Episode 485 Scott Adams - Lack of Credible Democrat Candidates, Summer Reruns of Scandals, More

hey Peter come on in here I'm sure that like Peter you have your beverage ready Peter I see you picking up your beverage container right now those of you who are not as quick as Peter such as Paulie and Jackie and Arlene I see you coming in here grab your cups your mugs your chalice your Steins your tankers perhaps your thermos fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the simultaneous sip oo extra extra good today extra so you may have noticed that the news has already gone into summer reruns a little early this year I was expecting the summer reruns to start closer to may you know what I'm talking about there there's no good news coming out so the the news has started to recycle scandals from the past do you remember that time the president Trump made the hand motions that seem to be mocking a man with a physical disability no I don't remember that I do remember president Trump being blamed for that and unlike half of the country who is trapped in a news Silo I saw the compilation Clips showing that he uses that same motion making fun of a lot of different people including Ted Cruz in fact I would like to suggest the Ted Cruz rule are you ready for it if the president uses a particular insult or attack against Ted Cruz you cannot say that he is using it because he's a ra that the president is racist and you can't say that he's making fun of handicapped people because also the president questioned Ted Cruz's uh birth certificate not technically but he he questioned whether Ted Cruz was born in the United States and eligible to run for for president so the president has uh blamed Ted Cruz he's he's mocked Ted Cruz exactly the same way he mocked a person with a bad arm and he's questioned Ted Cruz's citizenship and eligibility for president the same as he criticized president uh Obama so it's the Ted Cruz rule if he's ever done it to Ted Cruz it doesn't count um the other rerun we're getting is the animals comment taking in a context we're getting the fine people hoax over and over again the fine people hoax is coming out the idea that the idea that the president never uh spoke out against white supremacists um we're getting oh we're getting the Steve Miller attacks we've never seen those before have we oh Steve Miller that Jewish white supremacist how does that even work how can you even be a Jewish white supremacist isn't that like opposites so the criticisms have become sort of hollow reruns of past criticisms that have already been debunked that's all they have it's really a good time to be alive because you look at the the problems in the world and and you just say uh that's it the biggest problem in the world is a rerun of a hoax that everybody well not everybody half of the country knows it's a hoax on CNN last night the columnist Matt Lewis uh is saying that the Democrats are quote too woke they're over woke the Democrats are realizing that they're over woke they're so woke that they might not be able to be beat president Trump now not only are they over woke but today the CNN is taking a run at um knocking kamla Harris on of the news now they could be trying to inoculate her by getting her bad news out of the way but it doesn't look like that it looks like they may have soured on Harris why you ask would would CNN be seemingly This Is Us just just interpreting it from the outside doesn't mean we're right but the way it looks from the outside is that cenan was initially very Pro haris but now that she is fourth in the poles they may have soured a little bit because the problem with what what is the big problem with Kam Harris can somebody tell me the big problem with Kam Harris as a candidate boring boring she's very boring she's had quite a few months here to make some news and she doesn't know how to do it apparently she's boring and you would never have imagined that boring would be would be such a uh a problem doesn't it seem to you that boring didn't used to be a problem nobody really said hey that Romney he can't work because he's boring not really I mean people said that but they they said he was boring but I don't think anybody said there's no way you can win the presidency with your boring personality although um I thought Romney was interesting and funny when he was talking about the effort by the Democrats to get Trump's tax returns and he called it moronic with a big smile that he showed some personality there I I thought that was funny um so it could be the CNN because CNN remember CNN is mostly like any other public company they're mostly involved with their own profitability would and so here's the interesting question would CNN make more money if their candidate one in other words if a Democrat beat Trump would they make more money in the future or less think about it or like along the same lines would CNN as a business make more money in the future by running a boring candidate against President Trump which which situation feeds their business model the most I don't know it looks like running the interesting candidate who could also win would be you know in their best uh their best interests but I think on some level they may not want to win let me ask you this would CNN have more stories that are interesting or fewer stories that are interesting if president Trump is no longer president they might actually be panicked that their side could win there might be and this is no joke so what I'm going to say is not high just speculation CNN might get to the point where their their financial interest is exactly counter to their political preferences if we get to the point where let's say it looks like kamla Harris could win what would that do to CNN's ratings if she actually won who would watch CNN again for the rest of lives what would be the point people watch CNN to watch them bash Trump watch watching CNN bash kamla Harris that's not fun there's nothing fun about that so we may be in this weird situation where CNN needs to take out their own side for financial reasons now I don't believe that there will ever be like a conversation like that where anybody of CNN and management says anything like that right so I'm not saying that anybody in CNN will ever say hey maybe we should put our thumb on the