Episode 832 Scott Adams - Why Bloomberg Won the Debate, Why Bernie is Mortally Wounded, Coronavirus
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Coronavirus: is $2.5 billion or $8.5 billion enough? Debate Democrats tearing each other apart Two groups who will determine our next President Why Mike Bloomberg won the debate Reviewing the debate candidates ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays I use donations to pay for the daily conversions of the original Periscope videos into Youtube and podcast form, and to improve my production quality and search results over time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please subscribe to my channel…it REALLY helps. Like my video? Hate my video? Let me know, VOTE! Please leave a comment, let me know how I'm doing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for a coffee with Scott Adams, and you came to the right place. Chances are you came prepared. You might have everything you need. The rest of you better hurry up and grab what
View segment →you need. And what you need is, well, a cup or a mug or a glass, a tankard, a chalice or a stein, a canteen, a jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes abso…
View segment →are enjoying this live stream simultaneously. Well, we've got some fun news. Now it's the good kind. Well, except for the coronavirus. That's not very good. But there's funny news, and when the news is funny it makes me happy. So let's talk about some of the funny news. Well, I guess this first pa…
View segment →do you still think we're over-prepared? Well 8.5 might be over-preparing and I prefer it. So that's my take on that. I think Schumer wins this round politically even if the 8.5 is unnecessary. Here's a positive thought. Maybe some of you won't think this is a positive thought but I'm going to frame…
View segment →ral process. All right, so that's just an interesting thing to think about. I've been saying this for a while. Candace Owens says it better. But I think that Republicans are natural allies with the African American community. They're the most naturally compatible group. Now yeah, yeah, I get it. Th…
View segment →lic gatherings for a few weeks. I think that's likely. But we're not going to die. Most of us. Some of us will. Did you see the — I shouldn't laugh about this but the Iranian politician who is in charge of the coronavirus response and apparently got the coronavirus. And the reason everybody knew ab…
View segment →out that. I mean I don't know what the odds are. Probably 5 percent but it's out there. All right, that's all I've got for now. I will talk to you later.
View segment →Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for a coffee with Scott Adams, and you came to the right place. Chances are you came prepared. You might have everything you need. The rest of you better hurry up and grab what you need. And what you need is, well, a cup or a mug or a glass, a tankard, a chalice or a stein, a canteen, a jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes absolutely everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. You're about to experience it. Go ahead. And with that sip, feel yourself connected to people all over the world who are enjoying this live stream simultaneously.
Well, we've got some fun news. Now it's the good kind. Well, except for the coronavirus. That's not very good. But there's funny news, and when the news is funny it makes me happy. So let's talk about some of the funny news.
Well, I guess this first part is not too funny, but I started prepping for the coronavirus. Now I don't want to panic anybody, but there are a number of people, especially on Twitter — Marc Lipsitch being one of the leaders among them — saying maybe you should just be ready because our supply lines and a lot of our economic connecting tissue is sort of falling apart quickly. Now I don't think it's going to be a long-term problem. I think that we'll get through it. We'll be fine, right? Most of us. Well, some people will no doubt die, but probably not more than will die on bicycles this weekend, etc. So I think the United States is going to do a capable job of keeping the damage to the lowest level it can be kept to. So I have some confidence. But there may be a period where our government says, "Hey people, can you just stay home for two weeks?" So I've got enough stuff in that I'm not going to, you know, none of us will starve to death if it has to happen. I'll probably put an NRA sticker on the door just in case and just see, you know, how irrational all of this is.
A lot of people, including me, bought a lot of bottled water. Why do I need bottled water for a virus outbreak? Let me think about it. It's not like the virus is coming through the faucet, and it's not like the water company is going to stop sending me water because they've got a fever. I have no idea why I'm prepping and stockpiling water, but I saw other people doing it and I thought, well, I don't want to be the idiot who has no water. So it makes no sense at all, but I did it anyway. So you might want to think the same way.
Apparently the Rasmussen poll is showing that Trump has reached a new all-time high in approval. Now I know, I know, it's the Rasmussen poll and it's friendlier to Trump than others, but if this one is up, the others are probably up from whatever base they were as well. So I think he's like five points higher than Obama was at the same point. And so I ask yourself, what is it that's making the president's numbers go up? I think it's probably a bunch of stuff, but very near the top of the list of what is making Trump look good is the more we see the Democrats. And I know that sounds like a hugely partisan thing to say, but I think Democrats would agree, right? Just objectively speaking, I would say that even Democrats are looking at their own best candidates and saying to themselves, seriously? There are a lot of Democrats. There are millions of us. And that was our best group right there? That's the best they can do?
Now because they're tearing each other apart, the president doesn't even need to do much but, you know, lob a grenade into the mess every now and then just for fun. So the Democrats are doing a good job of tearing each other apart, which is making them all look kind of bad at the moment compared to whatever you thought they looked like a month ago. It's just part of the process. So the president being somewhat above the fray at the moment, they're sort of turning their fire on each other. It makes the contrast a little bit better. So he just looks good because they're making each other look bad.
But there's some other things happening that are helping the president, and really a lot of stuff going his way. Now his trip to India — did you see some of the footage of the outdoor scenes in India where the president was? I looked at it and I said to myself, is this a really foggy day or is this major city in India so polluted that you can't see a hundred feet? And I wasn't sure at first because I thought, well, it might have been fog. I don't know. But then I saw another article with another picture that looked similar and it talked about how bad the pollution was. And I thought to myself, holy hell. Seriously? You have that many people living in those conditions that literally can't breathe the air?
And when you see our president go over there you say to yourself, well, there's something that the United States is doing very right compared to that. Because remember, they are a highly educated, advanced, democratic society. You know, they have all of the assets that we have and more in some cases, certainly people. But they're not doing it right. I mean they've created an environment that's killing them just by existing. And yeah, in this subtle way you say to yourself, my God, look outside. I'm looking at my window right now. It doesn't look like that. So whatever the United States is doing is way better than that. And the president just irrationally gets some credit for that because you associate him with the better result.
So I think the whole India trip has been really positive for the president. Of course he got a hero's welcome there. And then everybody looks at it and they say, wait a minute. The Democrats have been telling us that this president is disrespected overseas. But a hundred percent of what we're seeing on this India trip is exactly the opposite. So clearly it has to do with, you know, some people, some situations, they don't like him. But that would be the same everywhere. We've never had a president who was equally liked everywhere in the world. So I think the foreign trips always work in the president's favor because he gets a hero's welcome and that just doesn't match what people are saying about him in the way you would be accepted overseas.
All right, so there's that going on. I understand this was kind of weird. I saw Jake Tapper tweet a Fox report story, which by itself was weird. So how often do you see CNN employees retweet content from Fox? I feel like there's something going on, like some kind of rebellion among the staff at CNN. Like I don't have evidence of it, but it's sometimes you can smell things before you can see them. And I feel like the Democrats are feeling, you know, as they watch the Democratic candidates falling apart in front of them, I think they're feeling it's getting harder and harder to take a side against Trump. So I think this is just speculation and I can't — this is really as much a gut feeling as anything else. I think you might see some kind of evolution happening at CNN where you're going to see a little more balance in the reporting, you know, a little less anti-Trump, a little bit more let's talk about what works and what doesn't work. I think, just a guess, but look for that anyway.
Anyway, what Jake tweeted was that Schumer — apparently Chuck Schumer is trying to get way more money to battle the coronavirus. I guess the Trump administration asked for 2.5 billion, which sounds like a lot, and then Schumer came in and asked for 8.5 billion, which is a lot more. Now how much do we need? What's the right number, citizen voter? What's the right number? Is 2.5 the right number? Is it all we need? Or is 8.5 the right number?
Well here's the clever part, and credit to Schumer. You don't know. I have no idea. Could we spend 8.5 billion quickly enough? Because whatever this coronavirus does to us, it's all going to happen in a year, right? I mean whatever happens is going to take about a year. Could we spend 8.5 billion in a year? I don't know. It could be that that's a complete waste of money. But politically, how does it make you feel? Well I feel a lot more comfortable if the government says let's try 8.5. I feel way more comfortable if the government says some form of this. And by the way, I think if I'm being objective, I think Trump is blowing it on his handling of the coronavirus. I think he's blowing it.
Now I'm not the one who's going to criticize the details, meaning I can't tell: Does it matter that the head of the CDC got fired two years ago and budget cuts? I don't know. Does it matter? Because it probably doesn't, but might. Who knows? I'm not the guy who can argue the details because the thing that you never know is if there had been a different president in the same circumstances, would that different president have done something differently that would have gotten a better result? We'll never know because there's no test. All we know is what one president did. So I can't really intellectually honestly criticize or compliment anything the Trump administration does on this unless it's so amazing or so egregious that it's just obvious it's a mistake. But anything in that middle zone of well we got this much money, we did these things, we got this result, we wish it had been better — anything in that vast middle zone, if you're being honest, you don't know. You don't know if another president would have done it better or differently.
But one thing we can tell is how they make us feel. And I feel a lot better at 8.5 because it just feels like the government is making more of an effort. I don't know if we could spend 8.5. I really don't. But I'd feel better if the government took the big number instead of the small number. So I think this is a case where Schumer wins politically because he's doing something that makes the country feel better, and Trump is not. Trump is sort of played it off as, you know, we got this, the United States is in good shape. That's half of what I want to hear. And this is why I say Trump is kind of blowing it on this because he's only halfway right.
So the first half I want to hear is that we're very capable, we've got great people, we're funding them, we're taking this very seriously, and we're in good shape. I want to hear that. Here's the other part I want to hear: We're going to over-prepare. We don't know exactly what the right thing to do is. We don't know exactly the right budget. But we're going to err on the side of being over-prepared. I'm telling you now, people, we don't think it's going to be the big problem that people are saying it's going to be. We think we can avoid that. But here's our approach: Whatever we think is the right amount of preparation, we're going to do more than that. We're going to exceed that. That's the best we can do.
Now if my president tells me that, hey, I think we'll be fine and the reason I think we'll be fine is we're going to really over-prepare, I'm feeling good. But if my president says I think we're going to be fine, here's our 2.5 billion we asked for, and then you see Schumer asks for 8.5, do you still think we're over-prepared? Well 8.5 might be over-preparing and I prefer it. So that's my take on that. I think Schumer wins this round politically even if the 8.5 is unnecessary.
Here's a positive thought. Maybe some of you won't think this is a positive thought but I'm going to frame it that way. However many years it was since the Emancipation Proclamation — somebody tell me how many years have passed in the comments — so many years have gone by and then of course Black people have had to fight and fight and fight for civil rights and still fighting, and things are still not exactly as fair and equal as people would like, but a lot closer. But let me give you this thought that's just sort of mind-blowing.
So X years ago was slavery in this country. In 2020, Black voters will pick our president again. Because I think you'd agree that the whatever ninety percent plus percentage of African American citizens who voted for Obama twice were undoubtedly the reason that he was elected twice. I mean all the other variables had to be in place and white people had to vote for him too, but the most determined and variable, the one that I think is by far the most important, was the Black vote. Now fast forward to 2024. Our next president, in my opinion, it's Black citizens. So 156 years ago Black people in this country were literally slaves, and in 156 years it's 2020. They will decide again for the third time — well I guess you could say it would be the fourth time in a row — the Black vote is going to decide who's the president, right? I'm not wrong about that. Because it wouldn't take much for them to overwhelmingly reelect President Trump. It wouldn't take much. Just a little bit of movement toward more Republican voting and it wouldn't take much to keep him from being elected. Simply vote at the same ratio they voted for Obama and that's it. That's the end of it.
Now you can also do the same thing with the female vote. How many years ago was it that women didn't have the vote? All right, but women are now the majority of the country in a system in which the majority vote means something. So women have the power, should they decide to vote as a coherent bloc. There are more of them. Women actually have the power if they decide to use it, you know, in a combined way. And I also believe that women are far more educated at the moment. Is that not true? That there are more women getting into college or women becoming lawyers and doctors, etc., high-paying careers. So I think there are more educated women, and education is highly correlated with percentage of voting, right? The more highly educated, the more likely you're going to show up at the polls. So I'd say that women and Black Americans have effectively the majority control of the electoral process.
All right, so that's just an interesting thing to think about. I've been saying this for a while. Candace Owens says it better. But I think that Republicans are natural allies with the African American community. They're the most naturally compatible group. Now yeah, yeah, I get it. There is some percentage of Republicans who are irredeemable racists. I'm sure some percentage of Democrats are also irredeemable racists. We're not talking about that. You know, we're not talking about them. But just your general Republican is a natural ally to the Black community. You can see this in the results that the president's got: everything from prison reform to special economic zones to increased funding for historically Black colleges and, you know, low unemployment rate that he crows about all the time.
But here's the thing. Don't you think that open borders could be considered the opposite of reparations? Because if you are a Black citizen in this country, well how do you feel about opening the border and letting people in who of course never suffered from slavery in this country, never benefited from it? They're just sort of another group. But they are having a big impact on your tax base, your economic situation. How can you have open borders and also be in favor of reparations? Because what open borders feels like the opposite. Somebody says, "A stretch." Is it a stretch if Republicans are trying to keep the border tight and explicitly for the benefit of Americans and explicitly for the benefit of Americans at the lower end of the economic spectrum? I don't know. It just looks like Republicans are the natural allies.
