ay, I hope you all do your pre-orders of that.

Let's talk about the news. Number one piece of news is Turkey and the Kurds. Here's what you need to know: we have no idea what's going on over there. If you have a strong opinion about Turkey and the Kurds in Syria, you probably shouldn't, because we really don't know what's happening.

It seems to me that the biggest problem over there is that there's no such thing as just Kurds. If they were just one thing, if they were the Kurds, then we might all have the same opinion, or at least we'd have wise opinions. But it turns out you've got your bad Kurds and your good Kurds. Did you know that? You've got your bad ones who are terrorists or trained terrorists. You've got your good ones who fight terrorists. Well, we love the good ones. We don't feel so strongly about the bad ones because they were sort of training terrorists or they are terrorists.

And apparently there's no dispute about the fact that there are some good Kurds and some bad Kurds. So let's agree on that. Now if we could support all the good Kurds, the ones that fought with us, I'm sure we would do that. But we don't know exactly what's going on or what Turkey is exactly doing or why they're doing it or exactly what we're doing and what Assad is doing and exactly what the Russians are gonna do. Because apparently the Syrians have announced that they're there in the fight. Basically the Syrians are going to oppose Turkey.

And what we did was get our fifty or so military people out of the way. Now the part that people don't seem to be grokking, which we're just learning, is that Turkey was gonna go anyway. Apparently Turkey was gonna do what Turkey was gonna do on the border whether our 50 people, who were not terribly important to their plans, were there or not. So what the president did is not give them the green light. Rather, they were gonna do it anyway and he got out of the way.

So in other words, there was no reason for our troops to be there because they weren't gonna stop what was going to happen, but they could get hurt. So there just wasn't any purpose for them to be there if you understand it in those terms. And by the way, that could turn out to be wrong. It could easily turn out that what I just said has no factual basis because everything is sort of still fog of war and, you know, it's all moving parts right now.

So there's one future where Turkey simply creates a safe zone and that the Kurds who are already in that area are not too happy about it, but we might be happy that there's a safe zone created. Apparently Turkey was tired of waiting for the United States to be productive in creating this safe zone. So they just said, well, there's gonna be a safe zone. You're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution, America. So maybe, you know, get out of the way.

So we don't know if Turkey's version of the safe zone is really just a kill zone for Kurds or are they really just trying to protect their own border and they don't have ambitions of wiping out large populations. Certainly people are gonna get killed because it's a military action. But I'm very confused about who's doing what and what will happen. Will this pit Russia against Turkey? If it does, kind of glad we got out of the way. Will Turkey cross the line and risk their entire economy to kill X number of Kurds that they can get their hands on? Maybe.

I did a little unscientific poll on Twitter and asked people, do you think Turkey will essentially sacrifice their entire economy to get some advantage in wiping out the Kurds just in that one area? It wouldn't solve their current problem. It would just be a certain group of them. Would they trade their entire economy for a certain group of Kurds? Or are they smart enough not to do that? And they might get close to the line and they might kill more people than, you know, we think should be killed or we would want to be killed. It might get more bad guys than good guys. We don't know what that's gonna look like.

Or are they just calling Trump's bluff? Do they think it's a bluff? Maybe they say to themselves, you know, we're never gonna get a chance like this to kill so many Kurds, so maybe it's worth the risk of taking, you know, calling his bluff.

Oh, let me pause right here for a conflict of interest statement. I have a large investment in Turkey now. It's just a stock investment and it's specifically stock in the Turkish mobile phone company Turkcell. Yesterday when all the American stocks were down, Turkcell was up, of all things. You know what? President Trump was threatening to obliterate their economy like he's done before, and the Turkish mobile phone company stock went up. Today it's down a little bit. Yeah, just a percent or two, so it's no big deal.

So anyway, my conflict of interest statement is that I have an investment there which, if the president goes through with his threat to whack their economy, is gonna be very bad for me. Not change-my-life bad, but for that particular investment, really bad. It's an investment I've had for years that I got simply because mobile phone companies always succeed in the long run if they have kind of a monopoly. And Turkey is an educated, growing economy, but they've had problems, you know, obviously government problems and now this.

So there's a big... I certainly would not recommend that you own that stock, nor would I recommend that you sell it, because you should not take any financial advice whatsoever from cartoonists. So having said that, my interests financially are opposite of what I'm going to say right now. Even though I have a sizable investment in a Turkish company that would be just really hit hard if Trump moved against the Turkish economy, I'm in favor of it.