scale and let Trump win again because it's good for our ratings but they're all going to think it they're there's nobody in CNN who won't think it excuse me I don't know my nose runs only when I talk on Periscope it's a weird thing so we may see a situation where CNN becomes the inadvertent Ally of trump just to give him a second term it's possible uh you can't rule that now anymore all right um so one of the big stories we're going to hear as we talk more and more about immigration is about the administration putting kids in Obama cages you know about the Obama cages right oh oh you didn't know they were obam cages of course most of you do do know that but I was testing out the idea of for a long time people have saying yes Trump did put children in cages but Obama did it too and you've notice that absolutely nobody cares about that argument have you noticed that it's a true AR argument that can be verified the the facts are all clear Obama did it at a lower level situation changed so that more people were coming because of the rules that allowed amnesty Etc and and Trump had more of it but did Trump build the cages I ask you did Trump build those cages maybe maybe some of them are new my gu is that they are literally obam cages so rather than saying Obama did it too maybe we should just say yeah it is true that the administration put kids in obam cages so let's call them obam cages because that's catchier than saying well Obama did it too because the the whataboutism just always falls on empty well empty ears now that doesn't make sense the when you say the other side did it too nobody can hear that it's such an empty charge that everybody knows it's true they just don't care so I would say rather than say rather than trying to defend what Trump did I wouldn't I wouldn't try to defend it because you just can't there's just no defense for it that that feels good there there's plenty of defense for it in terms of explaining the situation and it's unfortunate but we you know it really kept them safe nobody can even hear that stuff it's like just noise they hear cages kids and and that's pretty much they're they're done with the thinking so let's let's talk more about the Obama cages that's what they should just be called if Obama built them and Obama put them into action and Trump just continued using them just call them obam cages we got to get rid of the obam cages don't you think I think it should be a goal of the administration to get rid of obam cages all right um Corey Booker is proposing legislation to create a reparations commission a commission to look into reparations for slavery now my first reaction to that was next meaning that it's such a nonstarter for a national political campaign that it would make him irrelevant as a candidate that it would it would be such a um such a provocative stand that he would not really be a credible candidate for president and then I saw that most of the most of the Democrats have to agree with it or at least AG agree with looking into it or agree to try to make something happen there and I thought to myself the the problem of them being too woke is is really displayed in this issue because I don't know that any Democratic candidate could win the nomination coming out against that it would be better if it had never been mentioned in terms of Politics as soon as the first candidate candidate gets serious about it and that was Booker so now that Booker has gotten serious about it the other candidates have to answer to it they have to answer a yes no question are you for or against it I don't think Trump will have trouble with the question but the Democrats can have real trouble because if they say no they can't get the nomination and if they say yes they can't get elected president so Corey Booker has set up an almost compl complete um trap making it impossible for any Democrat to get elected Am I Wrong Am I Wrong that you could not get the nomination now unless you come out in favor of reparations because you wouldn't be woke enough if you didn't and if you do and you get the nomination Trump is going to slaughter you just Slaughter it is not even going to be close now there's one thing that um I don't think we've seen yet there's something we haven't seen yet but if Trump ends up running against reparations you're going to see it and it's going to look like this successful black people and even maybe some who are not successful yet are going to come out and say F that you give us reparations and it's going to make us look like second class citizens there there will be black people very aggressively coming out against this idea because it's going to make them um it's going to put a Target on their back it's going to make them seem like less than regular citizens so I think you're going to see the reparations things is a double-edged sword on on an intellectual uh let's say on a scholarly level you can make a case for it you know we're we're all familiar with what the argument is that the uh the African-American population of the country has such a disadvantage coming from that Legacy that maybe the country owes some kind of an evening eventually somebody's going to say um let's let's be scientific about this if the if the argument is God can I even say this without losing everything I have this is one of those questions you have to stop and ask yourself when you talk in public what I'm going to say is Innocent but how easily it could be taken out of context uh maybe not yeah maybe not may maybe I will save myself for a better fight okay um but we'll maybe we'll Circle back to that another day oh no screw I'm just going to say it anyway if the reparations argument gets serious somebody's going to say what is your reference point in other words what is your reference point for saying here's where the um the American africanamerican Community is and and what are you comparing it to when we get to that question of who are you comparing it to things are going to get ugly because somebody sooner or later somebody's going to say how would you be doing if you had never come to this country by force and they're going to say I'm not saying this let let me let me clarify this is not my opinion somebody's going to say how would you have done if you would not come to this country by force as slaves and