And the other thing that Republicans have that the Black community shares is they're pretty religious. So Republicans are pretty religious. The Black community is very religious. And Republicans have a path to success: Follow these laws, get a job, obey the Constitution. Boom, you're good with us. Us being Republicans. I'm not a Republican but playing the part of a Republican for this point.
All right, so I think that's the biggest story as the Black vote and will continue to be through 2020.
Let's talk about the debate. How everybody did. In my opinion, Mike Bloomberg won the debate and he won it hard. Now I don't — you know, I tried to ignore all the other pundits before I formed my own opinion because it's easy to be influenced. If you hear three people in a row say, you know, X person won, you start thinking all the experts think X person won. So I intentionally avoided other people's commentary. Now other people are not saying Bloomberg won. They are saying he did better. All right, so here's my argument for why Bloomberg won. Part of it is that the others lost. Bloomberg did a little bit better and everybody else didn't. So direction matters. You know, as soon as the public or the pundits sniff any kind of directional change that makes more difference than where you're at because people are looking at the direction.
So let me go through the other candidates' performance and then I'll talk about why Bloomberg won. First of all, you can't underestimate how diabolical President Trump's nicknames really are. When he named Joe Biden Sleepy Joe, as soon as he named him Sleepy Joe — I'm sure I said this in public more than once — I said he's going to cause Biden to have to overcompensate and to look less sleepy. And that takes you out of your comfort zone because most people are trying to operate within their personality, to operate the way they always have and they're comfortable. You know, this is who I am. This is what I do. As soon as the president says that, that little comfort zone you were in — Joe Biden makes you look sleepy. What does that cause Joe Biden to need to do? He needs to act not sleepy.
Now how is he doing it? Apparently he is substituting good arguments with angry furrowed brows. Have you noticed that the less that Joe Biden says, the more angrily he says it? So have you noticed that when Joe Biden doesn't have a good point he just says it more angrily? So I wonder, like, you know, Joe Biden ordering coffee in Starbucks. You could see him in there. "Oh Mr. Biden, you know, what can I get for you today?" And Joe Biden would be like, "I want a grande grande latte. Leave room for milk." From Luke. And then he would order his coffee and you'd say, "Joe Biden, I don't know why you're so angry and why are your eyebrows doing that? Like do you need a shot of Botox there? That looks really painful. Do you have a headache afterwards for that eyebrow thing you're doing? I'm so angry."
Now to me it seems obvious that he's lost a step, several steps, and that he's compensating for being sleepy by being extra angry. So he is not acting sleepy, right? If he did act sleepy he'd be playing into Trump's trap. So he's left his comfort zone to act really crazy and angry and it just — people know there's something wrong. I mean when you watch Biden last night, did it look like he was a forceful in-command alpha leader, which I think is what he was going for, or did he look a little deranged in a way that older people sometimes can be? Be honest. He looked — he just didn't look right. I mean if you're being honest.
Now what did the president tweet about that? The funniest president in the world. I wrote it down because you have to get the exact wording. So one of the secrets of humor is simplification and this is one of the secrets that Trump gets right. Now of course people who are not so much in the know long ago, people stopped doing this, but he would be teased for keeping things so simple. But that's also the secret to his humor. Simplicity and humor are almost the same thing. There's just a little bit of difference. And once you understand that then it allows you that formula to be funny. So look at his simplicity and this and also he likes to make things visual. So see how visual this is and how simple it is and that's why it's so funny.
So he tweets this: "Crazy chaotic Democratic debate last night. Fake news said Biden did well even though he said half of our population was shot to death." Which he actually said. So Biden incorrectly said that 150 million people had been killed by handguns. That's about half of the population of the United States. So the president says fake news said Biden did well even though he said half of our population was shot to death. Come on, that's funny.
And then the president continues in his tweet: "Would be over for most. Mini Mike was weak and unsteady but helped greatly by his many commercials which are not supposed to be allowed." Now that's true. The commercials that ran during the presidential debate were Mike Bloomberg commercials. And you know I was watching on DVR and I would get to the commercial and I started to skip it and I thought, I might replay this. How is that fair? How in the world does Mike Bloomberg get to run Mike Bloomberg commercials during the debate? How in the world is that legal? And if it's legal, why is he the only one doing it? Does nobody else have any money? Because if I were going to run an ad on TV, can you think of a better time to do it? What would be the best time to run an ad? You know, so when I say that Mike Bloomberg won the debate, if you were watching the debate and you saw that only one candidate ran a commercial in the debate and it seemed to him it looks like he ran all of them, what would you say to yourself? I would say there seems to be only one smart, well-funded person on that stage because they all should have done that if that's something you can do. And apparently it is. So why was Bloomberg the only one? It made the others look like idiots honestly or underfunded, which would look like a loser as well. So that's just one of the reasons that Bloomberg won, is that he was the only one doing the obvious smarter thing: run an ad during the debate.
Let's talk more about Biden. So Ronny Jackson, the ex-doctor to the president, ex-doctor to President Trump, said that Biden might need that cognitive test that he gave the president and the president scored well. And I like that Ronny Jackson is going full political. I don't know if he's ever done that before except for supporting the president that you work for. But that's pretty damning when a guy who was the doctor for a president says I think this candidate needs to take that cognitive test. Okay, it's not just you and I. You know, we're not the only ones seeing something. There's something wrong there.
All right, so I think Biden is done. It's a matter of time. So that's one reason that Bloomberg won, right? So Bloomberg wins when the people competing against him are not doing better or especially if they're doing worse.
Let's talk about the others. I thought Elizabeth Warren was boring, lawyerly, unpleasant, and a liar. That's how she came across to me. Did anybody else see it differently? Now you're probably thinking, oh Scott, you like President Trump so you're just saying that Democrats are liars. But wait for it. What did Bloomberg lie about yesterday? What did Bloomberg lie about during the debate? Or even if you like, what did Bloomberg lie about recently? Doesn't even have to be last night. You know what the answer is? Nothing. Nothing, right? Can you think of anything? I can't think of anything that Bloomberg lied about. Can you? And he's competing against somebody who stood right next to him and lied and he called her out for being inaccurate and stuff. But I think yeah, I think she seemed — she didn't have the charisma. She didn't come across as likable. And I'm very careful about using that word because I know there's a gender element to that. You know, you don't want to be the one who says that a woman was unlikable in a group of men competing for the top office. But I'm going to soften that this way. Bernie is pretty unlikable to me, right? So I'm not saying this just about Elizabeth Warren. I find Bernie — there's stuff I like about him, definitely some character elements I like about Bernie. But I don't like listening to him. He comes across as an angry old man, get off my lawn. So I would equate them as fairly similarly unlikable. So that I can take the gender part off of that.
All right, who else? I think that Pete Buttigieg had a really bad night because he kept trying to take an alpha kind of control over the debate because it was kind of a free-for-all. And you saw that Biden didn't do a good job except complaining because he wasn't getting much time, which was not really very leaderly. It was more like an old man complaining because somebody stole his mail. But Buttigieg kept trying to talk over his competitors and failing. So he was sort of under-talked. You know, somebody else would sort of be commanding your attention but you'd hear little Pete Buttigieg's voice maybe a minute in. And here's the reason that Buttigieg is done. The moment you realize that Pete Buttigieg is just the poor man's Mike Bloomberg, there's no reason for him, right? If you wanted a mayor to be your president, somebody with experience as a mayor, do you want the mayor of the middle-sized town or city or would you want a mayor who ran New York City that's bigger than most or a lot of countries? No competition, right? If you wanted somebody who only had experience as a mayor, you're not going to pick the guy from the little city. You're going to pick Bloomberg. Which of them will be better funded? Well obviously Bloomberg. Which of them has more experience? Obviously Bloomberg. Which of them has been successful with working across the aisle? Obviously Bloomberg. So the problem that Pete has is that his natural comparison just changed. Before Bloomberg was actually on the stage, Pete was sort of his own little thing, right? You didn't think anybody was like him. He was just all by himself. It's like he had his own little channel there for a while. But the moment you had Bloomberg you got two mayors and one of them's a lot more capable and successful and has a record and ran a bigger thing. It's not even close. So I think Pete disappeared. He looked like sort of a beta personality on that stage. Could be him. I'm going to use beta compared to Elizabeth Warren even. So it's not a gender thing as well. You know, he looked less strong than Elizabeth Warren did by comparison. So I think he's going to fade.
Then let's talk about Bernie. Bernie has two fatal wounds, two mortal wounds. So Bernie basically is a dead man walking. He might make it to the nomination. He might limp to the nomination. But he has two fatal flaws. One is that I think the Democrats did a really good job of making the case — and several of them did — that a Bernie candidacy would cost them the House or could be a fatal mistake that would allow another four years of Trump appointing judges and it would turn over the House and it could be a catastrophe. That is a really good point coming from Democrats. That same point, if it came from a Republican, wouldn't have the same kind of firepower. You just say it's just what Republicans say. But when you see a group of Democrats saying the same thing about one of their own, one of our own, you realize that your plan is going to ruin everything. I mean it's the riskiest thing we can ever do. That's the fatal flaw. There's nothing Bernie can do to fix that. So but he might have enough already momentum to limp to the nomination.
The other thing that's a fatal flaw is when he was challenged about his programs and how he would pay for them, each time he's challenged by, let's say by Democrats again, it's far more impactful. When he's challenged by his own team, if a Republican challenged him you just say hey your numbers are stupid too. You know, it's just political. But when his own team challenges some of his numbers not adding up, that's really powerful. And I keep waiting for Bernie to improve how he's explaining himself and he's not. He doesn't seem to have the capability to explain economic stuff in a persuasive, believable way. So he starts waving his arms and getting angry and throwing out numbers. And when he does that, waving his arms and throwing out numbers that don't really seem to answer the question of how could we afford all this, he's just throwing data at you. He feels like more of a con man. So I'm slowly feeling his brand being shifted by his opponents from this ethical guy who's got a movement to something more like a con man who knows his numbers don't add up. Because he now acts like someone who knows it's not real, right? Because he does such a bad job of defending the math of it that it doesn't look like he even believes it. So I think those are his two fatal flaws.
Who else was there? Klobuchar. You know, I saw some people saying she did a good job. I would also say that if you were going to grade her on hitting all her notes, saying the right things, having sensible sounding policies, sounding serious, sounding like she had a good track record, I would say if you were doing the checklist of a debate it looked really good. Check, check, check, check, check for Klobuchar. But here's the thing. I thought she disappeared on the stage. That was just my impression. In other words, when you put her up there with those other people there's something about her persona that just sort of shrinks. It could be height. Could be a gender thing but I don't think so because Elizabeth Warren did not shrink. So clearly there's — and I think if you would put Hillary Clinton on the stage I don't think she would have shrunk. But there was something about the debate that I couldn't get too interested in what she was saying even though it all made sense. Yeah, there's something, a lack of charisma here that obviously hasn't hurt her as a senator. She's been very successful. But I'm not sure the public can be happy with someone who is just good at their job. Klobuchar comes across as a comfortable pair of shoes. Meaning I don't have anything to complain about from Klobuchar. Yeah, if you were to say to me, Scott, name her biggest negative, I'd say oh well that's weird. I can't think of one. She doesn't really have one. She's actually a really, really strong candidate. But I don't know that her charisma is selling to her own side. There's something a little bland about her. Don't know what it is. So I don't think she's a threat to make a move in the pack.
Who was the other notable person? Was it Steyer? I can't get too serious about Steyer because I don't think his own side is serious about it. If Steyer did unusually well on Super Tuesday or something I guess I would reassess. But I don't think he did anything to move up to the top three.
All right, so given that the other people looked worse, that either looked fatal or they disappeared, here's what I felt about Bloomberg. You saw him try to make some jokes that completely didn't work, right? Did you see that? So Bloomberg tried to be funny. He tried to be self-deprecating. He made a joke about a naked cowboy in New York that nobody understood unless they're from New York. In other words that's a New York reference, totally out of place. He joked that he did so well in the last debate. So he was being self-deprecating but it didn't really come across because he didn't deliver it well.
Here was my net impression. I kind of liked him more. I don't know if you had that impression but he looked like a nerd who meant well. That is very effective. He's just not good at that stuff and I don't have a problem with that. I don't have any problem with somebody who knows they're a nerd. They know they're not good at that stuff. Yeah, he took a shot at it. Was he embarrassed? Apparently not. I like a guy who'll go out there and fail in public and just say yeah, laugh it off, try it again. So I have to say that Bloomberg looked a little more human.
And this is one of the main things I was looking for, is to see if his age was as much of a negative as you'd expect. He didn't look his age. If you were to compare Bloomberg's mental agility to Joe Biden's it's not even close, right? Bloomberg didn't look like there's anything missing. Now I still think he's too old. I don't think we should be electing leaders above a certain age like he's at. But it doesn't show, so that works to his advantage.