You know, if we make a threat like that, the United States does, you have to go through with it. You have to pay that debt. So the challenge has been made. If Turkey crosses the line, we will break their economy. That's gonna hurt me. I'm not gonna like that. I'm gonna hold the investment anyway because it's a very long-term investment. You know, it's sort of that 20-, 30-year investment. But I don't like it. But I still think we have to make good on the threat.

And I would bet, if I had to be a betting person, that they will cross the line and then we will have to crash their economy. So, you know, I'm not gonna say that's a hundred percent, but I'd say we're looking at probably a 70% chance that the Turkish economy will be obliterated. Probably a 70% chance, because I don't see them holding themselves back and I don't see Trump not making good on the threat. So I think the die is cast in the sense that they will go too far and we will crash their whole fricking economy. That's what I think. 70% chance. That 30% chance is, you know, anything could happen because once you've got the Russians and the Syrians in there and Iran will be in there, who knows? You know, a couple of different Kurd groups, Turkey, anything could happen.

All right, let's talk about impeachment. There's a new story today about apparently John Solomon has the scoop that the U.S. government knew Ukraine was planning to look again into Burisma Holdings. In other words, somebody in the U.S. government, don't know exactly who, knew that somebody over in Ukraine in the prosecutor's office was planning to look into Burisma long many months before President Trump brought it up in the phone call.

So that would sort of change how you look at the situation, but probably won't change it that much. And here's why: when you say that the U.S. government knew, what does that mean? Does that mean Trump knew that Ukraine was gonna look into Burisma? Is that what it means? Hmm, no. It means some, at least one person, at least one person in the whole U.S. government was aware that Ukraine was taking a second look at Burisma. So it doesn't really change what the president knew or said unless there's additional reporting that says even Trump knew or even his advisors knew and no one should have told them. But that's not in evidence. All we know is that somebody knew.

So we've got some dots that aren't quite connecting here but might. Yeah, maybe later they will connect. So what does it mean that they were thinking about looking into it or they were looking into Burisma? Is that the same as saying that they were looking into the Biden participation in Burisma? It's not. It's not. And it's probably not that unusual for a major company to be in the target sights of the prosecutor, especially in Ukraine where there's so much rampant, you know, bad behavior.

So on the surface it feels like it's important to know that when the president asked Ukraine to look into Burisma, you should be important to know that months ago they had already decided to do it. But does it really matter if the president didn't know it or if what they were gonna look into wasn't exactly about the Bidens, which was our primary interest, meaning the country's as well? Or that they weren't actually acting on their preference to look into it? It's possible they said, yeah, we're gonna look into it, and just didn't put resources on it.

So I would say that this new reporting is important. It's part of the puzzle. Good to know and good work by John Solomon getting that scoop. But I wouldn't over-interpret it as being some kind of a kill shot for one side or the other. I think it's more of a, hmm, that's interesting. Let's find out more about that. Until we do, it's hard to have an opinion on it.

Apparently we're pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty, which I didn't even know existed until yesterday. And you're probably saying to yourself, what exactly is the Open Skies Treaty and why are we pulling out of it? Well, it has something to do with sending surveillance aircraft over other people's territory. And the idea is that we're all safer if we can all keep an eye on each other. So even Russia, for example, would allow that we would have some kind of high-level surveillance flights spying on their country. They might be doing the same thing with us. Everybody's looking at each other. Probably keeps you safer. Yeah, you know, a watched situation is gonna be a little bit safer than if there was something you can't keep an eye on. That was the thinking.

And apparently we're pulling out. Why are we pulling out? I don't know. Beats me. Was something going wrong? I looked at the reporting this morning. I didn't see any reason. Now that doesn't mean there's no reason. One assumes that there is a reason, but I don't know what it is. So if you have a strong opinion about whether we should pull out of the Open Skies Treaty, you might be reading different news than I am, because I don't see the reason yet.

And of course there's always accusations that Russia is cheating because they wouldn't let us fly over some zone. But I don't know how having no treaty is going to make that better. So I don't quite know how that all fits together.

All right. Trump announced that the U.S. is putting visa restrictions on Chinese officials who were responsible for quote "brutal suppression" of Muslims. So those sanctions are on individuals in China who somehow are complicit in detaining the Uyghur Muslim minority over there.

Now could there be any better thing that the president could do for reelection? Is the president using this issue just to get reelected? Because what could be better for the president than to be vocally and visibly supporting a Muslim minority? Yeah, that's pretty good, right? It's pretty good because it works against the whole idea that he's anti-Muslim. Yeah, he's putting U.S. interests on the line to protect a Muslim minority in another country. I mean, that's... how do you explain that if he's anti-Muslim? It's hard to explain.