the they're going to say should we compare you to the people who didn't come is that the right comparison because if you compare them to say an average African citizen are they doing better than the average African citizen or worse now do you hear do you feel how ugly that is like that point that's an ugly point but somebody's going to say it and then that argument is going to get really racist and really bad because the the reparations thing and by the way um I I have written I I have personally written back in 2016 I think not that long ago that we should consider reparations so just to be clear I have come out saying we should seriously think about a way to do this because there's a bad way to do it and there's a good way now I'm going to suggest a way that avoids that ugly problem I just mentioned the the good way to do it is what I'm I'm going to call it the hawk and Nome uh approach and I'll give him credit for this uh Hawk as you know had been I'm not I think he's still associated with black lives matter of New York and his idea was that any any policy you do for the country that helps the African-American part of the population ends up helping everybody and and it's one of those points that that you have to think about for a while to see that there's actually some depth to the point that even if you're thinking about helping the African-American Community there's nothing you can do in a rule of laws that wouldn't also help everybody who's in a similar situation meaning anybody who's got an economic disadvantage for example so if we came up with let's say reparations is just prioritizing education at the top free education so let let me say this let's say Bernie Sanders I'll give Bernie some uh some free advice if Bernie Sanders says let's make education free as a as a response to reparations it's not reparations because it would be free for everybody college and and let's say trade trade training so any kind of training for an adult education an adult um skill set any kind of training would be free at least as a goal if you're Burnie let's say you're burning and you're saying this and you say that this is our way to address a reparations without making it unfair to the uh rest of the PO population who did not get any advantages from from the legacy of slavery so if you if you framed it that way you would simply have taken a whole bunch of priorities and you say what what's what's our top priority free health care free education you know um higher minimum wage what's our priority and you just say because of reparations we'll make our top priority education because that has a societal benefit but it has an unusually good benefit for anybody who's at the lowest part of the economic um situation all right so I'm not saying that would be necessarily the best idea in the world but what I'm saying is that when you talk about reparations it could be a really wide conversation and there might actually be a way to do it that even that everybody in the country says huh because remember there's there's always a second benefit to anything that you call reparations that people say is a good idea the second benefit is the psychological benefit uh I would argue that one of the great powers of this country is a rule of law treating everybody equally as best we can you know we we have to tweak this every generation you know the laws got to get tweaked to to make sure that we're still staying on our on our brand but one of the great things this country did was brand itself as a Melting Pot so when it when when America branded itself as a Melting Pot and started to socialize the children with that term Generations grew up saying that one of our powers you know one of the powers of being an American is that we can absorb different cultures and turn that into Power the United States probably more than any country yeah I'm not a historian there may be other examples where this has worked but I would argue that the United States um as a as a manufactured country meaning you know we're we're created by people coming in from lots of different places we're you know mostly a manufactured country uh ancient Rome somebody says there might be another example of this but probably nobody at least in the modern times has done a better job of turning what could be a problem which is all kinds of different people trying to live together naturally that would be a problem right you would expect but we've somehow cleverly managed to turn that into a strength and I think that that's legitimate as many problems as you get from having different types of people and those are real those are real problems when you have different types of people living in the same place I think we've legitimately turned it into a strength I think that's real and it's amazing and it's a it's a psychological invention it's a psychological invention as powerful as you know the steam engine it was that powerful for for creating the America that we have so if you have a little bit of a let's say a defect in your invention and I'm going to say the invention is the psychological invention that the that America is a Melting Pot and the idea that we do that well and we can convert that into strength that's the invention and we've had that invention guiding us for for Generations but it's a little bit defective because there's still this problem with our invention that the legacy of slavery is making people uncomfortable in different ways so if we could fix just that little tweak with our great invention of the Melting Pot you know mental construct if we could do that at the same time that we're getting people better education maybe that's a maybe that's a win who knows all right let's talk about uh I want to do since I've it's a slow news day so I'm going to do something for fun I promised you when I had my other technology that today I was going to do you a demonstration of cognitive dissonance I'm going to plug in my other headphone and we're going to do that all right all right assuming that you can hear me I'm going to take some calls but I'm going to take some calls from people who want to tell me that uranium one was a big problem for the country all right so I so the only topic I'm going to take is somebody who wants to tell me that the uranium one situation was a big problem and