the Sha you know it's more complicated

than this and they've been taken over by

this Islamic Republic since 1979 doesn't

mean everybody followed it always um on

the on the Israel and the peace process

though the Palestinian peace process I

still I'm sitting here and it doesn't

make a difference for Shia versus Sunni

for for Iran versus Saudi Arabia whether

we have peace in Israel it's just not

Central it's not Central to what's going

on in Syria um it just we're just not

that you know every time I hear about

Trump's peace

plan I don't I just don't get the

centrality with which the American Press

paints it um well so that's that's a

good question it seems to me that when

we talk about a middle east peace plan

we're no longer talking about the

Palestinian Israel question that's just

a part of it right I mean the bigger

question what do you do with Syria you

know what's what do we do with Iran and

it seems to me that the um and maybe you

can um inform me better on this but if

Iran became serious about peace wouldn't

the Palestinian Hezbollah situation also

be easier to solve is Iran the biggest

problem to all of that Iranian funding

of Hezbollah is a huge problem because

they're the ones with missiles pointed

at my house um so yes but the idea to me

it's just Unthinkable that the Iranians

will turn around and suddenly go do an

about face no matter how persuasive

Trump is because they've got the Quran

in their back pocket and the Quran is

telling them something different to what

Trump says um and and you know same with

the Saudis but coming at it from a

different direction because they've had

this basically this battle ever since

the the death of Muhammad as to who's

the right Muslims you know that battle

you know Israel's just a recent arrival

in this this that's going to go on a lot

longer than Trump uh and Israel didn't

Sol that well but let me ask you this

you know uh of of course there's you

know the the religious um you know the

religious uh overlay to all of this but

but these are real human beings who have

to make practical decisions and even the

leaders in Iran they do see that Israel

is just GNA be there right do do you

think that there's do you think there's

anybody in Iran and I won't ask you to

read their minds but do you think that

the the Ki thinks that Israel would ever

go away during his lifetime or or the

next does he really think that's

possible I I believe that if he had the

me make us go away I.E a nuclear bomb he

would do heartbeat no matter what that

means for Jerusalem or the Palestinians

who live here the hold on we lost a

little bit of a connection there but did

you say that if you thought did you say

that if kammani had a nuclear bomb that

he would definitely use it on Israel

that's my

yes now I've been listening to them for

20 years they keep saying

that death to America really it meant

death to America and it meant death to

Israel long before Trump appeared well

they've also said consistently that when

uh uh there may be a difference between

what they say in English versus what

they they say in other languages but um

they have clarified and I'm not saying

that we should believe this right if if

I were in Israel I would assume that

every threat coming out of Iran is 100%

serious so there there's a way you act

but then there's also looking at the

odds if if you could be objective about

it and it seems to me that they've also

said that their problem is not the

people of Israel but rather it's the the

political the political situation which

is that it's a Jewish State and Etc the

people are Jews and the only way we can

express our Jud ism is to be a Jewish

State because we've tried living as a

minority under other people and that

that hasn't worked and and we got the

message 70 years ago and said no more of

this minority stuff you know America's a

safe place but not the Middle East but

my point is that nuking Israel would not

accomplish their goals because it

wouldn't be useful I mean nobody could

use Israel after it been nuk and they

would be immediately destroyed so it's

not like they could take advantage of it

and and and they would have killed the

people of Israel which they claim are

not their enemies rather it's the

political situation whether or not you

believe that I'm just saying there would

be an inconsistency with what they're

saying so from the

outside I I always believe I believe

this with North Korea and that seemed to

have been true remember uh if you were

following the North Korea situation we

assume that Kim Jun was literally crazy

yeah literally crazy and that he would

nuke things and die and he you know he

didn't care who died and all that and

then as soon as you test that assumption

you find out that he's probably closer

to a reasonable guy than whatever we

thought before and then suddenly there's

progress I feel like as crazy as we

believe the the mullo are that if you if

you were ever in a room with them and

they could speak honestly they would say

something like well I know we're never

going to destroy Israel I the thing is

I've read the Quran for a number of

years I've read the the stories of the

life of Muhammad and so on

and I agree with you on North Korea

because I don't think they wake up every

morning saying a prayer that says

they've got to take over the world for

their God whereas the Iranians actually

do you know it's screamed from the

loudest from from from the top of the

mosque um you know come to prayer and

they you know Muhammad's Farewell

Address said you know I have been

ordered to conquer fight all men until

they say there is no God but Allah that

is an ideological problem if it's

repeated into your brain every day five

times six seven 18 times a day um

whereas the North Korean I agree the

North Koreans as far as I can see do not

have an expansionist desire to turn the

entire world into North Koreans whereas

Islam unfortunately has shown over 14400

years that it does have an expansionist

aim and it does want to convert people

all right but but let me let me put this

in another context and again I will say

that if I were in Israel and even as an

ally of Israel you have to treat all of

those threats as 100% realistic so in

terms of decisions you pretty much have

to treat them as real but

um I I like to drill down on this just

in case there you know we can get a

better understanding or something now it

would also be true

therefore that Iran has plans to conquer

China in terms of Islam is that would