Because remember, he's good buddies with President Xi. It would seem easy for Trump to agree with his good buddy, get rid of that problem. But instead he's decided to back the Muslim minority. How do none of the Democrats process that? How does that make sense in their movie?

Now in my movie it makes perfect sense, because in my movie he was never an anti-Muslim at any time. And sure enough he's acting in a way today on this Uyghur situation which would suggest he's not anti-Muslim. So my movie is completely consistent. But how does the other movie do where he hates Muslims but he's putting American interests on the line to protect them in another country? It has no strategic value to us whatsoever and he's putting America's interests on the line, you know, to support them.

So politically it's brilliant. It might also be good in terms of our trade negotiations. But I'll tell you what is really good for. You know what is really good for? It's really good for "cats on the roof."

Now if you've got none of the "cats on the roof," I'm gonna use this. I guess you'd call it an eight. It's based on a joke, but it's an interesting concept that the joke represents. And the joke is that, you know, the brother says the cat's on the roof. Well, though I'm not gonna tell the joke, but there is a joke it's based on. And the reference to "cats on the roof" is a way to tell somebody without telling them the bad news right away. You're softening somebody up for the bad news later, which is the cat died. But you don't want to say the cat died. So you say, oh, the cat's on the roof. We're trying to get it down. Oh, the cat fell. It's not... the vet's working on it. And then, you know, the third day you say the cat didn't pull through. It didn't make it. And then the punch line of the joke is that, you know, your mother's on the roof.

So softening you up to tell you that your mother is gonna die. I feel as though when the president goes hard at China for the Uyghurs, it has, you know, political benefits as well as, you know, just moral benefits because it's supporting a beleaguered group. But it's also a little bit the "cat's on the roof," meaning that the president is softening up in this country, the United States, for decoupling. Decoupling is happening. I mean, we're watching it. So you don't have to ask yourself, will we decouple from China? It's happening. We're doing it right now. You're seeing companies move away from China. You're seeing companies that, unless they're crazy, they're not going to move into China. What American company that depends on stockholders would move into China now? It would just be the worst play ever.

So decoupling is happening. It may not be, you know, cut the cord on day one, but it's gonna... we are decreasing our reliance on China over time, and that's decoupling. So when the president throws this Uyghur thing in there, it's good on lots of levels, you know, morally, politically. But it also softens up the local people, you know, the United States and citizens. It tells us that we're leaving. You know, it's sort of like, better find your phones because we might be leaving soon. So "cat's on the roof."

Similarly, I made that joke because Bernie Sanders came out and he gave a little press conference where he was not looking too healthy, but he was, you know, he was standing and walking and talking. And he said he was of course going to pull back on some of the rigors of his campaigning schedule.

Now how do you interpret that? I don't see any future in which Bernie works hard and goes all the way and gets the nomination. I can't believe that Bernie necessarily sees it, but he also just doesn't have the kind of personality worth quitting even for a reason that other people would say is a good reason. He doesn't really have that quitter personality, which is partly why you like him, right?

I have a very positive opinion of Bernie for his hard work, his consistency. He doesn't seem to have done, you know, hit by too much in the way of scandal. And I believe that he is passionate and believes that what he's promoting policy-wise would be good for people. So I have a very high opinion of Bernie on a lot of levels, which is different from saying I think that his plans will work. But he's moved the entire Democratic Party in his direction. It's an amazing accomplishment. Amazing.

And I think that someday everybody will have health care and education will be free one way or another, maybe just through normal capitalist ways. But someday somebody's gonna say, you know, Bernie pushed us there a little bit faster, made it a higher priority. But I mean, I tweeted it and I said the cat's on the roof. And people unfortunately interpreted that as me being that, you know, Bernie wasn't gonna live that long. And that's not what I meant in that context.

The cat's on the roof meant that when Bernie says I'm gonna pull back on my campaign schedule a little bit, of course he's sort of softening us up for understanding that he's gonna put, you know, a maximum fight into it as much as he can. But you should sort of expect him to, you know, to look at the poll numbers fairly soon. It's gonna take a few more poll results. They'll probably wait until there are a few more poll results. And then he'll say, you know, I'm not polling well and I don't have the energy to change it. So this is a good time for me to drop out.