And the other thing that was very strong is he listed off some accomplishments that I wasn't aware of. This sounded pretty solid. He talked about how the school system in New York improved tremendously. He talked about how life expectancy in New York improved while he was mayor and that's pretty good. He talked about — and here's the best part — he made a little bit of news by misspeaking during the debate and he talked about how he helped to fund the campaigns of half of the people who were part of the 40 new people who came into Congress and flipped the House so that Nancy Pelosi could be in charge and, as he put it, put a control on the president. So Bloomberg was taking credit for flipping the House and already putting control on Trump. But he misspoke and he started to say that he bought it.
Now here's the thing. Of course the gotcha part of the press: "You said bought it. Are you trying to buy our democracy?" But here's the thing. He told you. He's not hiding it. He bragged about it. He said I just bought you the House and I can buy the Senate basically. He didn't say that but the idea is he can buy you what you want. Do you know how powerful that is? Bloomberg just said not only can I buy you what you want with me as president, I proved it. I bought you what you want in the House. It worked. And now I'm buying you what you want for the presidency, which is a victory over Trump. I thought that was the strongest part of his debate because it was something I didn't know that completely changed how I saw it. Because there's something very not evil about the transparency he's bringing to the process. He's telling you exactly what he's doing and then he does it in front of you. He does it legally and he's not making any excuses for it. He's saying I bought the House. I'm going to try to buy the election for you.
Now here's the thing. Remember I said he didn't lie about anything that I can think of. So you automatically give him a little more credibility because he's not lying about stuff. But he's got some negatives. Let's talk about them. And I'm going to talk about how he hasn't quite done a good job talking about his NDAs and talking about stop-and-frisk. I'm going to tell you how he could do it better. I'm going to give us some suggestions.
So let's talk about stop-and-frisk first. Here's how. Let's say you're the mayor. So let's say you're Bloomberg and you inherited this program but you ran it way too long. He did shut it down by 95 percent but he admits he ran it too long. So he hasn't done a good job of explaining himself yet but he could. And so let me give you an example of how I would do it. The biggest thing that people care about is your intentions and he doesn't speak to that directly and he should. Because remember the intention of stop-and-frisk was a good one and I don't think anybody even disagrees with that. So here's how I would say it and it'd be words to this effect.
So let's say I'm Mike Bloomberg and somebody says, hey you, you ran that stop-and-frisk thing and that was very racist. What do you say? I would say this: The intention of stop-and-frisk was to take sides with the women and the children and the elderly in high-crime neighborhoods. If you think about it, stop-and-frisk was far more sexist and ageist than it was racist. And if you don't see what I just did there I'll come back and explain it. And I would say that most crime victims are minorities and it was a program that started before I was mayor and it started with good intentions. It started to help the minority community where crime was rampant. And I would say if you think it was racist, if you think it was racist I think you're being too kind to it. It was way more than racist. It was sexist because we weren't stopping women and it was ageist. We weren't stopping elderly. We weren't stopping toddlers. It was sexist. It was ageist. But we, the police and the mayor, we don't have a choice of where the crime is. It's not up to us who commits crimes and it's not up to us where they commit them. It's our job as the police force, as the mayor, to put law enforcement where there's the most crime. That's what we did. And we absolutely targeted young men in those areas where there were high crime. Now was that right? Well it was an experiment and I would say it was an experiment that did not work. The blind spot we had is how it would feel to the community. It feels racist and that was a far bigger cost than anybody hoped. There was nobody who was behind stop-and-frisk who had the intention to make things worse for the community. But there was a blind spot that it came across as racist. And in retrospect I think we would all agree it had more impact on one group than another. That's racist by definition. But the intention was positive. It was absolutely sexist because we were targeting men. It was absolutely ageist because we were targeting young men. And we're targeting young men who were not dressed for church if you know what I mean. Now we wouldn't do it again. We learned from it.
Now here's the next part of my persuasion. As mayor I inherited this program and I accept responsibility for not shutting it down sooner. And I would like to promise all of my critics they should — any of my critics ever do anything right in the future I'll be the first one to tell them they should have done it sooner. Because you can't do something that's right soon enough. And so to my critics who say I didn't shut it down soon enough, you're right. You can never be soon enough for something that's the right thing to do. I've apologized for it. I just want you to know the intentions were right. I hope we all learned something from it. It's not something we do again. And the impact was unforgivable.
Is that better? How would you feel about that? Because the key here is that the intentions were good and that you were intending to discriminate but it was against men who were young. Do you know how many people are willing to discriminate against young men? A lot. Doesn't matter what your ethnicity is. Young men do commit a lot of crimes. It's true. I was a young man. I know.
All right, so then the other thing he gets — he hasn't done a good job of is defending his non-disclosure agreements. And apparently he said some offensive things that made people uncomfortable. We don't know the details and he even says he doesn't remember the details and I actually think that might be true. I think he actually doesn't remember what he might have said that would have caused the problem long ago.
Here's how I would have responded to that. Uh-huh, Mayor Bloomberg, you have some NDAs and they were offensive. Now the first thing he did is that he agreed to release the people from their NDAs, which was a total baller move. I gotta say that was a strong play. He just released them and just said if they want to talk to you it's okay with me. They're released. Now I don't know if anybody will because NDAs are to the benefit of both parties, right? The people may not think it's worth it. But I love the fact that he just released them. He didn't even argue about it, right? There was no point in which he pushed back. He looked into it. You released them? Yeah I'd love to know what they say.
But here's how I would respond to that. Mayor Bloomberg, you know what about those bad things you said about women? So I'd say some version of this: I don't recall what I said to offend but let me confess to having an unfiltered sense of humor that can come off as offensive. So the first thing you need to do, just totally own it. I think he does. I think he is totally owning it. But when he said, you know, he could have owned it a little better than to say well your joke was taken wrong. If you say a joke was taken wrong you're putting responsibility on the victim. So I think he did that wrong. He should have been a little more generous about taking it all. And I'll say my sentence again: I don't recall what I said to offend. So he said maybe he was offensive. But let me confess to having an unfiltered sense of humor that can come off as offensive. Now why that's persuasive is that most people believe that they themselves have unfiltered sense of humors. It's very common. So everybody who thinks that of themselves just heard him say that he was like them. Oh yeah, unfiltered sense of humor. Oh yeah I've done that. I've had an unfiltered sense of humor. A little guilty of that. So I get it. And then he admits that it can come off as being offensive.
Here's the second part: I never intend to offend. Intentions are really important. It's something, it's a theme I come back to. People are judging people by their actions and we infer their intentions. Oh he's racist, he's whatever. So you should say directly what your intentions were because that's what people are looking for. And for some reason politicians don't speak that way. They should say my intention is this. If it doesn't work out you know that will change something but the intention is to do this. So I'd say never intended to offend and I apologize unreservedly for any discomfort I caused. So any kind of apology like that is good.
And then here's what I would add. I would say I think society as a whole has gotten smarter about that stuff. And everybody would agree it's like oh yeah society has evolved. And then I would say and I welcome you to judge me by my current behavior. Do you see what I did there? I just basically said we've all evolved so we're all better than we used to be. Judge me by my current behavior. I'm not really the same person that I was 20 years ago. But because guess what? Neither are you. You know none of us are the same people we were 20 years ago. We've all gotten smarter. Judge me by who I am today.
Now imagine if he had said that instead of well some people may have taken my joke wrong, which really did put the blame on the victim if you will.
All right, so I think Bloomberg probably could do a whole lot better fixing the holes he has. I think he's owned it all which is important and he has shown a track record of success. This seems relevant to the presidency. He's already shown that he can buy the presidency.
Now here's the other hidden magic of what Bloomberg is doing. Do you think that if Bernie is the candidate Bloomberg will spend his hundreds of millions to get Democrats elected in Congress? Would he? Because remember Bloomberg thinks that Bernie's policies would be a disaster. So if Bloomberg — if you can imagine a scenario where Bernie gets the nomination Bloomberg might turn off the spigot, right? If I understand Bloomberg's position he thinks that Bernie would be a disaster. So I don't think he's going to vote for more Democrats or help us fund more Democrats to have a stronger position in Congress if that would make Bernie capable of getting what he says he wants.
So the biggest problem that the Democrats have is if they nominate a centrist, even if it's not Bloomberg, they probably still get Bloomberg's money. You know what I mean? But if they nominate I would say either Bernie or maybe Warren I think Bloomberg would turn it off because he doesn't want those policies to become national policy.
So if you take all of the things I've said together, which is Bloomberg did nothing to hurt himself, did a really good job of saying his accomplishments, took full ownership of the things he's criticized for, and I think he did that magnificently in handling those flaws but they're not deadly because he's accepted them fully which really takes the power out of them. And when you add in the power of his money that would not accrue to the Sanders candidacy and you throw in the fact that he doesn't act his age and you throw in the fact that he's got — he had a little more personality but wouldn't you say even on that stage even though he doesn't have the million-wattage personality of a Trump on that stage he had more charisma than most? Wouldn't you say? Let me ask you. I still think he'll be slaughtered by Trump, right? I don't think Trump has any realistic chance of losing unless something new happens between now and election that's unanticipated. Somebody says he's unlikable. I don't know about that. I do not find Bloomberg unlikable. He's not fun but he looks sincere. I don't think he's lied. He's got a track record and he's not acting his age and he's got a kajillion dollars. I think he's the guy to beat right now. So we'll see if the Democrats are clever enough to give him the nomination. I'm not predicting that they will. I'm just saying he's certainly the one who has the commanding advantage right now. It may be too late though.
All right, coronavirus. Yeah I don't know what to believe about this coronavirus. The only thing I'm sure of is that our data is bad. I do think there's a nonzero chance that we citizens will be asked to stay out of public gatherings for a few weeks. I think that's likely. But we're not going to die. Most of us. Some of us will.
Did you see the — I shouldn't laugh about this but the Iranian politician who is in charge of the coronavirus response and apparently got the coronavirus. And the reason everybody knew about it is he was on TV doing an announcement and he was sweating like a pig and he was obviously suffering from it. But the other interesting part is that that politician, at least based on one thing I saw — I can't and I'm not certain this is a fact so fact check me on this — but I believe that politician who has been confirmed to have the coronavirus met with the Ayatollah right before that. I mean I don't know if it was the same day or recently. But think about that. The Ayatollah met personally with this guy who has the coronavirus. The coronavirus isn't deadly to most people but it's pretty dangerous if you're a certain age and the Ayatollah is. There is a nonzero chance that the coronavirus will change the regime in Iran. Think about that. I mean I don't know what the odds are. Probably 5 percent but it's out there.
All right, that's all I've got for now. I will talk to you later.
