which means that it doesn't have much chance of coming to a vote. But do you remember my prediction about DeepSeek? And people said, oh no, China has figured out a cheaper way to do things, and everybody's going to use this, and it's going to destroy the American AI industry.

Do you remember what I said? I said no. Eventually there will be laws against it. There'll be regulations. There'll be tariffs. There'll be some damn thing that the US government will have to protect our AI industry. And the way we'll do it is make it somehow impractical or illegal to use the Chinese version. And here we are. Now, this particular effort might not pass, but you can see what's coming, right? The government is not going to let you use a free Chinese AI. That's just not going to happen. And if they did, it would be the dumbest thing that we ever did. It would be the TikTok risk times a trillion. I mean, this isn't a tough decision. It will be illegal or impractical or kneecapped or something, or has to run on an American server.

By the way, did you see Trump the other day? I guess it was yesterday. He was in the Oval Office, and as he likes to do now, he was signing an executive order but chatting with the reporters. And then there were two visitors to his office who makes you wonder why they were there at the same time. They just came in to watch the event. One of them was Larry Ellison, and the other was Rupert Murdoch. Now, these are two people that Trump knows pretty well. And Larry Ellison was also there not long ago. So it seems like Larry Ellison seems like he's in the White House a lot recently. What do you think that's about?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it could be that the reason Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch were there at the same time, I wonder if they're going to invest in TikTok. Do you think that maybe they would be involved in that? Or at least Ellison. So I've got a feeling there's going to be an announcement soon about some American entity buying the TikTok assets but not the algorithm. So look for that. And don't be surprised if you see some billionaires partner up to do that because it's expensive.

Trump apparently is suing the Pulitzer Prize board members for what he would consider giving a prize for the fake news that was reporting on the Russia collusion hoax. So imagine being the writers for the New York Times, and you're writing about the Russia collusion like it's real. Turns out none of it was real. But you missed the entire story. Everything that mattered about the story was that it wasn't real. That was the story.

So the people who got the Pulitzer Prize, I don't know how many people are involved, but the New York Times got a Pulitzer Prize. One of the writers at least didn't get anything right and got a Pulitzer Prize. So this seems a little extreme to go after the Pulitzer Prize committee. But on the other hand, wouldn't you like to know how they made the decision? Wouldn't you like to know if the decision was entirely based on the quality of the writing, or were there any other considerations such as, well, let's get that Trump guy. We'll give an award to the people going after him. I don't know. I'd be interested. I'd be interested to know.

But one thing we can say for sure is that the Pulitzer Prize is worth nothing. I've told you that before. I'll quickly reiterate in case you don't know it. Sometime ago, many years ago, there was a nationally known reporter in my apartment doing an interview with me about Dilbert and happened to mention that his spouse was on the Pulitzer Prize committee. So she would be one of just a small group of people who would decide which books would win the Pulitzer Prize. And do you know what the system is? They only look at the things that people submit. So you have to submit your own work. If you don't submit it, it's not up for consideration.

So first of all, they're only looking at the people who submitted, and then they just read the books and then they talk about which one they liked. Why in the world is that a prestigious prize? What is that little group of book readers, the best book readers of all time, and their taste should extend to the rest of the world? It's a ridiculous prize. You know, I do appreciate prizes where experts make the decisions, experts, or a prize where the entire public decides, oh, you're our favorite actor or actress. I get that. I mean, that's a pretty good prize if the entire group voted for it. But if you won three to two votes in a five-person committee, that means nothing. Nothing.

You know that they're going to be virtue signaling and saying, oh, here's one about a crippled Black lesbian, so this is the best book ever written. You know, it's like that, right? So no, the Pulitzer Prize is a ridiculous thing.

While the US Navy, according to the Daily Mail, the US Navy has a big old laser weapon they're testing. And apparently they can just laser out of the sky a drone from five miles away. Now, what used to be the problem with lasers is that they would use up all their energy, and then you'd have to recharge them. How are you going to do that? It's going to take a while. So they'd be vulnerable during the recharging stage. But this particular laser is apparently powered by the power of the ship. And the article didn't say it, but I think that means the ship is powered by a small nuclear reactor, which means that it can kind of keep that weapon running the whole time.

