The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump's Power of Persuasion, and Democrats Downplaying Biden Corruption, with Scott Adams and Margot Cleveland | Ep. 638

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Scott Adams, author of "Reframe Your Brain," to discuss the specific ways Donald Trump is such a master of persuasion, the way Adams realized that after watching Trump's "Rosie O'Donnell" debate answer to Megyn, how "building the wall" and the "perfect phone call" are evidence of his persuasive ability, comments he made about race in February that led to his cancelation, the actual context he was getting at, the need to focus on individuality over a focus on racial "averages," tips for teaching life skills to your children, how to reframe the way you think about your own attractiveness, the value of learning to be a great public speaker, the way hypnosis actually teaches you real-world skills, how he came up with the idea for the "Dilbert" comic strip, and more. Plus, The Federalist's Margot Cleveland joins to discuss exactly what we learned the first day of the Biden impeachment inquiry, the key points the corporate media aren't talking about, the ways the Democrats are trying to downplay the evidence of Biden's corruption, explaining away his actions as simply love for his son Hunter, what we'll know if the media and left actually report the truth, and more.Adams: https://tinyurl.com/tn6rdzzp/?tag=dilguy2009-20Cleveland: https://twitter.com/ProfMJClevelandFollow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow 

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday. If you are in the northeast like I am, you are probably experiencing the monsoon that we are experiencing here. The videos coming out of New York, which is, you know, an hour away from, well, 45 minutes from where I am. I mean, epic. The flooding is terrible. The subways are flooding. It's like, I mean, it's been biblical this past week. Five straight days of rain, one day of sun, and now we're back to, oh, it gets depressing, right? But I have good news for you because in just a little bit, we're going to be joined by a first time guest on the program. Scott Adams is here. You know,

Scott, I mean, he's been extremely successful. He's the genius behind the Dilbert comic. He's one of the most successful comics of all time uh comic strip narrators and creators um and he he's got such an interesting way of thinking he's got a new book out and one of the things that he shows you in the book is how to reframe the way you may be thinking about things whether it's um your life your luck, your attractiveness, the weather. And you know, this guy, he's like a trained hypnotist. This is the man who saw Trump after that August 15 debate where he and I sparred a bit and everybody was like, oh, he's done. He's done. He's done. Scott Adams wrote a piece, I think a week later saying

he's going to be the next president. And actually had, it wasn't, you know, anything based on the polls. He could see the way Trump was communicating because he had a background in hypnosis and persuasion, and he could tell that Trump understood it too. So he's got these really cool insights. He got himself in, you know, he got himself canceled basically, uh, earlier this year, which we covered on the show, but there's a lot to get into a scout Adams. I'm excited to talk to him for the first time. But we're going to start with the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. We thought it was important to bring it to you because it's been totally ignored by the mainstream media and will likely continue to be,

especially if it starts to get bad for Joe Biden. It was just an opener. So what happened and what should we expect? Margo Cleveland is senior legal correspondent at The Federalist and she has covered the Biden corruption story for years. Margo, welcome back to the show. So what was your headline in watching what happened yesterday? Oh boy, the Democrats are in denial and the Republicans are starting to present the evidence to the American public for the first time. OK, so what what was the lead takeaway, though, because when I watched they had three lawyers, four lawyers, really one was a damn lawyer. And Jonathan Turley is the one I listen to for most things. I love his legal analysis.

Always have, you know, even before he seemed more right leaning, he seemed like a fair guy to me. And he seemed to be saying, look, it's bad. It looks very bad. It looks corrupt. Debbie, do we have that soundbite yet? But we don't have it yet. We don't, it's not time for an actual impeachment yet. Absolutely. I love Jonathan Turley too. I've listened to him for years. And he's the one that everyone should really be focusing on because he laid it out very straight. And it was pretty funny. The Democrats were bashing him for actually being open-minded during it. But I think Turley made a really good point when he said, we know that there was a pay to play. What we don't know yet is if President Biden

committed impeachable offenses. And he said, what we need to look at is, did Biden get any of the money? Did Biden know this was going on and help and assist on it? There's evidence that indicates it, but not yet enough to convict. So I agree, Turley was definitely the one to listen to on that. And that is really what the inquiry is about. We know that there was corruption going on, that Hunter Biden benefited. And we have circumstantial evidence that the money went back to the big guy. We've got the email of the 10% to the big guy. We have Hunter saying, you know, Pops takes 50% of everything I make. You saw lots of connections also that Biden was changing policy as the vice president,