um hey everybody come on in it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams and you came to the right place chances are you came prepared you might have everything you need the rest of you better hurry up and grab what you need and why you need is well a cup or a mug or a glass a tanker chelators time the canteen Joker flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes absolutely everything better it's called the simultaneous up you're about to experience it go ah and with that sip fill yourself connected to people all over the world who are enjoying this periscope simultaneously well we got some fun news now it's the good kind well except for the corona virus that's not very good but there's funny news and when the news is funny it makes me happy so let's talk about some of the funny news well I guess this first part is not too funny but I started prepping for the corona virus now I don't want to panic anybody but there are a number of people especially on the Twitter Mike sort of itch being one of the leaders among them saying maybe you should just be ready because our supply lines and a lot of our economic connecting tissue is sort of falling apart quickly now I don't think it's going to be a long-term problem I think that will we'll get through it we'll be fine right most of us well some people will no doubt die but probably not more the we'll die on bicycles this weekend etc so I think the United States is going to do a capable job of keeping the damage to to the lowest level it can be kept too so I have some confidence but there may be a period where our government says hey people can you just stay home for two weeks so I got enough stuff in that I'm not going to you know none of us will starve to death if it has to happen I'll probably put a NRA sticker on the door just in case and just just see you know how irrational all of this is a lot of people including me bought a lot of bottled water why do I need bottled water for a virus outbreak let me think about it it's not like the virus is coming through the through by faucet and it's not like the water company is gonna stop sending me water because they've got a fever I have no idea why I'm prepping and stockpiling water but I saw other people doing it and I thought well I don't want to be the idiot who has no water so it makes no sense at all but I did it anyway so you might want to think the same way apparently the Rasmus Rasmussen poll is showing that Trump has reached a new all-time high in approval now I know I know it's the Rasmussen poll and it's friendlier to Trump than others but if this one is up the others are probably up from whatever base they were as well so I think he's he's like five points higher than Obama was at the same point and so I ask yourself what is it that's making the president's numbers go up I think it's probably a bunch of stuff but very near the top of the list of what is making Trump look good is the more we see the Democrats and I know that sounds like a hugely partisan thing to say but I think Democrats would agree right just objectively speaking I would say that even Democrats are looking at their own best candidates and saying to themselves seriously there are a lot of Democrats there are there are millions of us and that was our best group right there that's that's the best they can do now because they're tearing each other apart the president doesn't even need to do much but you know lob a grenade into the mess every now and then just for fun so the Democrats are doing a good job of tearing each other apart which is making them all look kind of bad at the moment compared to whatever you thought they look like a month ago it's just part of the process so the president being somewhat above the fray at the moment they're sort of turning their fire on each other it makes the contrast a little bit better so he just looks good because they're making each other look bad but there's some other things happening that are helping the president and really a lot of stuff going his way now his trip to India did you see some of the footage of the outdoor scenes in India where the president was I looked at it and I said to myself is this a really foggy day or is this major city in India so polluted that you can't see a hundred feet and I wasn't sure the first picture I said because I thought well it might have been fog I don't know but then I saw another article with another picture that looked similar and it talked about how bad the pollution was and I thought to myself holy hell seriously you have that many people living in that conditions that literally can't breathe the air and when you see our president go over there you say to yourself well there's something that the United States is doing very right compared to that because remember there are a highly educated advanced democratic society you know that they have all of the assets that we have and more in some cases certainly people but they're not doing it right I mean they've created an environment that's killing them just by existing and yeah in this subtle way you say to yourself my god look outside I'm looking at my window right now it doesn't look like that so whatever the United States is doing is way better than that and the president just irrationally gets some credit for that because you associated him with with the better result so I think the whole India trip has been really positive for the president of course he got a hero's welcome there and then everybody looks at it and they say wait a minute the Democrats have been telling us that were that this president is disrespected overseas but a hundred percent of what we're seeing on this India trip is exactly the opposite so clearly it has to do with you know some people some situations they don't like him but that would be the same everywhere we've never had a president who was equally liked everywhere in the world so I think the people are the the foreign trips always work in the president's favor because he gets a hero's welcome and that just doesn't match what people are saying about him in the way you would be accepted overseas all right so there's that going on I understand this this was kind of weird I saw a Jake Tapper tweeted a fox report story which by itself was weird so how often do they see it n employees a retweet content from Fox I feel like there's something going on like some kind of rebellion rebellion among the staff at CNN like a I don't have evidence of it but it's sometimes you can smell things before you can see them and I feel like the Democrats are feeling you know as they watch the Democratic candidates falling apart in front of them I think they're feeling it's getting harder and harder to take aside against Trump so I think this is just a speculation and I can't this is really as much a gut feeling as anything else I think you might see some kind of evolution happening and see then where you're gonna see a little more balance in the reporting you know a little less anti-trump a little bit more let's talk about what works and what doesn't work I think just a guess but look for that anyway anyway what Jake tweeted was that Schumer apparently Chuck Schumer is trying to get way more money to battle the corona virus I guess the Trump administration asked for 2.5 billion which sounds like a lot and then Schumer came in and asked for 8.5 billion which is a lot more now how much do we need what's the right number citizen voter what's the right number is 2.5 the right number is it all we need or is 8.5 the right number well here's the clever apartment and credit to Schumer you don't know I have no idea could we spend eight point five billion quickly enough because whatever this coronavirus does to us it's all going to happen in a year right I mean whatever happens is gonna take about a year could we spend eight point five billion in a year I don't know it could be that that's a complete waste of money but politically how does it make you feel well I feel a lot more comfortable if the government says let's let's try eight point five I feel way more comfortable if the government says some form of this and by the way I think if I'm being objective I think Trump is blowing it on his his handling of the corona virus I think he's blowing it now I'm not the one who's going to criticize the details meaning I can't tell does it matter that the endemic I got fired two years ago and budget cuts I don't know does it matter because it probably doesn't but might who knows I'm not the guy who can argue the details because the thing that you never know is if there had been a different president in the same circumstances would that different president have done something differently that would have gotten a better result we'll never know because there's no test all we know is that what one president did so I can't really I can't intellectually honestly criticize or compliment anything the Trump administration does on this unless it's unless it's so amazing or so egregious that it's just obvious it's a mistake but anything in that middle zone of well we got this much money we did these things we got this result we wish had been better anything in that vast middle zone if you're being honest you don't know you don't know if another president would have done it better or differently but one way one thing we can tell is how they make us feel and I feel a lot better at 8.5 because it just feels like the government is you know making more of an effort I don't know if we could spend 8.5 I really don't but I'd feel better if the government took the big number instead of the small number so I think this is a case where Schumer wins politically because he's doing something that makes the country feel better and and Trump is not Trump is sort of played it off as you know we got this the United States is in good shape that's half of what I want to hear and this is why I say Trump is kind of blowing it on this because he's only half way right so the first half I want to hear is that we're very capable we've got great people were funding them we're taking this very seriously and we're a good shape I want to hear that here's the other part I want to hear we're going to over-prepare we're good we don't know exactly what the right thing that to do is we don't know exactly the right budget but we're gonna err on the side of being over-prepared I'm telling you now people we don't think it's going to be the big problem that that people are saying it's going to be we think we can avoid that but here's our approach whatever we think is the right amount of preparation we're going to do more than that we're going to exceed that that's best we can do now if my president tells me that hey I think we'll be fine and the reason I think we'll be fine is we're going to really over prepare they're not feeling good but if my president says I think we're gonna be fine here's our 2.5 million we asked for and then you see Schumer asks for 8.5 do you still think we're over prepared well 8.5 might be over preparing and I prefer it so that's my take on that I think Schumer wins this round politically even if the 8.5 is unnecessary here's a positive thought maybe some of you won't think this is a positive thought but I'm gonna frame it that way however many years it was since the Emancipation Proclamation somebody tell me how many years had spend in the comments so many years have gone by and then of course black people have to fight and fight and fight and civil rights and still fighting and things are still not exactly as fair and equal as people would like it but a lot closer but let me let me give you this thought that's just sort of mind-blowing so X years ago was slavery in this country in 2020 black voters will pick our president again because I think you'd agree that the you know the whatever ninety percent plus percentage of African American citizens who voted for Obama twice were undoubtedly reason that he was elected twice I mean all the other variables had to be in place and white people had to vote for him too but the most determined and variable the one that I think is by far the most important was the black vote now fast-forward to 24 our next president in my opinion it's black citizens so 156 years ago black people in this country were literally slaves and in 156 years it's 2020 they will decide again for the third time in a well I guess you could say it would be the fourth time in a row the black vote kinda is going to decide who's the president right I'm not wrong about that because it wouldn't take much for them to overwhelmingly reelect President Trump it wouldn't take much just a little bit of movement toward more Republican voting and it wouldn't take much to keep him from being elected simply vote at the same ratio they voted for Obama and that's it that's that's the end of it now you can also do the same thing with the female vote how many years ago was it that women didn't have the vote all right but women are now the majority of the country in that in a system in which you know the majority vote means something so women to have the power should they decide to vote as a coherent bloc there are more of them women actually have the power if they decide to use it you know in a combined way and I also believe that women are far more educated at the moment is that not true that there are more women getting into college or women getting you know becoming lawyers and doctors etc high-paying careers so I think there are more educated women and and education is highly correlated with percentage of voting right the more highly educated the more likely you're going to show up at the polls so I'd say that women and black Americans have effectively the majority control of the electoral process all right so that's just a an interesting thing to think about I've been saying this for a while Candis Owen says it better but I think that Republicans are natural allies with the african-american community they're the most naturally compatible group now yeah yeah I get it there is some percentage of Republicans or irredeemable racists I'm sure some percentage of Democrats are also irredeemable racist we're not talking about that you know we're not talking about them but just your general Republican is a natural ally to the black community you can see this in the results that the president's got everything from prison reform to special economic zones to you know increased funding for historically black colleges and you know low unemployment rate that he crows about all the time but here's the thing don't you think that open borders could be considered the opposite of reparations because if you are a black citizen in this country well how do you feel about opening the border and letting people in who of course never suffered from you know slavery in this country never benefited from it they're just sort of you know another group but they are having a big impact on you know your tax base your economic situation isn't how can you have open borders and also be in favor of reparations because what open borders feels like the opposite somebody says a stretch is it a stretch if Republicans are trying to keep border tight and explicitly for the benefit of Americans and explicitly for Benton the benefit of Americans at the lower end of the economic situation I don't know it just looks like Republicans are the natural allies and the other thing that Republicans have that the black community shares is they're pretty religious so Republicans are pretty religious the black community's very religious and Republicans have a a path to success follow these laws you know get a job obey the Constitution boom you're good with us us being Republicans I'm not a Republican but playing the part of a Republican for this point all right so I think that's the biggest story as the black flint and will continue to be through 2020 let's talk about the debate how everybody did in my opinion Mike Bloomberg wanted debate and he won it hard now I don't you know I tried to ignore all the other pundits me before I formed my own opinion because it's easy to be influenced if here the three people in a row say you know X person one you start thinking all experts along three people Senate so I intentionally avoided other people's commentary now other people are not saying Bloomberg what they are saying he did better all right so here's my argument for why Bloomberg one part of it is that the others lost Bloomberg did a little bit better and everybody else didn't so direction matters you know as soon as the public or the pundits sniff any kind of directional change that makes more difference than where you're at because people are looking at the direction so let me go through the the other candidates performance and then I'll talk about why Bloomberg won first of all you can't underestimate how diabolical president Trump's nicknames really are when he named joe biden's sleepy Joe as soon as he named him sleepy Joe I'm sure I said this in public more than once I said he it's gonna cause Biden to have to overcompensate and to look less sleepy and and that takes you out of your comfort zone because most people are trying to operate within their their personality to operate the way they always have and they're comfortable you know this is who I am this is what I do as soon as the president says that little comfort zone you were in Joe Biden makes you look sleepy what does that cause Joe Biden to need to do he needs to act not sleepy now how is he doing it apparently he is substituting good arguments with angry furrowed brows have you noticed that the less that Joe Biden says the anger more angrily he says it so have you notice that when Joe Biden doesn't have a good point he just says it more angrily so I wonder like you know Joe Biden ordering coffee in Starbucks you could see him in there Oh mr.