So I'm guessing the ship, maybe the ship has to slow down, maybe it doesn't. I don't know. Maybe it can do both. Maybe it can navigate and also fire at the same time. But at the very least it can fire all day long. So it can just keep firing, has infinite ammunition because it's just energy, and it's creating the energy where it sits. So that's kind of amazing.

Do you think we can get to the point where, no, I guess I think clouds are still a problem, right? If you're using a laser weapon, can you zap through a cloud? If you can identify where something was, I don't know about that. Maybe the laser can go through the cloud. You just have to be able to identify where you're shooting by some other means. But anyway, that could be one of the biggest changes in all of military history, moving from bows and arrows to guns to rockets to lasers. We were always going to be with lasers. It was always going to happen.

All right, it's called the HELIOS system.

All right, let's talk about all the hoaxes. You ready for this? You're not going to like it because not all the hoaxes are on one side. That's just the way it is. Sorry.

All right, do you remember the news that the DOGE people had found that there was a $50 million budget for condoms for Gaza? Do you remember I said that's not real? And people said, oh, Scott, you don't understand. You don't understand how bad it is. That's real. And I said that's not real. The closest that could be to real is that there was money allocated for reproductive health services. And the news came out that there was money for reproductive health services. Now, you could argue that we shouldn't be spending it. But if you're going to give aid to Gaza and you said, what's the thing they need most? Well, I would think somewhere in the top three or top five would be reproductive health. That's got to be right near the top of anybody's requirements.

So the big question would be aid or no aid. If you're going to do the aid, you might as well do the things that people need the aid for. And that would include all manner of reproductive things. Condoms would be very low on the list, but maybe it's better than unwanted pregnancies, I suppose, especially in that situation. So I think Trump took the $50 million and took it up to $100 million just because he's Trump, so he can.

Now, there was also a separate story that the Gaza was not Gaza as in Israel's fight with Gaza, but there's another place called Gaza in Africa. Have you heard of this part? So apparently there was some aid that may have also included reproductive health, which means it might have also included some condoms for a place called Gaza in Africa. Now, I'm not sure if that's true or not. But here's the thing. There was never $50 million just for condoms for Gaza. So if you thought that was 100% true, it wasn't 100% true. But was it directionally true? Yes. Meaning that if it's in the category of reproductive health and it's a lot of money and it was going to the Gazans, yeah, I mean, it's directionally true. But it sounds pretty bad when you say it's just condoms.

So I don't mind when Trump exaggerates things that are directionally accurate, which is we should take a look at why we're giving anybody any money for anything. That's okay with me. Let's take a closer look.

Do you remember when Trump turned on the spigots and created all that free water for California when we needed it the most? Do you remember what I said? I said, really? Really? He just said open the spigot, then all the problems were solved? That doesn't sound real to me. So I've been looking into it and looking into it. And then the next thing I found was that the water situation in California is way too complicated for anybody to understand and explain. It's just too complicated.

But the best I can determine is that not all the water is connected. So even if you turn this spigot in one part of the state, it doesn't mean that the firefighters in LA are getting any more water. And indeed, apparently they did not. But you're saying, well, that's okay as long as the farmers got more water. There's no indication that any farmers got more water. But that's okay as long as we don't run out water for residents, you know, because sometimes we have to manage our water in California and we have to cut back. So if it at least solved that. But there's no indication it solved that. Where'd the water go?

And then there's some people saying that he made it worse because he released some water from some dams that we might need later in the year when things get too dry. And then other people who know even more say no, this is before the snow melts. Once the snow melts, those dams that were already nearly full would be overfilled, and they would have to release the extra water anyway. So all Trump did was release the extra water a few weeks early to basically nothing.

So here's my challenge to you. If you can find any evidence that Trump released some water to anybody who could use it, let me know, okay? Because I'm not aware of any water that went to anybody. But does it make a great story? It really does. It's one of the best first 100 days stories.