Hillary Clinton should go to jail for it or whether or not she goes to jail it doesn't matter but that you think it was big Scandal and a big problem so anybody who thinks that that's the only the only topic I'm taking and I will take some guest callers and we'll see and I'll I'll make the call quick if you only wanted to talk about something else so Hello Alex hey are you here to talk about uranium one he sure am uh do you think uranium one was a big problem affects the United States in a strategic way I think it is a problem um legally the way that has been handled I think that it was swept under the rug oh hold on that that's uh that I will I will accept that there are some legal questions there but that's not the interesting part do you have would you say that beyond the fact there are some legal questions does it have an effect on the Readiness of the United States the the Strategic strength of the United States or in any way that's I was going next is that I think that it may have only if it had been uncovered we would have known but we are unable to see because none of the information has really ever come out other than little tidbits here and there that were reported because media mostly has been just you know CNN and all right so aside aside from the legal part which is important what are you worried that there's a strategic thing that that we lost because we sold that those rights are you wor you worried that we're worse off as a country I I would have no idea to that information like I wouldn't know but I'm not concerned uh that's fair you have a reasonable view but um I'm G to take another caller I want to get I I want to get somebody who's going to argue that it matters all right let's see if Doug this looks like a troll possibly a troll because he's using my own character as his uh icon caller can you hear me he you hi are you here to talk about uranium one yes I am do you think that the United States was weakened or lost anything by the uranium one deal uh I believe that's possible if uh things I've heard are true I don't know that they're true I have no way to confirm it but what if what I heard is true then yes I believe so and what would be an example of something you heard that if it were true would be bad for the country for the uranium one deal uh what I believe I read was that the uranium going through Russia was being processed out to Iran for their program uh which would of course be a huge problem for us okay I haven't heard any of that um uh I have heard that the uh the stuff from the United States couldn't be released from the United States without uh official permission so for example uh another country couldn't buy it if they wanted to it would have to be sold inside the United States but I'm not sure about that that's one all right let me let me take another caller I want I'm looking I'm looking for somebody who is really who really buys into the whole story let's say Joe all right firus Joe coming at you Joe good how are you do you have a uranium one opinion uh yes uh I do I don't know if it's going to be able to Trump what you're about to lay down but um basically with uranium one what the issue I I think would be other than potential corruption in the future as far as what other countries uh think that they're going to get from us as well but the crossover of the of the crossover of of the nuclear going around to different countries that if you know as the media says Russia is their enemy then it's sort of odd that we're you know in bed in a situation where we're getting uranium trading it to to different places um doing it in a way that is um I guess National Security wise the biggest biggest uh danger would be the fact about how they're actually transferring it because okay uh do do you know that the uranium is a product on the open market and that pretty much anybody can buyer from one of the countries that sells it I did not know that yeah so um what I was hoping to get here is apparently most of you are too smart or or you know there was a trap I was trying to see if anybody would come here and say that Russia got 20% of our critical uranium resources oh no because that's that's sort of the story you hear from some pundits and that that by itself is the problem the problem is that this is a valuable National resource and that we're giving it to our you know potential Nemesis uh Russia um but it sounds like everybody here is too smart for that so so thanks Joe and I I will end my experiment there all right what I expected was that some of you would come on here and say no we're giving away our critical resource and then I was going to tell you that your critical resource um is 6% of domestic production six it's 6% of domestic production and you can buy it anywhere you can buy it from Canada you can get your uranium from um Australia now you might say to yourself well wait a minute wouldn't it be better to have it than to have to go buy it and the answer is either way you have to buy it just the fact that the mine is in the United States doesn't make it free there's some company that owns the mine you can go to that company and you can buy it you can still go to that company and buy it just because Russia has an interest in a mine that's located in the United States that doesn't make it Russia not really I mean if we got in a war with Russia would Russia still be able to take their you know their uranium out of their mind that's located in the United States I don't think so so we still have control over it we can buy it on the open market uranium one was never a real problem except that there might have been some Clinton you know quid pro quo there that we'll never we'll never identify anyway yeah I thought this would be interesting because I thought some of you would be hypnotized by the story and uh but apparently you're not you're you're all Way Beyond that and that's good all right uh did Hillary receive a dollar from this transaction well some of the accusation is that uh Bill Clinton got half a million dollars for speaking in Russia now you'd have to know how different is half a million dollars from what he normally earned and it might not be that that was too far man his market price I'd have to see that but that's not an Evidence so anyway uh I will end here and I'll talk to you later