Biden you know what can I get for you today and Joe Biden would be like I want a grande grande latte leave room for milk from Luke and then he would order his coffee and you'd say Joe Biden I don't know why you're so angry and why are your eyebrows doing that like do you need a shot of Botox there that looks really painful do you have a headache afterwards for that that eyebrow thing you're doing I'm so angry now to me it seems obvious that he's lost the step several steps and that he's compensating for being sleepy by being extra angry so he is not acting sleepy right if he did act sleepy he'd be playing into Trump's trap so he's he left his comfort zone to act really crazy and angry and it just I people know there's something wrong I mean when you watch Biden last night did it look like he was a forceful in command alpha leader which I think is what he was going for or did he look a little deranged in a way that older people sometimes can be be honest he looked he just didn't look right I mean if you're being honest now what did the president tweet about that the funniest the funniest president in the world I wrote it down guess you have to get the exact wording so one of the secrets of humor is simplification and this is one of the secrets that Trump gets right now of course people who are not so much in the know long ago people stopped doing this but he would be teased for keeping things so simple but but that's also the secret to his humor simplicity and humor are almost the same thing there's just a look bit of difference and once you understand that then it allows you that formula to be funny so look at his simplicity and this and also he likes to make things visual so see how visual this is and how simple it is and that's why it's so funny so he tweets this he goes crazy chaotic democratic debate last night fake news said Biden did well even though he said half of our population was shot to death which he actually said so Biden incorrectly said that a hundred and fifty million people had been killed by handguns that's about half of the population of the United States so the president says Fator said Biden did well even though he said half of our population was shot to death come on that's funny and then the president continues in his tweet would be over for most minibike was weak and unsteady but helped greatly by his many commercials which are not supposed to be allowed now that's true that the commercials that ran during the presidential debate were bike Bloomberg commercials and you know I was watching on DVR and I would get to the commercial Anna started to skip it and I thought I might really save this how is that fair how in the world does Mike Bloomberg get to run Mike Bloomberg commercials during the debate how in the world is that legal and if it's legal why is he the only one doing it does nobody else have any money because if I were gonna run a debate if I were gonna run I'm going to ad on TV can you think of a better time to do it what would be the best time to run an ad you know so when I say that Mike Bloomberg won the debate if you were watching the debate and you saw that only one candidate ran a commercial in the debate and it seemed to him it looks like you ran all of them what would you say to yourself I would say there seems to be only one smart well-funded person on that stage because they all should have done that if that's something you can do and apparently it is so why did Bloomberg why was he the only one it made the others look like idiots honestly or underfunded which would look like a loser as well so that's just one of the reasons that Bloomberg one is that he was the only one doing the obvious smarter thing run an ad during the during the debate let's talk more about Biden so Ronnie Jackson the axe doctor to the president ex doctor to President Trump said that Biden might need that cognitive test that he gave the president and the president scored well and I like that Rodney Jackson is going full political I don't know if he's ever done that before except for supporting the president that you work for but that's that's pretty damning when a guy who was the the doctor for a president says I think this candidate needs to take that cognitive test okay it's not just it's just not just you and I you know we're not the only one seeing something there's something wrong there all right so I think Biden is done it's a matter of time so that's one reason that Bloomberg one right so Bloomberg wins when the people were competing against him are not doing better or it was especially if they're doing worse let's talk about the others I thought Elizabeth Warren Warren was boring lawyerly unpleasant and a liar that's how she came across to me did anybody else see it differently now you're probably thinking Oh Scott you like you like president Trump so you're just saying that Democrats are liars but wait for it what did Bloomberg lie about yesterday what did Bloomberg lie about during the debate or even if you like what did Bloomberg lie about recently doesn't even have to be last night you know what the answer is nothing nothing right can you think of anything I can't think of anything that Bloomberg lied about can you and he's competing against somebody who stood right next to him and lied and he called called her help for the you know being inaccurate and stuff but I think yeah I think she seemed she didn't have the charisma she didn't come across as likable and I'm very careful about using that word because I know there's a gender element to that you know you don't want to be the one who says that a woman was unlikable in a in a group of men competing for the top office but I'm gonna soften that this way Bernie is pretty unlikable to me right so I'm not saying this just about Elizabeth Warren I find Bernie but there's there's stuff I like about him definitely some character elements I like about Bernie but I don't like listening to him he comes across as as an angry old man get off my lawn so I would equate them is fairly similarly you know unlikable so that I can take the the gender part off of that alright who else I think that Pete Buddha judge had a really bad night because he kept trying to tried to take in alpha kind of control over the debate because it was kind of a free-for-all and you saw that Biden didn't do a good job except complaining because he wasn't getting much time which was not really very literally it was more like a old man complaining because somebody stole his mail but Buddha judge kept trying to talk over his competitors and failing so he was sort of under talk them you know somebody else would sort of be commanding your attention but you'd hear little Buddha judge voice maybe maybe a minute and here's the reason the Buddha judge is done the moment you realize that Peabody judge is just the poor man's Mike Bloomberg there's no reason for them right if you wanted a mayor to be your president somebody has experience as a mayor do you want the mayor of the middle-sized town city or would you want a mayor who ran New York City that's bigger than most or a lot of countries no competition right if you wanted somebody who only had experience as a mayor you're not going to pick the guy from the little little city you're gonna you're gonna pick Bloomberg which of them will be better funded well obviously Bloomberg which of them has more experience obviously Bloomberg which of them is moot has been successful with you know working across the aisle obviously Bloomberg so the problem that P has is that his natural comparison just changed before Bloomberg was actually on the stage Pete was sort of his own little thing right you didn't think anybody was like him he was just all by himself it's like he had his own little channel there for a while but the moment you had Bloomberg you got two mayors and one of them's a lot more capable and successful and has a record and I ran a bigger thing it's not even close so I think Pete disappeared he looked like sort of a beta personality on that stage could be him I'm gonna use beta compared to Elizabeth Warren even so it's not a gender thing as well you know he looked less less strong than Elizabeth warranted by comparison so I think he's going to fade then let's talk about Bernie Bernie has two fatal wounds to mortal wounds so Bernie basically is dead man walking he might make it to the nomination he might limp to the nomination but he has two fatal flaws one is that I think the Democrats did a really good job of making the case and several of them did the that a birdie-birdie candidacy would cost them the house or could it could be a fatal mistake that would allow another another four years of Trump appointing judges and it would turn over the house and it could be a catastrophe that is a really good point coming from Democrats that same point if it came from a Republican would to have the same kind of firepower you just say it's just what Republicans say but when you see a group of Democrats saying the same thing about one of their own one of our own you realize that your plant is gonna ruin everything I mean it's the riskiest thing we can ever do that's the fatal flaw there's nothing Bernie can do to fix that so but he might have enough already momentum to limp it to the nomination the the other thing that's a fatal flaw is when he was challenged about his programs and how he would pay for them each time he's challenged by let's say by Democrats again it's far more impactful when he's challenged by his own team if a Republican challenged him you just say hey your numbers are stupid too you know it's just political but when his own team challenges some of his numbers not adding up that's really powerful and I keep waiting for birdie to improve how he's explaining himself and he's not he doesn't seem to have the capability to explain economic stuff in a persuasive you know believable way so he starts waving his arms and getting angry and throwing out numbers and when he does that waving his arms and throwing out numbers that don't really seem to answer the question of how could we afford all this is just he's just throwing data you he feels like more of a con man so I'm slowly feeling you know his his brand being shifted by his opponents from this ethical guy who's got a movement to something more like a conman who knows his numbers don't add up because he now acts like someone who knows it's not real right because he does such a bad job of defending it you know the the math of it that it doesn't look like he even believes it so I think those are his two fatal flaws who else was there Klobuchar you know I saw some people saying she did a good job I would also say that if you were if you were going to grade her on you know hitting all her notes saying the right things having you know sensible sounding policies sounding serious sounding like she had a good track record I would you know if you were doing the checklist of a debate it looked really good check check check check check clover charms but here's the thing I thought she disappeared on the stage that was just my impression in other words when you put her up her there with those other people there's something about her persona that just sort of shrinks it could be height could be a gender thing but I don't think so because elizabeth warren did not shrink so clearly there's you know and i think if you would put Hillary Clinton on the stage I don't think she would have shrunk but there was something about the debate that I couldn't get to interested in what she was saying even though it all made sense yeah there's something a lack of charisma here that obviously hasn't hurt her as a senator she's been very successful but I'm not sure the public can be happy with with let's say someone who is just good at their job Klobuchar comes across as a a comfortable pair of shoes meaning I don't have anything to complain about from Klobuchar yeah if you were to say to me Scott named her biggest negative I'd say oh well that's weird I can't think of one she doesn't really have one she's actually a really really strong candidate but I don't know that her charisma is selling to her own side there's something a little bland about her don't know what it is so I don't think she's a threat to make a move in the pack who was a the other notable person was a steyr I can't get too serious about steyr because I don't think his own side is serious about it if Steyr you know did unusually well on Super Tuesday or something I guess I would reassess but I don't think he's I don't think he did anything to to move up to the top three alright so given that the other people looked worse that either looked fatal or they disappeared here's what I felt about Bloomberg you saw him try to make some jokes that completely didn't work right did he see that so Bloomberg tried to be funny he tried to be self-deprecating he made a joke about a naked cowboy in New York that nobody understood unless they're from New York in other words that's a it's a New York reference totally out of place he joked that he did so well in the last debate so he was being self deferential or her self deprecating but it did really come across because he didn't deliver it well here was my net impression I kind of liked him more I don't know if you had that impression but he looked he looked like a nerd who was who meant well that is very effective he's just not good at that stuff and I don't have a problem with that I don't have any problem with somebody who knows they're inert they know they're not good at that stuff yeah he took a shot at it was he embarrassed apparently not I like a guy who go out there and fail in public and just say yeah laughing off try it again so I have to say that Bloomberg looked a little more human he and this is the one of the main things I was looking for is to see if his age was was as much of a negative as you'd expect he didn't look his age if you were to compare Bloomberg's of mental agility to Joe Biden's it's not even close right Bloomberg didn't look like there's anything missing now I still think he's too old I don't think we should be electing leaders above you know certain age of these that he's at it but it doesn't show it so that works to his advantage and the other thing that was very strong is he listed off some accomplishments that I wasn't aware of this sounded pretty solid he talked about how the school system in New York improved tremendously he talked about how life expectancy in New York improved while he was mayor and that's pretty good he talked about and here's my the best part he made a little bit of news by miss speaking during the debate and he talked about how he helped to fund the campaign's of half of the people who were part of the 40 new people who came into Congress and flipped the house so that dancy pelosi could be in charge and as he put it put a control on the president so Bloomberg was taking credit for flipping the house and already putting their control on Trump but he misspoke and he he started to say that he bought it now here's the thing of course the the gotcha part of the press and what you said bought it are you trying to buy our democracy but here's the thing he told you he's not hiding it he bragged about it he said I I just bought you in the house and I can buy it I can buy you the Senate basically he didn't say that but the idea is he can buy you what you want do you know how powerful that is Bluebird just said not only can i buy you what you want with me as president I proved it I bought you what you want in the house it worked and now I'm buying you what you want for the presidency which is a victory over Trump I thought that was the strongest part of his debate because it was something I didn't know that completely changed how I saw it because there's something there's something very not evil about the transparent he's bringing to the process he's telling you exactly what he's doing and then he does it in front of you he does it legally and he's not making any excuses for him he's saying I bought the house I'm gonna try to buy the election for you now here's the thing remember I said he didn't lie about anything that I can think of so you automatically had a little more credibility you give him because he's now lying about stuff but he's got some negatives let's talk about him and I'm gonna talking about how he hasn't quite done a good job talking about his you know MDAs and talking about a stop-and-frisk I'm gonna tell you how he could he couldn't do it better right gonna give us some suggestions so let's talk about and stop-and-frisk first here's how let's say you're the mayor so let's say you're Bloomberg and you inherited this program but you ran a way too long he did shut it down by 95 percent but he admits he ran it too long so he hasn't done a good job of explaining himself yet but he could and so let me give you an example of how I would do it the biggest thing that people care about is your intentions and he doesn't speak to that directly and he should because remember the intention of stop-and-frisk was a good one and I don't think anybody even disagrees with that so here's how I would say it and it'd be words to this effect so let's say I'm Mike Bloomberg and somebody says hey you you ran that stop and frisk wing and that was very racist what do you say to yourself I would say this the intention of stop and frisk was to take sides with the women and the children and the elderly in high crime neighborhoods if you think about it stop and frisk was far more sexist and ageist than it was racist and if you don't see what I just did there I'll come back and explain it and I would say this I would say that most crime victims are minorities and it was a program that started before I was mayor and it started with good intentions I started to help the minority community where crime was rampant and I would say if you think it's being rated the youth if you think it was racist I think you're being too kind to it it was way more than racist it was sexist because we weren't stopping women and it was a gist we weren't stopping elderly we weren't stopping toddlers it was sexist it was ageist but we the police and the mayor we don't have a choice of where the crime is it's not up to us who commits crimes and it's not up to us where they commit them it's our job as the police force as the mayor to put law enforcement where there's the most crime that's what we did and we absolutely targeted young men in those areas where there were high crime now