Do I mind that Trump is creating a, let's say, a brand or reputation, or I'm going to say legend? I mean, at this point I think Trump has already passed that in politics. He's sort of operating in legend territory. You know, you can avoid the assassination attempts, you avoid the jail, you came back against all odds. That's not politics, right? That's legend. You know, there are only a few figures who have ever been in this category. So as a legend, he's much more effective, meaning that he can get stuff for me and for you and for Americans that he wouldn't be able to do if he were a politician. That would be the first term politician. Second term legend. The legend can get way more than a non-legend.

So if embellishing his early successes solidifies his legend, that's probably more good than bad. But we still need to fix our water problem in California. I'm pretty sure that's not fixed. So separate conversation.

Do you remember the story about Trump is suing 60 Minutes for editing the Kamala Harris interview? And apparently the edits made her look smarter than she was. And the 60 Minutes defense is it was ordinary editing. It was editing, but it was the ordinary editing that they would do for anybody.

Now, I've heard this story and I've even talked about this story. But you know what I haven't seen and haven't talked about? I haven't seen the edit. So apparently the full transcript has been released so that people digging into it can see exactly what she really said and then compare it to the video. CNN's take is that they've looked at the transcript and they've looked at the edit, and it's just a normal edit. So do you believe that? Do you believe CNN's take that it's a normal edit?

Let me tell you something that you wouldn't know unless you've been interviewed lots of times like I have. It is completely normal for entities to change what you said and put it in quotes. Let me say that again. It's completely normal. I'm not saying it's good. Good is separate. We'll talk about whether it's good. It's completely normal for me to do an interview and for them to make up a quote, put quotation marks around it, and assign it to me. Did you know that? That's normal. It's normal. It's really easy. And almost always they get the quote wrong, meaning that when they make up their quote, it's not what you would have said, and it's not even something you'd agree with. Unfortunately, that's normal.

Now, if the made-up quote is so bad, you know, maybe you'd have some action. Maybe you'd demand some correction or something. But I hate to tell you how normal that is. Now, there's another kind of normal edit where they make you look smarter than you were. But the reason they do that has more to do with being good TV. It's not as much about making you look good, although they do like you to look good because then other people will come on the show. If you're a show where you depend on people coming on and saying what they think, you want to make them look good so that the next person you ask doesn't say, well, I saw what you did with the last one. There's no way I'm going to go into that torture. So you have to be good to your subjects in a fairly public way to stay in business.

So here is what would seem to you like a very inappropriate edit. And you could argue it is inappropriate. But I'm going to only tell you the context, how normal it is. So let's say if what Kamala Harris did was stumble over a question, but maybe she circled back to it in another part of the interview. This is not what happened. I'm just giving you a for example. So let's say the first time she maybe heard the question wrong or she used a word wrong or she stumbled over a word. But then a minute later she circled back because she knew she didn't give a good answer and then gave you a nice tight answer.

Well, you could argue that showing both answers would be more true because you could see that she messed up one answer, but then you'd see that she got a tight, nice answer when she thought about it for a moment. It would be completely normal for the editors to take out the muffed-up answer because it makes a cleaner video. Oh, this is what she thinks. She said it once not so well. She said it once well. Let's show the one where she said it well. Would that be, do you get sued for that? Well, maybe, because in the context of a political race, can this person think and talk at the same time is a real big question.

If it were a celebrity, just let's say any Hollywood celebrity, you would absolutely make that edit, and it would be the right thing to do because you just want the right, you want them to look good. You want the audience to like it. You don't want them to see all the tripping over their own words. So yes, that would be an appropriate edit.

So where it gets interesting is that the only context where that kind of tightening-up editing is inappropriate, or at least questionable, is the exact thing that they were doing, which is introducing the country to Kamala Harris in a tense situation. Under that very specific situation, the public kind of needs to see the whole thing because it's the stumbling over the words. That is the show. That's the meat. That's not the fluff that you cut off the top. Oh, let's get rid of some fluff and get down to the meat. No, the meat would be when she flubbed something, because that's exactly what everybody was looking for.