[Music]

hey Peter come on in

here I'm sure that like Peter you have

your beverage ready Peter I see you

picking up your beverage container right

now those of you who are not as quick as

Peter such as Paulie and Jackie and

Arlene I see you coming in here grab

your cups your mugs your chalice your

Steins your tankers perhaps your thermos

fill it with your favorite liquid I like

coffee and join me now for the

simultaneous

sip

oo extra extra good today

extra so you may have noticed that the

news has already gone into summer reruns

a little early this year I was expecting

the summer reruns to start closer to

may you know what I'm talking about

there there's no good news coming out so

the the news has started to recycle

scandals from the past do you remember

that time the president Trump made the

hand motions that seem to be

mocking a man with a physical

disability no I don't remember that I do

remember president Trump being blamed

for that

and unlike half of the country who is

trapped in a news Silo I saw the

compilation Clips showing that he uses

that same motion making fun of a lot of

different people including Ted

Cruz in fact I would like to

suggest the Ted Cruz rule are you ready

for

it if the

president uses a particular insult or

attack against Ted

Cruz you cannot say that he is using it

because he's a ra that the president is

racist and you can't say that he's

making fun of handicapped people because

also the president questioned Ted

Cruz's uh birth

certificate not technically but he he

questioned whether Ted Cruz was born in

the United States and eligible to run

for for

president so the president has uh blamed

Ted Cruz he's he's mocked Ted Cruz

exactly the same way he mocked a person

with a bad arm and he's questioned Ted

Cruz's citizenship and eligibility for

president the same as he criticized

president uh

Obama so it's the Ted Cruz rule if he's

ever done it to Ted Cruz it doesn't

count um the other rerun we're getting

is the animals comment taking in a

context we're getting the fine people

hoax over and over again the fine people

hoax is coming out the idea that the

idea that the president never uh spoke

out against white

supremacists um we're getting oh we're

getting the Steve Miller attacks we've

never seen those before have we oh Steve

Miller that Jewish white

supremacist how does that even work

how can you even be a Jewish white

supremacist isn't that like

opposites so the criticisms have become

sort of hollow reruns of past criticisms

that have already been

debunked that's all they have it's

really a good time to be alive because

you look at the the problems in the

world and and you just say uh that's it

the biggest problem in the world is a

rerun of a

hoax that everybody well not everybody

half of the country knows it's a

hoax on CNN last night the columnist

Matt

Lewis uh is saying that the Democrats

are quote too woke they're over

woke the Democrats are realizing that

they're over woke they're so woke that

they might not be able to be beat

president

Trump now not only are they over woke

but today the CNN is taking a run at um

knocking kamla Harris on of the news now

they could be trying to inoculate her by

getting her bad news out of the way but

it doesn't look like that it looks like

they may have soured on Harris why you

ask would would CNN be seemingly This Is

Us just just interpreting it from the

outside doesn't mean we're right but the

way it looks from the outside is that

cenan was initially very Pro haris but

now that she is fourth in the poles they

may have soured a little bit because the

problem with what what is the big

problem with Kam

Harris can somebody tell me the big

problem with Kam Harris as a

candidate

boring boring

she's very boring she's had quite a few

months here to make some news and she

doesn't know how to do it apparently

she's boring and you would never have

imagined that boring would be would be

such a uh a problem doesn't it seem to

you that boring didn't used to be a

problem nobody really said hey that

Romney he can't work because he's boring

not really I mean people said that but

they they said he was boring but I don't

think anybody said there's no way you

can win the presidency with your boring

personality

although um I thought Romney was

interesting and funny when he was

talking about the effort by the

Democrats to get Trump's tax returns and

he called it

moronic with a big smile that he showed

some personality there I I thought that

was funny

um so it could be the

CNN because CNN remember CNN is mostly

like any other public company they're

mostly involved with their own

profitability would and so here's the

interesting question would CNN make more

money if their candidate

one in other words if a Democrat beat

Trump would they make more money in the

future or

less think about it or like along the

same lines would CNN as a business make

more money in the future by running a

boring candidate against President Trump

which which situation feeds their

business model the most I don't know it

looks like running the interesting

candidate who could also win would be

you know in their best

uh their best interests but I think on

some level they may not want to

win let me ask you this would CNN have

more stories that are interesting or

fewer stories that are interesting if

president Trump is no longer president

they might actually be panicked that

their side could win there might be and

this is no joke so what I'm going to say

is not high

just

speculation CNN might get to the point

where their their financial interest is

exactly counter to their political

preferences if we get to the point where

let's say it looks like kamla Harris

could

win what would that do to CNN's ratings

if she actually

won who would watch CNN again for the

rest of lives what would be the point

people watch CNN to watch them bash

Trump watch watching CNN bash kamla

Harris that's not fun there's nothing

fun about

that

so we may be in this weird situation