I just think he's looking at... I think Bernie wants to do is to go out on his own terms. Now has Bernie earned it? Has Bernie earned the right to go out on his own terms? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, he put in the work. Bernie earned the right to go out on his own terms. So if he wants to stay for a while and have sort of a graceful exit that's determined by the poll numbers, I think I feel flexible about that. I would not criticize him for that. I think he earned that right.

All right, one more thing about Turkey. A lot of people have what I would call a half opinion about Turkey and the Kurds. A half opinion is where you're only looking at either all the costs of something or all the benefits of something and you're just ignoring the other half of the equation.

And so the people who say we should not be pulling those 50 people out, what are they suggesting instead? Because remember there's a 400-year history of the Turks and the Kurds being at each other's throats. Are we gonna stay there for hundreds of years? Is that the alternative? Because if it is, then we should be able to say that.

So if somebody says I think it's good that we pulled out, they could say the cost is there's a risk to the Kurds. That's a pretty big cost to the United States as well, because if the Kurds get wiped out it's gonna look like we're unreliable as allies and that could hurt us later. That's a big deal.

But the people who say we should stay, that make first of all the mistake of thinking it would stop the Turks. I don't think it will. That was the whole point. Our military has sort of announced essentially the official word from the government is Turkey was going to do their thing either way and our 50 people were just not going to be the factor that stopped them. So better to get them out of the way.

But for those who think it would have made a difference to keep them there or think that we should put more people there so that Turkey really is stopped, what is your full opinion? Because you can't say let's keep them there until Tuesday. You kind of have to say for hundreds of years. Because whenever we leave it just goes back to Turkey attacks the Kurds and vice versa.

So I don't know that there's a valid opinion that says stay unless you finish the thought and say stay, probably for hundreds of years. If you can say that with a straight face, well that's a full opinion. Now there's sort of a mid-range there where you say we should stay until the situation changes in some way that we can get out. But if it doesn't change, we will stay there for hundreds of years. Is that what we want to do? If it is, people should be able to say that and just say this is my full opinion: we should stay, and if we have to for hundreds of years. That's the other opinion. That's the opposite of we should get out of there.

All right, let's talk about interfering in China's domestic affairs. Are we interfering in China's domestic affairs when we sanction people for their treatment of the Uyghurs? Now I'm in favor of that. I'm all in favor of the sanctions and whatever else we do to China. But are we interfering with their domestic politics? Oh yeah. At what point do you say that's not legitimate? Is this such a bad situation there's an exception? Is it an exception? I don't know. It certainly seems like it's gonna make a difference. It certainly seems like it's designed to manipulate their political process. How is that not meddling? It's like the most meddling thing you've ever seen in your life.

And why is it that when we do it we don't even notice that is meddling? It's like we don't even notice we're meddling the piss out of everybody. And guess what? They're meddling right back. I don't know. We're a meddling world. I don't think there's any such thing as no meddling.

All right, I'd like to tell you how Bill Gates is fixing the world. And I think I'm completely serious about this, but you'll decide. You should watch the special on Netflix called "Inside Bill's Brain." So it's called "Inside Bill's Brain." It's a three- or four-part documentary about Bill Gates. And it's a very positive presentation of Bill Gates. And I was wondering why Bill Gates gave so much of his personal time to this project, because he obviously spent a lot of time with the interviewer and did lots and lots of interviews. And you walk around with him and spend all kinds of time with him. And that seemed opposite of what I imagined Bill Gates was all about.

Now obviously he does lots of public events, but it seemed unusual that he would do one that's sort of about him. That seemed completely off-brand, didn't it? And did you wonder about that? Like why would Bill Gates be such a big part of this project on the thing that's just sort of about him? Just the opposite of how you imagined him. He just is more about business and getting things done, not about self-aggrandizement. And then I watched it and then I understood it. And so on its surface, yeah, there's way more going on than you think.

So here's the deal. So most of it's focused on his current life as a philanthropist and the Gates Foundation. There's not so much about his Microsoft past. If you want that stuff that would be some other content. So they talked about his spending billions to try to build, you know, toilets that don't need running water for the third world and sewage processing. It's hard to watch that part of the documentary because they show you a lot of sewage and it's more than I wanted to look at. But it's important to make the point of how important it is.

Apparently there were just lots of people dying in Africa from diarrhea. The diarrhea was caused by the fact that their water source and their toilet source were the same place, as awful as that sounds, right? Their sources of water and their sources of bathroom was literally the same place. So they were picking up all these bugs because of that unhealthy situation. And because they don't have access to good medicine, just people were dying from diarrhea.

So Bill Gates took on probably the hardest problem in the world, the most disgusting, unpleasant, thankless problem any