So I think the Trump people have an argument. But I think I'm going to side with 60 Minutes only in the sense that I don't think they can win if it went to court. They might settle, and that would be a win in itself. But I don't think they could win in court because it's too close to normal. Too close to normal. It isn't like, like I said, it's a special case, but I don't think it's enough of a special case to convince a jury.

Well, so Jake Tapper was talking to Democrat Chris Murphy, and Chris Murphy was listing all the terrible things about, I don't know, Elon Musk and Trump or whatever. But one of the things in his list, Chris Murphy's list, was that Elon Musk gave a Nazi salute. And I'm watching this and I'm saying to myself, is Jake Tapper going to let that go? Is he going to let him say that Musk made a Nazi salute when we know that's not true and Jake Tapper knows that's not true? Is he going to let that stand?

To his credit, Jake Tapper said at the end, he let Chris Murphy finish, and he said, just to clarify, I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like, you know, just to clarify, the Trump campaign says that was not a Nazi salute, but we haven't heard from Elon Musk. What, you haven't heard from Elon Musk because you think he's going to confirm it was a Nazi salute? Or you think there's some possibility it was one, you piece of shit, Jake Tapper? You know it wasn't intended. You know it wasn't. And the reason you don't have a quote from Elon Musk is because it's too stupid to even consider answering it directly because nobody with a brain over IQ of 70 thinks that is real. We all know it's a stupid question. It's a stupid hoax. It's like the fine people hoax. It's despicable that you would even let that thing continue. And it is a complete, complete embarrassment to see and just a total embarrassment.

So remember, the correct response to the did Elon give the Nazi salute, the correct response is only an idiot would think that. Oh, but did you see what his arm did? Yes. And only an idiot would think he gave a Nazi salute at that time in history. Smartest guy we know, standing in front of a crowd, many crowds he's been in front of. He knows how that works. And you think you're so dumb you think he gave an intentional Nazi salute? You're an idiot. There's no other conversation to be had. Oh, but his hand was definitely above his waist. No, you're an idiot. End of story.

So then right after that, because I like watching CNN and imagining I'm telling people all the propaganda as it happens, like I have this fantasy that I would get a hold of some college students or maybe some older high school kids in a class and say, I want to show you CNN or MSNBC, and I'm going to stop it every time it goes from news to propaganda. Stop. Okay, you see where he's acting as if there's some ambiguity about the Nazi salute? That's not news. That's propaganda. End of what you're watching. All right, turn it on.

The next thing they do is they go to a package where somebody's trying to make the case, their correspondent, that what Trump is doing is exactly what the 2025 project said he would do. And all the smart news people have been warning you. They've been telling you. They've been telling you he's going to use that 2025 as his guideline. And now two-thirds of the things he's done are right in line with the document. Two-thirds. Why two-thirds? And so they smugly rest their stupid faces like, got it, we got them. We told you. Yeah, they denied it. Those lying Republicans denied it. But two-thirds of what he did. Two-thirds. Look at my smug stupid face. We got him. I got him this time.

Any of you have even been casually following the news, you know that when Trump said, you know, I haven't read it. That's not my document. You know that everybody said that the document was mostly regular Republican stuff, right? Don't all of you know that? I'll bet everyone watching here knows. Bet every one of you, every one of you probably knows that the document was always mostly ordinary Republican stuff. And the argument was that there was some stuff in it that was a little more extreme than the ordinary Republican stuff. And the argument from Trump was he hadn't seen it, so he's not buying into that stuff that maybe people think is a little beyond what Republicans typically do.

And so what CNN discovered in their gotcha was exactly what the Republicans have been saying since the beginning. Most of that document is normal stuff that of course we agree with. The things that you're talking about, like a national ban on abortion, Trump is on record repeatedly saying he doesn't want it. So that's just one example. So they ended up proving exactly what Republicans claimed. It's mostly normal stuff. And then there's a bunch of it that Trump doesn't endorse, and he didn't do any of those things. He didn't do any of those things that he didn't endorse that's in the document.