where CNN needs to take out their own

side for financial

reasons now I don't believe

that there will ever be like a

conversation like that where anybody of

CNN and management says anything like

that right so I'm not saying that

anybody in CNN will ever say hey maybe

we should put our thumb on the scale and

let Trump win again because it's good

for our

ratings but they're all going to think

it they're there's nobody in CNN who

won't think it excuse

me I don't know my nose runs only when I

talk on Periscope it's a weird

thing so we may see a situation where

CNN becomes the inadvertent Ally of

trump just to give him a second term

it's

possible uh you can't rule that now

anymore all right

um so one of the big stories we're going

to hear as we talk more and more about

immigration is about the administration

putting kids in Obama cages you know

about the Obama cages right oh oh you

didn't know they were obam cages of

course most of you do do know that but I

was testing out the idea

of for a long time people have saying

yes Trump did put children in cages but

Obama did it too and you've notice that

absolutely nobody cares about that

argument have you noticed that it's a

true AR

argument that can be verified the the

facts are all clear Obama did it at a

lower level situation changed so that

more people were coming because of the

rules that allowed amnesty Etc and and

Trump had more of

it but did Trump build the cages I ask

you did Trump build those

cages maybe maybe some of them are

new my gu is that they are literally

obam

cages so rather than saying Obama did it

too maybe we should just say yeah it is

true that the administration put kids in

obam cages so let's call them obam cages

because that's catchier than saying well

Obama did it too because the the

whataboutism just always falls on

empty well empty ears now that doesn't

make sense

the when you say the other side did it

too nobody can hear that it's such an

empty charge that everybody knows it's

true they just don't care so I would say

rather than say rather than trying to

defend what Trump did I wouldn't I

wouldn't try to defend it because you

just can't there's just no defense for

it that that feels good there there's

plenty of defense for it in terms of

explaining the situation and it's

unfortunate but we you know it really

kept them safe nobody can even hear that

stuff it's

like just noise they hear cages kids and

and that's pretty much they're they're

done with the thinking so let's let's

talk more about the Obama cages that's

what they should just be called if Obama

built them and Obama put them into

action and Trump just continued using

them just call them obam cages we got to

get rid of the obam

cages don't you think I think it should

be a goal of the administration to get

rid of obam

cages all right

um Corey Booker

is proposing

legislation to create a reparations

commission a commission to look into

reparations for

slavery now my first reaction to that

was next

meaning that it's such a nonstarter for

a national political

campaign that it would make him

irrelevant as a candidate that it would

it would be such a um such a provocative

stand that he would not really be a

credible candidate for president and

then I saw that most of the most of the

Democrats have to agree with it or at

least AG agree with looking into it or

agree to try to make something happen

there and I thought to myself the the

problem of them being too

woke is is really displayed in this

issue because I don't know that any

Democratic candidate could win the

nomination coming out against that it

would be better if it had never been

mentioned in terms of Politics as soon

as the first candidate candidate gets

serious about it and that was Booker so

now that Booker has gotten serious about

it the other candidates have to answer

to it they have to answer a yes no

question are you for or against it I

don't think Trump will have trouble with

the question but the Democrats can have

real trouble because if they say no they

can't get the nomination and if they say

yes they can't get elected president so

Corey Booker has set up an almost compl

complete um

trap making it impossible for any

Democrat to get elected Am I Wrong Am I

Wrong that you could not get the

nomination now unless you come out in

favor of reparations because you

wouldn't be woke enough if you didn't

and if you do and you get the

nomination Trump is going to slaughter

you just Slaughter it is not even going

to be

close now there's one thing that um I

don't think we've seen

yet there's something we haven't seen

yet but if Trump ends up running against

reparations you're going to see it and

it's going to look like

this successful black people and even

maybe some who are not successful yet

are going to come out and say F that you

give us reparations and it's going to

make us look like second class citizens

there there will be black

people very aggressively coming out

against this idea because it's going to

make

them um it's going to put a Target on

their back it's going to make them seem

like less than regular citizens so I

think you're going to see the

reparations things is a double-edged

sword on on an intellectual uh let's say

on a scholarly level you can make a case

for it you know we're we're all familiar

with what the argument is that the uh

the African-American population of the

country has such a disadvantage coming

from that Legacy that maybe the country

owes some kind of an

evening eventually somebody's going to

say um let's let's be scientific about

this if the if the argument is God can I

even say this without losing everything

I have

this is one of those questions you have

to stop and ask yourself when you talk

in

public what I'm going to say is Innocent

but how easily it could be taken out of

context

uh maybe

not

yeah maybe not may maybe I will save

myself for a better fight okay um but

we'll maybe we'll Circle back to that

another

day oh no screw

I'm just going to say it

[Laughter]