would that not also be part of their

grand plan it's not just Israel rather

they would like to conquer China but do

they but do they wake up in the morning

and say yeah any moment now it might

take a while but we're going to get

China because God say so I really do

believe that they would go after China

but there is a good theological reason

why Jews why it's more important that

they cancel Jews first you know that

that there we Jews were around in the

time of the Prophet Muhammad their

Prophet Muhammad the Chinese are not

mentioned um Jews rejected Muhammad as a

prophet you know we did and we got

slaughtered for it in Arabia and we got

chucked out of Arabia so there's there's

there's history you know and so we we

matter more because they know you know I

think deep down they do know that all

right so I get so I get that there's you

know a special history and a a a special

dislike for you know for Israel the the

Jewish people among the Iranians or at

least the Iranian leadership for sure um

but there's but still people are of two

brains all the time in other words

people can carry with them their

religious belief and and actually

legitimately believe it well in their

daily life they don't act that way that

that's fairly common right that people

don't actually act the way their beliefs

sincere beliefs tell them they should

act it's that's the most common thing is

to be is to be two people at once and it

seems to me that there's some there's

got to be a practical understanding that

Iran would be destroyed far before

Israel would be destroyed and since

that's that will never be their ambition

to destroy their own country it seems

like on some level they know they're

going to have to reach an accommodation

now let me let me suggest this if they

could ever come up

with some way to believe that they could

politically Prevail in the long run um

would that satisfy their religious need

or do they have to conquer by violence

in other words could they ever be

convinced that they can spread their

Islamic beliefs through the internet

through friendly connections through

immigration you know could they ever be

convinced that they don't have to Nuke

somebody or or kill them to get it done

is that would that fit within their

belief system I I think it already does

I think um the very first spreading of

Islam is the the al-hijra that the move

from Mecca to Medina and that you know

that was an immigration to found an

Islam State that's what alhed means

that's the start of the calendar so I I

I don't believe that they they don't

necessarily say that it must be done

through violence and Conquest they

actually you know that they'll do it any

way uh that they can but you know to get

something back to just one little thing

you said there um when

you they do hold this in two ways in

their heads you know I think it's a very

important thing they're not all behaving

um

uh at all the time religiously and thing

but the the for Islam politics and

religion are the same thing they that

that's their entire Outlook it's mixed

and you

know we can't take any risks the only

reason they I grew up as a child of the

the the cold war with the Russians okay

you know sting song do the Russians love

their children too and I still

fundamentally believe that based on the

sort of Christian cult that that Russia

came from even though the Soviets sort

of try to suppress that they do love

their children in the same way do so I

don't believe in mutualist or

destruction as a deterrent with the with

the

Iranians um but it has worked wouldn't

wouldn't you say that uh if Iran wanted

to attack Israel at the risk of not even

risk but uh at certain annihilation in

other words if Iran wanted to just

conquer Israel it didn't care about

surviving as a country didn't care how

many people died doing it they could

take a shot at it right now so well they

have taken they were involved in the

attacks in ' 67 and 72 uh 73 so they've

they've done they've tried but since

since the sort of nuclear era they

haven't had nuclear weapons but that's

why you know that's why we reating with

such unbelievable horror to Obama

because we just didn't perceive that it

that that it was going to give us the

shity that they wouldn't have these

terrible weapons that could take us out

in one F swop but but my point is they

are already acting against their own

religion by not attacking already the

fact the fact that they would not win

should not in any way no no no no no no

there's a there's a religious

commandment to say if you can't if you

don't think you can win you get you take

what is called a Hooda it's a up 10 year

and then it's a renewable every 10 year

it's a truce that Waits until the

Muslims are strong enough to attack it's

called that actually their word for

peace Buna which is this temporary it's

a temporary restraining order until such

time as they feel strong enough to

attack properly right so as long what

we're living under but but the strong

enough to attack mean that you you would

attack and survive or would it be good

attack and win

they're not stupid uh they're very very

much not stupid uh the Iranians are very

very smart people and they're very

industrious and they they have the

technical capabilities to to to fight

and fight well but they they wouldn't

launch they might launch a suicidal

attack if it achieved the aim that they

wanted which was our destruction no our

destruction ranks higher than than I

think their

survival so in your view the lead years

of of Iran if they could completely

destroy Israel but it would also

guarantee their own complete destruction

they would take that

choice I think that there are enough of

the crazy people there and they hold

enough of the levers of power to make me

very scared if those levers of power

connected to nuclear weapons on on on

launched ballistic missiles yeah I agree

so let me just iterate for one other

time if I were in Israel or even as an

ally of Israel which we are we are we

have to treat all of those risks as 100%

certain you know threats yeah you know

you don't you don't really have the the

the luxury of say well I don't think

they really mean it so so I'm completely

on the side of treating it like it's

100% guaranteed risk um and and thank

you for giving us a little uh background

on that this was great fun thanks very

much for having me all right thanks

Brian

um and you you can just sign off on your

own

there all right that's all I'm going to

talk about for today and I will talk to

you all tomorrow