was that right well it was an experiment and I would say it was an experiment that did not work the blind spot we had is how it would feel to the community if feels racist and that was a far bigger cost than anybody hoped there was nobody who was behind stop and frisk who had the intention to make things worse for the community but there was a blind spot that that it came across as racist and in retrospect I think we would all agree had more impact on one group then another that's racist by definition but the intention was positive it was absolutely sexist because we were targeting men it was absolutely a just because we were targeting young men and we're targeting young men who were not dressed for church if you know what I mean now we wouldn't do it again we learned from it now here's here's the next part of my persuasion as mayor I inherited this program and I accept responsibility for not shutting it down sooner and I would like to promise all of my critics they should any of my critics ever do anything right in the future I'll be the first one to tell them they should have done it sooner because you can't do something that's right soon enough and so to my critics who say I didn't shut it down soon enough you're right you can never be soon enough for something that's the right thing to do I've apologized for it I just want you to know the intentions were right I hope we all learned something from it it's not something we do again and the the impact was unforgivable is that better how would you feel about that because the key the key here is that the intentions were good and that you were intending to discriminate but it was against men who were young do you know how many people are willing to discriminate against young men a lot doesn't matter what your ethnicity is young men do commit a lot of crimes it's true I was a young man I know all right so then the other thing he gets he gets he hasn't done a good job of is defending his non-disclosure agreements and apparently he said some offensive things that made people uncomfortable we don't know the details and he even says he doesn't remember the details and I actually think that might be true I think he actually doesn't remember what he might have said that would have caused the problem long ago here's how I would have responded to that uh-huh Mayor Bloomberg you you have some NDA's and they were offensive now the first thing he did is that he agreed to release the people from their NDA's which was a total baller move I gotta say that was a strong play he just released them and just said if they want to talk to you it's okay with me they're released now I don't know if anybody will because NDA's you know are to the benefit of both parties right the people may not think is worth it but I love the fact that he just released them he didn't even argue about it right there was no point in which he pushed back he looked into it you released them yeah I'd love to know what they say but here's how I here's how I would respond to that Mayor Bloomberg you know what about those bad things you said about women so I'd say some version is I don't recall what I said to offend but let me confess to having an unfiltered sense of humor that can come off as offensive so the first thing you need to do just totally own it I think he does I think he is totally owning it but when he when he said you know he could have owned it a little better than to say well you may be a joke was taken wrong if you say a joke was taken wrong you're putting responsibility on the victim so I think he did that wrong he should have been a little more generous about taking it all and I'll say my sentence again I don't recall what I said to offend so he said knitting he was offensive but let me confess to having an unfiltered sense of humor that can come off as offensive now why that's persuasive is that most people believe that they themselves have unfiltered sense of humors it's very common so everybody who thinks that over themselves just heard him say that he was like them oh yeah unfiltered sense of humor oh yeah I've done that if I've had an unfiltered sense of humor a little guilty of that so I get it and then he admits that it can come off as being offensive here's the second part I never intend to offend intentions are really important it's something it's a theme I come back to people are judging people by their actions and we infer their intentions I'll go he's racist he's whatever so you should say directly what your intentions were because that's what people are looking for and for some reason politicians don't speak that way they should say my intention is this if it doesn't work out you know that will change something but the intention is to do this so I'd say never intended to offend and I apologize unreservedly for any discomfort I caused so any kind of apology like that is good and then here's here's what I would add I would say I think society as a whole has gotten smarter about that stuff and everybody would agree it's like oh yeah Society has has evolved and then I would say and I welcome you to judge me by my current behavior do you see what I did there I I just basically said we've all evolved so we're all better than we used to be judge me by my current behavior I'm not really that the same person that was 20 years ago but because guess what neither are you you know none of us are the same people we were 20 years ago we've all gotten smarter judge me by Who I am today now imagine if he had said that instead of well some people you know may I take my joke wrong which really did put the the blame on the victim if you will all right so I think Bloomberg probably could do a whole lot better fixing the holes he has I think he's owned it all which is important and he is shown a track record of success this seems relevant to the presidency he's already shown that he can buy the presidency now here's here's the other hidden magic of what Bloomberg is doing do you think that if Bernie is the candidate Bloomberg will spend his hundreds of millions to get Democrats elected in Congress woody because remember Bloomberg thinks that Birdy's policies would be a disaster so if Bloomberg if you can imagine a scenario where Bernie gets the nomination Bloomberg might turn off the spigot right if I understand Bloomberg's position he thinks that Bernie would be a disaster so I don't think he's gonna vote more democratic or help us fund more Democrats - you have a stronger position in Congress if that would make Bernie capable of getting what he says he wants so the biggest problem that the Democrats have is if they if they nominate a centrist even if it's not Bloomberg they probably still get Bloomberg's money you know what I mean but if they nominate I would say either Bernie or maybe Warren I think Bloomberg would turn it off because he doesn't want those policies to become national policy so if you take all of the things I've said together which is Bloomberg did nothing to hurt himself did a really good job of saying his accomplishments took full ownership of the things he's criticized for and I think he'd that Manan see - and at those at handling those flaws but they're not deadly because he's accepted them fully which really takes the power out of them and when you add in the power of his money there would not accrue to the Sanders candidacy and you throw in the fact that he doesn't act his age and you throw in the fact that he's got it he had a little more personality but wouldn't you say even on that stage even though he doesn't have the you know the million wattage personality of a Trump on that stage he had more charisma than most wouldn't you say let me ask you know I still think he'll be slaughtered by Trump right I don't I don't think Trump has any any realistic chance of losing unless something new happens between now and election that's unanticipated somebody says he's unlikable I don't know about that I do not find at Bloomberg unlikable he's not fun but he looks sincere I don't think he's lied he's got a track record and he's not acting is a and he's got a kajillion dollars I think he's the guy to beat right now so we'll see if the Democrats are clever enough to to give him the nomination I'm not predicting that they will I'm just saying they he's certainly the one who has the the the commanding advantage right now it may be too late though all right coronavirus yeah I don't know what to believe about this coronavirus the only thing I'm sure of is that our data is bad I do think there's a nonzero chance that we will be asked to we citizens will be asked to stay out of public gatherings for a few weeks I think that's likely but we're not going to die most of us some of us will did you see the I shouldn't laugh about this but the Iranian politician who is in charge of you know the coronavirus response and apparently got the corona virus and the reason everybody knew about it is he was on TV doing an announcement and it was sweating like a pig and he was obviously suffering from it but the other interesting part is that that politician at least based on one thing I saw I can't and that I'm not certain this as a fact so fact check me on this but I believe that politician to who who has been confirmed to have the corona virus that with the Ayatollah right before that I mean I don't know if is the same day or or recently but think about that the Ayatollah met personally with this guy hat who has the corona virus the corona virus isn't deadly to most people but it's pretty dangerous if you're if you're a certain age and the Ayatollah is there is a nonzero chance that the corona virus will change the regime in Iran think about that I mean I don't know what the odds are probably 5% but it's held there all right that's all you got for now I will talk to you later
[Applause]
um hey everybody come on in it's time
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connected to people all over the world
who are enjoying this periscope
simultaneously well we got some fun news
now it's the good kind well except for
the corona virus that's not very good
but there's funny news and when the news
is funny it makes me happy
so let's talk about some of the funny
news well I guess this first part is not
too funny but I started prepping for the
corona virus now I don't want to panic
anybody but there are a number of people
especially on the Twitter Mike sort of
itch being one of the leaders among them
saying maybe you should just be ready
because our supply lines and a lot of
our economic connecting tissue is sort
of falling apart quickly now I don't
think it's going to be a long-term
problem I think that will we'll get
through it we'll be fine
right most of us well some people will
no doubt die but probably not more the
we'll die on bicycles this weekend etc
so I think the United States is going to
do a capable job of keeping the damage
to to the lowest level it can be kept
too so I have some confidence but there
may be a period where our government
says hey people can you just stay home
for two weeks so I got enough stuff in
that I'm not going to you know none of
us will starve to death if it has to
happen I'll probably put a NRA sticker
on the door just in case and just just
see you know how irrational all of this
is a lot of people including me bought a
lot of bottled water why do I need
bottled water for a virus outbreak let
me think about it it's not like the
virus is coming through the through by
faucet and it's not like the water
company is gonna stop sending me water
because they've got a fever I have no
idea why I'm prepping and stockpiling
water but I saw other people doing it
and I thought well I don't want to be
the idiot who has no water so it makes
no sense at all but I did it anyway so
you might want to think the same way
apparently the Rasmus Rasmussen poll is
showing that Trump has reached a new
all-time high in approval now I know I
know it's the Rasmussen poll and it's
friendlier to Trump than others but if
this one is up the others are probably
up from whatever base they were as well
so I think he's he's like five points
higher than Obama was at the same point
and so I ask yourself what is it that's
making the president's numbers go up I
think it's probably a bunch of stuff but
very near the top of the list of what is
making Trump look good is the more we
see the Democrats and I know that sounds
like a hugely partisan thing to say but
I think Democrats would agree
right just objectively speaking I would
say that even Democrats are looking at
their own best candidates and saying to
themselves seriously there are a lot of
Democrats there are there are millions
of us and that was our best group right
there that's that's the best they can do
now because they're tearing each other
apart the president doesn't even need to
do much but you know lob a grenade into
the mess every now and then just for fun
so the Democrats are doing a good job of
tearing each other apart which is making
them all look kind of bad at the moment
compared to whatever you thought they
look like a month ago it's just part of
the process so the president being
somewhat above the fray at the moment
they're sort of turning their fire on
each other
it makes the contrast a little bit
better so he just looks good because
they're making each other look bad but
there's some other things happening that
are helping the president and really a
lot of stuff going his way now his trip
to India did you see some of the footage
of the outdoor scenes in India where the
president was I looked at it and I said
to myself is this a really foggy day or
is this major city in India so polluted
that you can't see a hundred feet and I
wasn't sure the first picture I said
because I thought well it might have
been fog I don't know but then I saw
another article with another picture
that looked similar and it talked about
how bad the pollution was and I thought
to myself holy hell seriously you have
that many people living in that
conditions that literally can't breathe
the air and when you see our president
go over there you say to yourself well
there's something that the United States
is doing very right
compared to that because remember there
are a highly educated advanced
democratic society you know that they
have all of the assets that we have
and more in some cases certainly people
but they're not doing it right
I mean they've created an environment
that's killing them just by existing and
yeah in this subtle way you say to
yourself my god look outside I'm looking
at my window right now it doesn't look
like that
so whatever the United States is doing
is way better than that
and the president just irrationally gets
some credit for that because you
associated him with with the better
result so I think the whole India trip
has been really positive for the
president of course he got a hero's
welcome there and then everybody looks
at it and they say wait a minute
the Democrats have been telling us that
were that this president is disrespected
overseas but a hundred percent of what
we're seeing on this India trip is
exactly the opposite so clearly it has
to do with you know some people some
situations they don't like him but that
would be the same everywhere we've never
had a president who was equally liked
everywhere in the world so I think the
people are the the foreign trips always
work in the president's favor because he
gets a hero's welcome and that just
doesn't match what people are saying
about him in the way you would be
accepted overseas all right so there's
that going on I understand this this was
kind of weird I saw a Jake Tapper
tweeted a fox report story which by
itself was weird so how often do they
see it n employees a retweet content
from Fox I feel like there's something
going on like some kind of rebellion
rebellion among the staff at CNN like a
I don't have evidence of it but it's
sometimes you can smell things before
you can see them and I feel like the
Democrats are feeling you know as they
watch the Democratic candidates falling
apart in front of them
I think they're feeling it's getting
harder and harder to
take aside against Trump so I think this
is just a speculation and I can't this
is really as much a gut feeling as
anything else
I think you might see some kind of
evolution happening and see then where
you're gonna see a little more balance
in the reporting you know a little less
anti-trump
a little bit more let's talk about what
works and what doesn't work I think just
a guess but look for that anyway anyway
what Jake tweeted was that Schumer
apparently Chuck Schumer is trying to
get way more money to battle the corona
virus I guess the Trump administration
asked for 2.5 billion which sounds like
a lot and then Schumer came in and asked
for 8.5 billion which is a lot more now
how much do we need what's the right
number citizen voter what's the right
number is 2.5 the right number is it all
we need or is 8.5 the right number well
here's the clever apartment and credit
to Schumer you don't know I have no idea
could we spend eight point five billion
quickly enough because whatever this
coronavirus does to us it's all going to
happen in a year right I mean whatever
happens is gonna take about a year could
we spend eight point five billion in a
year I don't know it could be that
that's a complete waste of money but
politically how does it make you feel
well I feel a lot more comfortable if
the government says let's let's try
eight point five I feel way more
comfortable if the government says some
form of this and by the way I think if
I'm being objective I think Trump is
blowing it on his his handling of the
corona virus
I think he's blowing it now I'm not the
one who's going to criticize the details
meaning I can't tell does it matter that
the
endemic I got fired two years ago and
budget cuts I don't know
does it matter because it probably
doesn't but might who knows I'm not the
guy who can argue the details because
the thing that you never know is if
there had been a different president in
the same circumstances would that
different president have done something
differently that would have gotten a
better result we'll never know because
there's no test all we know is that what
one president did so I can't really I
can't intellectually honestly criticize
or compliment anything the Trump
administration does on this unless it's
unless it's so amazing or so egregious
that it's just obvious it's a mistake
but anything in that middle zone of well
we got this much money we did these
things we got this result we wish had