anyway if the reparations argument gets

serious somebody's going to say what is

your reference point in other words what

is your reference point for saying

here's where the um the American

africanamerican Community is and and

what are you comparing it

to when we get to that question of who

are you comparing it to

things are going to get

ugly because somebody sooner or later

somebody's going to

say how would you be doing if you had

never come to this country by force and

they're going to say I'm not saying this

let let me let me clarify this is not my

opinion somebody's going to say how

would you have done if you would not

come to this country by force as slaves

and the they're going to say should we

compare you to the people who didn't

come is that the right

comparison because if you compare them

to say an average African citizen are

they doing better than the average

African citizen or

worse now do you hear do you feel how

ugly that is like that point that's an

ugly point but somebody's going to say

it and then that argument is going to

get really racist and really bad

because the the reparations thing and by

the way um I I have written I I have

personally

written back in 2016 I think not that

long ago that we should consider

reparations so just to be

clear I have come out saying we should

seriously think about a way to do this

because there's a bad way to do it and

there's a good way now I'm going to

suggest a way that avoids that ugly

problem I just

mentioned the the good way to do it is

what I'm I'm going to call it the hawk

and

Nome uh approach and I'll give him

credit for this uh Hawk as you know had

been I'm not I think he's still

associated with black lives matter of

New York and his idea was that any any

policy you do for the country that helps

the African-American part of the

population ends up helping

everybody and and it's one of those

points that that you have to think about

for a while to see that there's actually

some depth to the point that even if

you're thinking about helping the

African-American Community there's

nothing you can do in a rule of laws

that wouldn't also help everybody who's

in a similar situation meaning anybody

who's got an economic disadvantage for

example

so if we came up with let's say

reparations is just prioritizing

education at the top free education so

let let me say this let's say Bernie

Sanders I'll give Bernie some uh some

free advice if Bernie Sanders

says let's make education

free as a as a response to reparations

it's not reparations because it would be

free for everybody college and and let's

say trade trade training so any kind of

training for an adult education an

adult um skill set any kind of training

would be free at least as a goal if

you're Burnie let's say you're burning

and you're saying this and you say that

this is our way to

address a

reparations without making it unfair to

the uh rest of the PO population who did

not get any advantages from from the

legacy of slavery so if you if you

framed it that way you would simply have

taken a whole bunch of priorities and

you say what what's what's our top

priority free health care free education

you know um higher minimum wage what's

our

priority and you just say because of

reparations we'll make our top priority

education because that has a societal

benefit but it has an unusually good

benefit for anybody who's at the lowest

part of the economic um

situation all

right so I'm not saying that would be

necessarily the best idea in the world

but what I'm saying is that when you

talk about reparations it could be a

really wide conversation and there might

actually be a way to do it that even

that everybody in the country says huh

because remember there's there's always

a second benefit to anything that you

call reparations that people say is a

good idea the second benefit is the

psychological benefit uh I would argue

that one of the great powers of this

country is a rule of law treating

everybody equally as best we can you

know we we have to tweak this every

generation you know the laws got to get

tweaked to to make sure that we're still

staying on our on our

brand but one of the great things this

country did was brand itself as a

Melting

Pot so when it when when America branded

itself as a Melting Pot and started to

socialize the children with that

term Generations grew up saying that one

of our powers you know one of the powers

of being an American is that we can

absorb different cultures and turn that

into

Power the United States probably more

than any country yeah I'm not a

historian there may be other examples

where this has worked but I would argue

that the United States um as a as a

manufactured country meaning you know

we're we're created by people coming in

from lots of different places we're you

know mostly a manufactured

country uh ancient Rome somebody says

there might be another example of this

but probably nobody at least in the

modern times has done a better job of

turning what could be a problem which is

all kinds of different people trying to

live together naturally that would be a

problem right you would expect but we've

somehow

cleverly managed to turn that into a

strength and I think that that's

legitimate as many problems as you get

from having different types of people

and those are real those are real

problems when you have different types

of people living in the same place I

think we've legitimately turned it into

a strength I think that's real and it's

amazing and it's a it's a psychological

invention it's a psychological invention

as powerful as you know the steam engine

it was that powerful for for creating

the America that we have

so if you have a little bit of a let's

say a defect in your invention and I'm

going to say the invention is the

psychological invention that the that

America is a Melting Pot and the idea

that we do that well and we can convert

that into strength that's the invention

and we've had that invention guiding us

for for Generations but it's a little

bit defective because there's still this

problem with our invention

that the legacy of slavery is making

people uncomfortable in different ways

so if we could fix just that little

tweak with our great invention of the

Melting Pot you know mental construct if

we could do that at the same time that

we're getting people better

education maybe that's a maybe that's a

win who knows all right let's talk about

uh I want to

do since I've it's a slow news day so

I'm going to do something for fun I

promised you when I had my other

technology that today I was going to do

you a

demonstration of cognitive

dissonance I'm going to plug in my other

headphone and we're going to do