So they actually ran a piece that was pure propaganda in which their idiot viewers who are just kept in the dark about any kind of context believe that they saw a proof that the entire election the Republicans were lying about the 2025 and the news was right all along. Exactly the opposite happened. Un-fucking-believable.

Anyway, according to the BBC in the news, the BBC, they say they're confident according to their experts. Their experts are confident that the LA fires were being made worse by climate change. Say, how could you be confident about that? Was it because one of your climate models said that LA would have a fire this year? No, no, there was no model that said that. So if you don't have models that can predict what's going to happen in any one micro location, why would you say that your models are telling you that that was going to happen in that micro location?

By the way, do you find out about climate models? I know many of you watching this are skeptical about climate change and the climate models in particular. But by the way, do you find out? You know, we're going to talk about USAID and finding out the deepest, darkest, most corrupt part of the government has been discovered, and it probably blew your mind when you first started learning about USAID. By the way, do you find out about the climate models? It's the only thing I can say with complete certainty. Oh, there will be a day, might not be that far away, but someday is going to be a whistleblower. And somebody who actually works on the models is going to tell you how they do it, and you're not going to like it. And this is one that I could wait forever for. You know, sometimes I'll make a prediction it's like 20 years off, and I'll be like, I can wait. All you can mock me for 20 years. I'll just wait. And there it is. But yeah, wait till you find out about the models.

All right, so the other things that are sort of fake news is there's no Panama deal. Panama made an offer to get rid of the Chinese operators of the canal in two years when the deal was going to expire. When that was reported by many people as a big success, I said there's no deal. That's an offer. Until Trump says there's a deal, you don't have a deal. That's just an offer. And so what did Trump say when he was asked about it? Goes, we'll see, we'll see. It's not everything I want. So Trump was still negotiating. So no, we don't have a deal in Panama. We have an offer. The offer seems like a good faith offer. I hope so. But Trump may say good faith or not. Our national interest requires something extra. Maybe something faster. Maybe something that involves, I don't know, could be something else.

So Trump being good at negotiating doesn't just say yes to the first offer. He says that's a good start. What else can you give me? Because you're not there yet. So he knows how to do this. So trust him. He knows how to do it.

Likewise, the Mexico deal is not exactly a deal until a lot of other things are decided. But it does appear that Mexico says they're going to put 10,000 people on the border. And Canada may also not be the deal that we think it is, meaning that they may not be able to do the things that they said. There was a whole bunch of offers that came out of Justin Trudeau's office. He posted it on X. He was going to do things like create task forces to work on fentanyl, put lots of bodies on the border, have a whole bunch of fentanyl-related legal efforts. So it was a pretty long list, and it looked pretty serious, and it looked like kind of exactly what you'd want them to do. And there was a budget attached and everything.

But apparently the Canadian government is in such disarray with Trudeau having resigned but still in the job that it's unclear whether they can budget and execute. So they may have made a promise that they can't deliver or can't deliver right away or it'll depend, can't deliver till the government changes or they do something to pass a new budget. So that might be a little lost in the bureaucracy. We'll see. But that's why both Mexico and Canada have 30 days, because they're not there yet. The reason Trump put off the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days is because they were moving in the right direction, not because they were there. If they were there where Trump needed them to be, they wouldn't delay 30 days. They would say, okay, tariffs are off. You gave me what I need.

But he also talks about tariffs being a source of income, and he loves them. So maybe nothing makes them go away.

Now on CNN, one of their dumbest panelists, I can't remember which one, the one who always does the overt talking of Scott Jennings, you know, whenever he talks she goes and shakes her head like a bobblehead so that you can only look at her. She said that Trump failed on Mexico and Canada. And you would say, wait, what? Both of them offered him at least some part of what he wanted. And her argument on CNN was no, all they offered was what they were going to do anyway. So he didn't get anything. What reporting is that based on?

Now I mention it because it's in the realm of something that could be true, meaning I don't reject it automatically. But what reporting is she seeing? I've seen no reporting that says Canada was going to do all those things anyway. So all they did was tell you what they were going to do anyway. I think. Did she just make that up? I don't eve