been better anything in that vast middle
zone if you're being honest you don't
know you don't know if another president
would have done it better or differently
but one way one thing we can tell is how
they make us feel and I feel a lot
better at 8.5 because it just feels like
the government is you know making more
of an effort I don't know if we could
spend 8.5 I really don't but I'd feel
better if the government took the big
number instead of the small number so I
think this is a case where Schumer wins
politically because he's doing something
that makes the country feel better and
and Trump is not Trump is sort of played
it off as you know we got this the
United States is in good shape that's
half of what I want to hear and this is
why I say Trump is kind of blowing it on
this because he's only half way right so
the first half I want to hear is that
we're very capable we've got great
people were funding them we're taking
this very seriously
and we're a good shape I want to hear
that here's the other part I want to
hear we're going to over-prepare we're
good we don't know exactly what the
right thing that to do is we don't know
exactly the right budget but we're gonna
err on the side of being over-prepared
I'm telling you now people we don't
think it's going to be the big problem
that that people are saying it's going
to be we think we can avoid that but
here's our approach whatever we think is
the right amount of preparation we're
going to do more than that we're going
to exceed that that's best we can do now
if my president tells me that hey I
think we'll be fine and the reason I
think we'll be fine is we're going to
really over prepare they're not feeling
good but if my president says I think
we're gonna be fine here's our 2.5
million we asked for and then you see
Schumer asks for 8.5 do you still think
we're over prepared well 8.5 might be
over preparing and I prefer it so that's
my take on that I think Schumer wins
this round politically even if the 8.5
is unnecessary here's a positive thought
maybe some of you won't think this is a
positive thought but I'm gonna frame it
that way however many years it was since
the Emancipation Proclamation somebody
tell me how many years had spend in the
comments so many years have gone by and
then of course black people have to
fight and fight and fight and civil
rights and still fighting and things are
still not exactly as fair and equal as
people would like it but a lot closer
but let me let me give you this thought
that's just sort of mind-blowing so X
years ago was slavery in this country in
2020 black voters will pick our
president again because I think you'd
agree that the you know the whatever
ninety percent plus percentage of
African American citizens who voted for
Obama twice were undoubtedly
reason that he was elected twice I mean
all the other variables had to be in
place and white people had to vote for
him too
but the most determined and variable the
one that I think is by far the most
important was the black vote now
fast-forward to 24 our next president in
my opinion it's black citizens so 156
years ago black people in this country
were literally slaves and in 156 years
it's 2020 they will decide again for the
third time in a well I guess you could
say it would be the fourth time in a row
the black vote
kinda is going to decide who's the
president right I'm not wrong about that
because it wouldn't take much for them
to overwhelmingly reelect President
Trump it wouldn't take much just a
little bit of movement toward more
Republican voting and it wouldn't take
much to keep him from being elected
simply vote at the same ratio they voted
for Obama and that's it that's that's
the end of it now you can also do the
same thing with the female vote how many
years ago was it that women didn't have
the vote all right but women are now the
majority of the country in that in a
system in which you know the majority
vote means something so women to have
the power should they decide to vote as
a coherent bloc there are more of them
women actually have the power if they
decide to use it you know in a combined
way and I also believe that women are
far more educated at the moment is that
not true that there are more women
getting into college or women getting
you know becoming lawyers and doctors
etc high-paying careers so I think there
are more educated women and
and education is highly correlated with
percentage of voting right the more
highly educated the more likely you're
going to show up at the polls so I'd say
that women and black Americans have
effectively the majority control of the
electoral process all right so that's
just a an interesting thing to think
about I've been saying this for a while
Candis Owen says it better but I think
that Republicans are natural allies with
the african-american community they're
the most naturally compatible group now
yeah yeah I get it there is some
percentage of Republicans or
irredeemable racists I'm sure some
percentage of Democrats are also
irredeemable racist we're not talking
about that you know we're not talking
about them but just your general
Republican is a natural ally to the
black community you can see this in the
results that the president's got
everything from prison reform to special
economic zones to you know increased
funding for historically black colleges
and you know low unemployment rate that
he crows about all the time but here's
the thing don't you think that open
borders could be considered the opposite
of reparations because if you are a
black citizen in this country well how
do you feel about opening the border and
letting people in who of course never
suffered from you know slavery in this
country never benefited from it they're
just sort of you know another group but
they are having a big impact on you know
your tax base your economic situation
isn't how can you have open borders and
also be in favor of reparations because
what open borders feels like the
opposite somebody says a stretch is it a
stretch if Republicans are trying to
keep
border tight and explicitly for the
benefit of Americans and explicitly for
Benton the benefit of Americans at the
lower end of the economic situation I
don't know it just looks like
Republicans are the natural allies and
the other thing that Republicans have
that the black community shares is
they're pretty religious so Republicans
are pretty religious the black
community's very religious and
Republicans have a a path to success
follow these laws you know get a job
obey the Constitution boom
you're good with us us being Republicans
I'm not a Republican but playing the
part of a Republican for this point all
right so I think that's the biggest
story as the black flint and will
continue to be through 2020 let's talk
about the debate how everybody did
in my opinion Mike Bloomberg wanted
debate and he won it hard now I don't
you know I tried to ignore all the other
pundits me before I formed my own
opinion because it's easy to be
influenced if here the three people in a
row say you know X person one you start
thinking all experts along three people
Senate so I intentionally avoided other
people's commentary now other people are
not saying Bloomberg what they are
saying he did better all right so here's
my argument for why Bloomberg one part
of it is that the others lost Bloomberg
did a little bit better and everybody
else didn't so direction matters you
know as soon as the public or the
pundits sniff any kind of directional
change that makes more difference than
where you're at because people are
looking at the direction so let me go
through the the other candidates
performance and then I'll talk about why
Bloomberg won first of all you can't
underestimate how diabolical president
Trump's nicknames really are when he
named
joe biden's sleepy Joe as soon as he
named him sleepy Joe I'm sure I said
this in public more than once I said he
it's gonna cause Biden to have to
overcompensate and to look less sleepy
and and that takes you out of your
comfort zone because most people are
trying to operate within their their
personality to operate the way they
always have and they're comfortable you
know this is who I am this is what I do
as soon as the president says that
little comfort zone you were in Joe
Biden makes you look sleepy what does
that cause Joe Biden to need to do he
needs to act not sleepy now how is he
doing it apparently he is substituting
good arguments with angry furrowed brows
have you noticed that the less that Joe
Biden says the anger more angrily he
says it so have you notice that when Joe
Biden doesn't have a good point he just
says it more angrily so I wonder like
you know Joe Biden ordering coffee in
Starbucks you could see him in there
Oh mr. Biden you know what can I get for
you today
and Joe Biden would be like I want a
grande grande latte leave room for milk
from Luke and then he would order his
coffee and you'd say Joe Biden I don't
know why you're so angry and why are
your eyebrows doing that like do you
need a shot of Botox there that looks
really painful do you have a headache
afterwards for that that eyebrow thing
you're doing I'm so angry now to me it
seems obvious that he's lost the step
several steps and that he's compensating
for being sleepy by being extra angry so
he is not acting sleepy right if he did
act sleepy he'd be playing into Trump's
trap
so he's he left his comfort zone to act
really crazy and angry and it just I
people know there's something wrong I
mean when you watch Biden last night did
it look like he was a forceful in
command alpha leader which I think is
what he was going for or did he look a
little deranged in a way that older
people sometimes can be be honest he
looked he just didn't look right I mean
if you're being honest now what did the
president tweet about that the funniest
the funniest president in the world I
wrote it down guess you have to get the
exact wording so one of the secrets of
humor is simplification and this is one
of the secrets that Trump gets right now
of course people who are not so much in
the know long ago people stopped doing
this but he would be teased for keeping
things so simple but but that's also the
secret to his humor simplicity and humor
are almost the same thing there's just a
look bit of difference and once you
understand that then it allows you that
formula to be funny so look at his
simplicity and this and also he likes to
make things visual so see how visual
this is and how simple it is and that's
why it's so funny so he tweets this he
goes crazy chaotic democratic debate
last night fake news said Biden did well
even though he said half of our
population was shot to death which he
actually said so Biden incorrectly said
that a hundred and fifty million people
had been killed by handguns that's about
half of the population of the United
States so the president says Fator said
Biden did well even though he said half
of our population was shot to death
come on that's funny
and then the president continues in his
tweet would be over for most minibike
was weak and unsteady but helped greatly
by his many commercials which are not
supposed to be allowed now that's true
that the commercials that ran during the
presidential debate were bike Bloomberg
commercials and you know I was watching
on DVR and I would get to the commercial
Anna started to skip it and I thought I
might really save this how is that fair
how in the world does Mike Bloomberg get
to run Mike Bloomberg commercials during
the debate how in the world is that
legal and if it's legal why is he the
only one doing it does nobody else have
any money because if I were gonna run a
debate if I were gonna run I'm going to
ad on TV can you think of a better time
to do it what would be the best time to
run an ad you know so when I say that
Mike Bloomberg won the debate if you
were watching the debate and you saw
that only one candidate ran a commercial
in the debate and it seemed to him it
looks like you ran all of them what
would you say to yourself I would say
there seems to be only one smart
well-funded person on that stage because
they all should have done that if that's
something you can do and apparently it
is so why did Bloomberg why was he the
only one it made the others look like
idiots honestly or underfunded which
would look like a loser as well so
that's just one of the reasons that
Bloomberg one is that he was the only
one doing the obvious smarter thing run
an ad during the during the debate let's
talk more about Biden
so Ronnie Jackson the axe doctor to the
president ex doctor to President Trump
said that Biden might need that
cognitive test that he gave the
president and the president scored well
and
I like that Rodney Jackson is going full
political I don't know if he's ever done
that before except for supporting the
president that you work for but that's
that's pretty damning when a guy who was
the the doctor for a president says I
think this candidate needs to take that
cognitive test okay it's not just it's
just not just you and I you know we're
not the only one seeing something
there's something wrong there all right
so I think Biden is done it's a matter
of time so that's one reason that
Bloomberg one right so Bloomberg wins
when the people were competing against
him are not doing better or it was
especially if they're doing worse let's
talk about the others
I thought Elizabeth Warren Warren was
boring lawyerly unpleasant and a liar
that's how she came across to me did
anybody else see it differently now
you're probably thinking Oh Scott you
like you like president Trump so you're
just saying that Democrats are liars
but wait for it what did Bloomberg lie
about yesterday what did Bloomberg lie
about during the debate or even if you
like
what did Bloomberg lie about recently
doesn't even have to be last night you
know what the answer is nothing nothing
right can you think of anything I can't
think of anything that Bloomberg lied
about can you and he's competing against
somebody who stood right next to him and
lied and he called called her help for
the you know being inaccurate and stuff
but I think yeah I think she seemed she
didn't have the charisma
she didn't come across as likable and
I'm very careful about using that word
because I know there's a gender element
to that you know you don't want to be
the one who says
that a woman was unlikable in a in a
group of men competing for the top
office but I'm gonna soften that this
way Bernie is pretty unlikable to me
right so I'm not saying this just about
Elizabeth Warren I find Bernie but
there's there's stuff I like about him
definitely some character elements I
like about Bernie but I don't like
listening to him he comes across as as
an angry old man get off my lawn so I
would equate them is fairly similarly
you know unlikable so that I can take
the the gender part off of that alright
who else I think that Pete Buddha judge
had a really bad night because he kept
trying to tried to take in alpha kind of
control over the debate because it was
kind of a free-for-all and you saw that
Biden didn't do a good job
except complaining because he wasn't
getting much time which was not really
very literally it was more like a old
man complaining because somebody stole
his mail but Buddha judge kept trying to
talk over his competitors and failing so
he was sort of under talk them you know
somebody else would sort of be
commanding your attention but you'd hear
little Buddha judge voice maybe maybe a
minute and here's the reason the Buddha
judge is done the moment you realize
that Peabody judge is just the poor
man's Mike Bloomberg there's no reason
for them right if you wanted a mayor to
be your president
somebody has experience as a mayor do
you want the mayor of the middle-sized
town city or would you want a mayor who
ran New York City that's bigger than
most or a lot of countries no
competition right if you wanted somebody
who only had experience as a mayor
you're not going to pick
the guy from the little little city
you're gonna you're gonna pick Bloomberg
which of them will be better funded
well obviously Bloomberg which of them
has more experience obviously Bloomberg
which of them is moot has been
successful with you know working across
the aisle
obviously Bloomberg so the problem that
P has is that his natural comparison
just changed before Bloomberg was
actually on the stage
Pete was sort of his own little thing
right
you didn't think anybody was like him he
was just all by himself it's like he had
his own little channel there for a while
but the moment you had Bloomberg you got
two mayors and one of them's a lot more
capable and successful and has a record
and I ran a bigger thing it's not even
close so I think Pete disappeared he
looked like sort of a beta personality
on that stage could be him I'm gonna use
beta compared to Elizabeth Warren even
so it's not a gender thing as well you
know he looked less less strong than
Elizabeth warranted by comparison so I
think he's going to fade then let's talk
about Bernie Bernie has two fatal wounds
to mortal wounds so Bernie basically is
dead man walking he might make it to the
nomination he might limp to the
nomination but he has two fatal flaws
one is that I think the Democrats did a
really good job of making the case and
several of them did the that a
birdie-birdie candidacy would cost them
the house or could it could be a fatal
mistake that would allow another another
four years of Trump appointing judges
and it would turn over the house and it
could be a catastrophe that is a really
good point
coming from Democrats that same point if
it came from a Republican would
to have the same kind of firepower you
just say it's just what Republicans say
but when you see a group of Democrats
saying the same thing about one of their
own
one of our own you realize that your
plant is gonna ruin everything I mean
it's the riskiest thing we can ever do
that's the fatal flaw there's nothing
Bernie can do to fix that so but he
might have enough already momentum to
limp it to the nomination the the other
thing that's a fatal flaw is when he was
challenged about his programs and how he
would pay for them each time he's
challenged by let's say by Democrats
again it's far more impactful when he's
challenged by his own team if a
Republican challenged him you just say
hey your numbers are stupid too you know
it's just political but when his own
team challenges some of his numbers not
adding up that's really powerful and I
keep waiting for birdie to improve how
he's explaining himself and he's not he