that all right all right assuming that

you can hear me

I'm going to take some

calls but I'm going to take some calls

from people who want to tell me that

uranium

one was a big problem for the country

all right so I so the only topic I'm

going to take is somebody who wants to

tell me that the uranium one situation

was a big problem and Hillary Clinton

should go to jail for it or whether or

not she goes to jail it doesn't matter

but that you think it was big Scandal

and a big problem so anybody who thinks

that that's the only the only topic I'm

taking and I will take some guest

callers and we'll see and I'll I'll make

the call quick if you only wanted to

talk about something else so Hello

Alex hey are you here to talk about

uranium one he sure am uh do you think

uranium one was a big problem affects

the United States in a strategic

way I think it is a problem um legally

the way that has been handled I think

that it was swept under the rug oh hold

on that that's uh that I will I will

accept that there are some legal

questions there but that's not the

interesting part do you have would you

say that beyond the fact there are some

legal

questions does it have an effect on the

Readiness of the United States the the

Strategic strength of the United States

or in any way that's I was going next is

that I think that it may have only if it

had been uncovered we would have known

but we are unable to see because none of

the information has really ever come out

other than little tidbits here and there

that were reported because media mostly

has been just you know CNN and all right

so aside aside from the legal part which

is

important what are you worried that

there's a strategic thing that that we

lost because we sold that those rights

are you wor you worried that we're worse

off as a country I I would have no idea

to that information like I wouldn't know

but I'm not

concerned uh that's fair you have a

reasonable view but um I'm G to take

another caller I want to get I I want to

get somebody who's going to argue that

it

matters all right let's see if Doug this

looks like a troll possibly a troll

because he's using my own character as

his

uh

icon caller can you hear me he you hi

are you here to talk about uranium one

yes I am do you think that the United

States was weakened or lost anything by

the uranium one deal uh I believe that's

possible if uh things I've heard are

true I don't know that they're true I

have no way to confirm it but what if

what I heard is true then yes I believe

so and what would be an example of

something you heard that if it were true

would be bad for the country for the

uranium one deal uh what I believe I

read was that the uranium going through

Russia was being processed out to Iran

for their program uh which would of

course be a huge problem for

us okay I haven't heard any of that

um uh I have heard that the uh the stuff

from the United States couldn't be

released from the United States

without uh official permission so for

example uh another country couldn't buy

it if they wanted to it would have to be

sold inside the United States but I'm

not sure about that that's one all right

let me let me take another caller I want

I'm looking I'm looking for somebody who

is really who really buys into the whole

story let's say

Joe all right firus Joe coming at you

Joe good how are you do you have a

uranium one opinion uh yes uh I do I

don't know if it's going to be able to

Trump what you're about to lay down but

um basically with uranium one what the

issue I I think would be other than

potential corruption in the future as

far as what other countries uh think

that they're going to get from us as

well but the crossover

of the of the crossover of of the

nuclear going around to different

countries that if you know as the media

says Russia is their enemy then it's

sort of odd that we're you know in bed

in a situation where we're getting

uranium trading it to to different

places um doing it in a way that is um I

guess National Security wise the biggest

biggest uh danger would be the fact

about how they're actually transferring

it because okay uh do do you know that

the uranium is a product on the open

market and that pretty much anybody can

buyer from one of the countries that

sells it I did not know that yeah so um

what I was hoping to get here is

apparently most of you are too smart or

or you know there was a trap I was

trying to see if anybody would come here

and say that Russia got 20% of our

critical uranium resources oh no because

that's that's sort of the story you hear

from some pundits and that that by

itself is the problem the problem is

that this is a valuable National

resource and that we're giving it to our

you know potential Nemesis uh Russia um

but it sounds like everybody here is too

smart for that so so thanks Joe and I I

will end my experiment there all right

what I expected was that some of you

would come on here and say no we're

giving away our critical resource and

then I was going to tell you that your

critical resource um is 6% of domestic

production six it's 6% of domestic

production and you can buy it anywhere

you can buy it from Canada you can get

your uranium from um Australia now you

might say to yourself well wait a minute

wouldn't it be better to have it than to

have to go buy it and the answer is

either way you have to buy it just the

fact that the mine is in the United

States doesn't make it free there's some

company that owns the mine you can go to

that company and you can buy it you can

still go to that company and buy it just

because Russia has an interest in a mine

that's located in the United States that

doesn't make it

Russia not really I mean if we got in a

war with Russia would Russia still be

able to take their you know their

uranium out of their mind that's located

in the United States I don't think so so

we still have control over it we can buy

it on the open market uranium one was

never a real problem except that there

might have been some Clinton you know

quid pro quo there that we'll never

we'll never identify

anyway yeah I thought this would be

interesting because I thought some of

you would be hypnotized by the story

and uh but apparently you're not you're

you're all Way Beyond that and that's

good all right uh did Hillary receive a

dollar from this transaction well some

of the accusation is that uh Bill

Clinton got half a million dollars for

speaking in Russia now you'd have to

know how different is half a million

dollars from what he normally

earned and it might not be that that was

too far man his market price I'd have to

see that but that's not an Evidence so

anyway uh I will end here and I'll talk

to you later