doesn't seem to have the capability to
explain economic stuff in a persuasive
you know believable way so he starts
waving his arms and getting angry and
throwing out numbers and when he does
that
waving his arms and throwing out numbers
that don't really seem to answer the
question of how could we afford all this
is just he's just throwing data you he
feels like more of a con man so I'm
slowly feeling you know his his brand
being shifted by his opponents from this
ethical guy who's got a movement to
something more like a conman who knows
his numbers don't add up because he now
acts like someone who knows it's not
real right because he does such a bad
job of defending it you know the the
math of it that it doesn't look like he
even believes it so I think those are
his two fatal flaws
who else was there Klobuchar you know I
saw some people saying she did a good
job I would also say that if you were if
you were going to grade her on you know
hitting all her notes saying the right
things having you know sensible sounding
policies sounding serious sounding like
she had a good track record I would you
know if you were doing the checklist of
a debate it looked really good
check check check check check clover
charms but here's the thing
I thought she disappeared on the stage
that was just my impression in other
words when you put her up her there with
those other people there's something
about her persona that just sort of
shrinks it could be height could be a
gender thing but I don't think so
because elizabeth warren did not shrink
so clearly there's you know and i think
if you would put Hillary Clinton on the
stage I don't think she would have
shrunk but there was something about the
debate that I couldn't get to interested
in what she was saying even though it
all made sense yeah there's something a
lack of charisma here that obviously
hasn't hurt her as a senator she's been
very successful but I'm not sure the
public can be happy with with let's say
someone who is just good at their job
Klobuchar comes across as a a
comfortable pair of shoes meaning I
don't have anything to complain about
from Klobuchar yeah if you were to say
to me Scott named her biggest negative
I'd say oh well that's weird I can't
think of one
she doesn't really have one she's
actually a really really strong
candidate but I don't know that her
charisma is selling to her own side
there's something a little bland about
her don't know what it is so I don't
think she's a threat to make a move in
the pack who was a the other
notable person was a steyr I can't get
too serious about steyr because I don't
think his own side is serious about it
if Steyr you know did unusually well on
Super Tuesday or something I guess I
would reassess but I don't think he's I
don't think he did anything to to move
up to the top three
alright so given that the other people
looked worse that either looked fatal or
they disappeared here's what I felt
about Bloomberg you saw him try to make
some jokes that completely didn't work
right
did he see that so Bloomberg tried to be
funny he tried to be self-deprecating he
made a joke about a naked cowboy in New
York that nobody understood unless
they're from New York in other words
that's a it's a New York reference
totally out of place he joked that he
did so well in the last debate so he was
being self deferential or her self
deprecating but it did really come
across because he didn't deliver it well
here was my net impression I kind of
liked him more I don't know if you had
that impression but he looked he looked
like a nerd who was who meant well that
is very effective he's just not good at
that stuff and I don't have a problem
with that I don't have any problem with
somebody who knows they're inert they
know they're not good at that stuff
yeah he took a shot at it was he
embarrassed apparently not I like a guy
who go out there and fail in public and
just say yeah laughing off try it again
so I have to say that Bloomberg looked a
little more human he and this is the one
of the main things I was looking for is
to see if his age was was as much of a
negative as you'd expect
he didn't look his age if you were to
compare Bloomberg's of mental agility to
Joe Biden's it's not even close right
Bloomberg didn't look like there's
anything missing
now I still think he's too old I don't
think we should be electing leaders
above you know certain age of these that
he's at it but it doesn't show it so
that works to his advantage and the
other thing that was very strong is he
listed off some accomplishments that I
wasn't aware of this sounded pretty
solid he talked about how the school
system in New York improved tremendously
he talked about how life expectancy in
New York improved while he was mayor and
that's pretty good he talked about and
here's my the best part he made a little
bit of news by miss speaking during the
debate and he talked about how he helped
to fund the campaign's of half of the
people who were part of the 40 new
people who came into Congress and
flipped the house so that dancy pelosi
could be in charge and as he put it put
a control on the president so Bloomberg
was taking credit for flipping the house
and already putting their control on
Trump but he misspoke and he he started
to say that he bought it now here's the
thing of course the the gotcha
part of the press and what you said
bought it are you trying to buy our
democracy but here's the thing he told
you he's not hiding it he bragged about
it he said I I just bought you in the
house and I can buy it
I can buy you the Senate basically he
didn't say that but the idea is he can
buy you what you want do you know how
powerful that is
Bluebird just said not only can i buy
you what you want with me as president I
proved it I bought you what you want in
the house it worked and now I'm buying
you what you want for the presidency
which is a victory over Trump I thought
that was the strongest part of his
debate because it was something I didn't
know that completely changed how I saw
it because there's something there's
something very not evil about the
transparent
he's bringing to the process he's
telling you exactly what he's doing
and then he does it in front of you he
does it legally and he's not making any
excuses for him he's saying I bought the
house I'm gonna try to buy the election
for you now here's the thing remember I
said he didn't lie about anything that I
can think of so you automatically had a
little more credibility you give him
because he's now lying about stuff but
he's got some negatives let's talk about
him and I'm gonna talking about how he
hasn't quite done a good job talking
about his you know MDAs and talking
about a stop-and-frisk
I'm gonna tell you how he could he
couldn't do it better right gonna give
us some suggestions so let's talk about
and stop-and-frisk first here's how
let's say you're the mayor so let's say
you're Bloomberg and you inherited this
program but you ran a way too long he
did shut it down by 95 percent but he
admits he ran it too long so he hasn't
done a good job of explaining himself
yet but he could and so let me give you
an example of how I would do it the
biggest thing that people care about is
your intentions and he doesn't speak to
that directly and he should because
remember the intention of stop-and-frisk
was a good one
and I don't think anybody even disagrees
with that so here's how I would say it
and it'd be words to this effect so
let's say I'm Mike Bloomberg and
somebody says hey you you ran that stop
and frisk wing and that was very racist
what do you say to yourself I would say
this the intention of stop and frisk was
to take sides with the women and the
children and the elderly in high crime
neighborhoods if you think about it stop
and frisk was far more sexist and ageist
than it was racist
and if you don't see what I just did
there I'll come back and explain it and
I would say this I would say that most
crime victims are minorities and it was
a program that started before I was
mayor and it started with good
intentions I started to help the
minority community where crime was
rampant and I would say if you think
it's being rated the youth if you think
it was racist I think you're being too
kind to it it was way more than racist
it was sexist because we weren't
stopping women and it was a gist
we weren't stopping elderly we weren't
stopping toddlers it was sexist
it was ageist but we the police and the
mayor we don't have a choice of where
the crime is it's not up to us who
commits crimes and it's not up to us
where they commit them it's our job as
the police force as the mayor to put law
enforcement where there's the most crime
that's what we did
and we absolutely targeted young men in
those areas where there were high crime
now was that right well it was an
experiment and I would say it was an
experiment that did not work the blind
spot we had is how it would feel to the
community if feels racist and that was a
far bigger cost than anybody hoped there
was nobody who was behind stop and frisk
who had the intention to make things
worse for the community but there was a
blind spot that that it came across as
racist and in retrospect I think we
would all agree had more impact on one
group then another that's racist by
definition but the intention was
positive it was absolutely sexist
because we were targeting men it was
absolutely a just because we were
targeting young men and we're targeting
young men who were not dressed for
church if you know what I mean now we
wouldn't do it again we learned from it
now here's here's the next part of my
persuasion as mayor I inherited this
program and I accept responsibility for
not
shutting it down sooner and I would like
to promise all of my critics they should
any of my critics ever do anything right
in the future I'll be the first one to
tell them they should have done it
sooner because you can't do something
that's right soon enough
and so to my critics who say I didn't
shut it down soon enough
you're right you can never be soon
enough for something that's the right
thing to do
I've apologized for it I just want you
to know the intentions were right I hope
we all learned something from it it's
not something we do again and the the
impact was unforgivable is that better
how would you feel about that because
the key the key here is that the
intentions were good and that you were
intending to discriminate but it was
against men who were young do you know
how many people are willing to
discriminate against young men a lot
doesn't matter what your ethnicity is
young men do commit a lot of crimes it's
true I was a young man I know all right
so then the other thing he gets he gets
he hasn't done a good job of is
defending his non-disclosure agreements
and apparently he said some offensive
things that made people uncomfortable we
don't know the details and he even says
he doesn't remember the details and I
actually think that might be true I
think he actually doesn't remember what
he might have said that would have
caused the problem
long ago here's how I would have
responded to that uh-huh Mayor Bloomberg
you you have some NDA's and they were
offensive now the first thing he did is
that he agreed to release the people
from their NDA's which was a total
baller move I gotta say that was a
strong play he just released them and
just said if they want to talk to you
it's okay with me
they're released
now I don't know if anybody will because
NDA's you know are to the benefit of
both parties right the people may not
think is worth it but I love the fact
that he just released them
he didn't even argue about it right
there was no point in which he pushed
back he looked into it you released them
yeah I'd love to know what they say but
here's how I here's how I would respond
to that Mayor Bloomberg you know what
about those bad things you said about
women so I'd say some version is I don't
recall what I said to offend but let me
confess to having an unfiltered sense of
humor that can come off as offensive so
the first thing you need to do just
totally own it I think he does I think
he is totally owning it but when he when
he said you know he could have owned it
a little better than to say well you may
be a joke was taken wrong if you say a
joke was taken wrong you're putting
responsibility on the victim so I think
he did that wrong he should have been a
little more generous about taking it all
and I'll say my sentence again I don't
recall what I said to offend
so he said knitting he was offensive but
let me confess to having an unfiltered
sense of humor that can come off as
offensive now why that's persuasive is
that most people believe that they
themselves have unfiltered sense of
humors it's very common so everybody who
thinks that over themselves just heard
him say that he was like them oh yeah
unfiltered sense of humor oh yeah I've
done that if I've had an unfiltered
sense of humor a little guilty of that
so I get it and then he admits that it
can come off as being offensive here's
the second part I never intend to offend
intentions are really important it's
something it's a theme I come back to
people are judging people by their
actions and we infer their intentions
I'll go he's racist he's whatever so you
should say directly what your intentions
were because that's what people are
looking for and for some reason
politicians don't speak that way
they should say my intention is this if
it doesn't work out you know that will
change something but the intention is to
do this so I'd say never intended to
offend and I apologize unreservedly for
any discomfort I caused so any kind of
apology like that is good
and then here's here's what I would add
I would say I think society as a whole
has gotten smarter about that stuff and
everybody would agree it's like oh yeah
Society has has evolved and then I would
say and I welcome you to judge me by my
current behavior do you see what I did
there I I just basically said we've all
evolved so we're all better than we used
to be judge me by my current behavior
I'm not really that the same person that
was 20 years ago but because guess what
neither are you you know none of us are
the same people we were 20 years ago
we've all gotten smarter judge me by Who
I am today now imagine if he had said
that instead of well some people you
know may I take my joke wrong which
really did put the the blame on the
victim if you will all right so I think
Bloomberg probably could do a whole lot
better fixing the holes he has I think
he's owned it all which is important and
he is shown a track record of success
this seems relevant to the presidency
he's already shown that he can buy the
presidency now here's here's the other
hidden magic of what Bloomberg is doing
do you think that if Bernie is the
candidate Bloomberg will spend his
hundreds of millions to get Democrats
elected in Congress woody
because remember Bloomberg thinks that
Birdy's policies would be a disaster
so if Bloomberg if you can imagine a
scenario where Bernie gets the
nomination Bloomberg might turn off the
spigot right if I understand Bloomberg's
position he thinks that Bernie would be
a disaster
so I don't think he's gonna vote more
democratic or help us fund more
Democrats - you have a stronger position
in Congress if that would make Bernie
capable of getting what he says he wants
so the biggest problem that the
Democrats have is if they if they
nominate a centrist even if it's not
Bloomberg they probably still get
Bloomberg's money you know what I mean
but if they nominate I would say either
Bernie or maybe Warren
I think Bloomberg would turn it off
because he doesn't want those policies
to become national policy so if you take
all of the things I've said together
which is Bloomberg did nothing to hurt
himself did a really good job of saying
his accomplishments took full ownership
of the things he's criticized for and I
think he'd that Manan see - and at those
at handling those flaws but they're not
deadly because he's accepted them fully
which really takes the power out of them
and when you add in the power of his
money there would not accrue to the
Sanders candidacy and you throw in the
fact that he doesn't act his age and you
throw in the fact that he's got it he
had a little more personality but
wouldn't you say even on that stage even
though he doesn't have the you know the
million wattage personality of a Trump
on that stage he had more charisma than
most wouldn't you say
let me ask you know I still think he'll
be slaughtered by Trump right I don't I
don't think Trump has any any realistic
chance of losing unless something new
happens between now and election that's
unanticipated somebody says he's
unlikable I don't know about that
I do not find at Bloomberg unlikable
he's not fun but he looks sincere I
don't think he's lied he's got a track
record and he's not acting is a
and he's got a kajillion dollars I think
he's the guy to beat right now so we'll
see if the Democrats are clever enough
to to give him the nomination I'm not
predicting that they will I'm just
saying they he's certainly the one who
has the the the commanding advantage
right now it may be too late though
all right coronavirus yeah I don't know
what to believe about this coronavirus
the only thing I'm sure of is that our
data is bad I do think there's a nonzero
chance that we will be asked to we
citizens will be asked to stay out of
public gatherings for a few weeks
I think that's likely but we're not
going to die most of us some of us will
did you see the I shouldn't laugh about
this but the Iranian politician who is
in charge of you know the coronavirus
response and apparently got the corona
virus and the reason everybody knew
about it is he was on TV doing an
announcement and it was sweating like a
pig and he was obviously suffering from
it but the other interesting part is
that that politician at least based on
one thing I saw I can't and that I'm not
certain this as a fact so fact check me
on this but I believe that politician to
who who has been confirmed to have the
corona virus that with the Ayatollah
right before that I mean I don't know if
is the same day or or recently but think
about that the Ayatollah met personally
with this guy hat who has the corona
virus the corona virus isn't deadly to
most people but it's pretty dangerous if
you're if you're a certain age and the
Ayatollah is there is a nonzero chance
that the corona virus will change the
regime in Iran
think about that I mean I don't know
what the odds are probably 5% but it's
held there all right that's all you got
for now I will talk to you later