whether it was the Russian mayor's wife paying money and then all of a sudden she's not on the sanction list when they invaded Crimea, or if it's the firing of the Burisma prosecutor. So we also have evidence showing that there was actually a change in policy. But as Trulia said, we need to have more evidence before we can have this hearing and potential conviction of President Joe Biden. All we heard from the Democrats all day was no evidence. There's no evidence. Completely ignoring, Margo, the fact that Comer stated openly the purpose of yesterday was just to begin, just to set the stage for why the inquiry was necessary. And there was not even an attempt by the Republicans to begin the fact presentation and finding process. Right. It was crazy how they kept saying that there was no

evidence. And oh, yeah, Donald Trump is bad., oh, yes, we're about to have a shutdown. So much evidence, not by fact witnesses, but documentary evidence from the bank records, from references to the emails and the text messages were presented. But the other thing they did is anything that was evidence, the Democrats wrote off as, oh, this was from Rudy Giuliani, so we can't trust it. This wasn't from Rudy Giuliani. This was from bank records. This was from the confidential human source that had nothing to do with Rudy Giuliani. So there's a lot of evidence. But as you also said, we are just starting the process. They were trying to lay this out and say, this is why we need the inquiry, because we

have so much evidence of the corruption and quite a bit of circumstantial evidence tying President Joe Biden to the corruption, whether it's him benefiting or changing policy, that we need to have more. The Democrats' response is, oh, there's no evidence this should be shut down. Turley said, I'm trying to find it, but he said it was one of the most sweeping examples of corruption that he's ever seen. One of the most devastating examples of corruption he's ever seen. And he said, this is a town awash in corrupt influence peddling, you know, down in D.C. I've been a critic of influence peddling by both Republicans and Democrats for three decades. I've

been writing about this a long time. Influence peddling is the favorite form of corruption in Washington, D.C. And it's and this city is awash with it. But have I seen anything of this size and complexity? No. It just as an observer. No. But this is particularly bad. Now Comer's putting the number we had the IRS whistleblowers on this program. They said they're putting it at over 17 million that Hunter took in as a result of all these corrupt connections. Then Comer had put it at over 20 million for the Biden family and their associates, pushing Joe Biden's name. This is the gift that they were giving. No other services besides were related to Joe Biden. And now today they revised it up to 24 million.

So what kind of subpoenas is he now issuing? Like what what should we expect in terms of new data as a result of the inquiry officially being underway? Sure. So we saw a hit either late last night or this morning. I'm losing track of the timing, more subpoenas for bank records. And that's going to be important because what we need to see is where this money went. We know what was going through all of these different corporations that were set up, but we don't know everywhere that it went. So we're going to see more subpoenas on that. I would hope that we're also going to see more information from the whistleblowers. So there was a big dump of documents earlier in the week that went through and detailed what they found as part of the investigation. But it's really important to

remember that the investigation did not get into at all President Biden. They weren't allowed to ask those questions. They weren't allowed to look at those documents. They weren't allowed to get emails. Another thing the whistleblowers noted was when they did searches of the computer, they didn't use Joe Biden's aliases. So they weren't able to get any of that type of information. So I would expect also more subpoenas to go out for email accounts, text accounts that are coming again from third parties. So we're not looking at, you know, this was hacked material. This is coming from third party providers. And to look at those aliases, to look at those text messages, to see what Joe Biden was doing, what kind of communications he was having.

Now, it also came out yesterday that Hunter Biden, we think it was Hunter Biden, accepted a $260,000 payment, $, one, two, 51, $10,000 payment. It explained the timing and how this payment, these two payments, which were from the Chinese were linked back to the address that Joe Biden lives in. Right. So the timing of that was around, I believe, when they were seeking a recommendation letter for one of their daughters for either college or grad school. And at this time, Hunter Biden did not live with the big guy any longer. So the fact that it was shown as going to his address, again, is more evidence connecting President Biden to this pay to play scandal. And we also have the kind of contradiction between was this a loan or was this supposed to be an investment?

One of the individuals testifying yesterday is a forensic accountant. And he said, look, if it was a loan, you're going to have documents to back it up. And there aren't any documents for that. So that, again, is just more evidence of Joe Biden's personal involvement in this. And it happened because Joe Biden launched his 2020 White House bid, announced it in April of 2019. These payments came in July and August 2019, suddenly $260,000 is being sent from these Chinese officials to the Joe Biden Delaware home, or at least that's the home listed as the beneficiary address for the payments. They're suggesting that's, you know, Hunter didn't live there at the time, but that on the other hand, it was the address Hunter used on the bank account that the money was going to. In any event, all of this stinks. And I feel like,

Margo, beyond a doubt, we've proven that Hunter Biden and his family members, let's exclude Joe for right now, were influence peddling with Joe Biden's name. There just is no doubt about that. He did it. He offered no services and he got rich doing it. Many, many millions just for being a Biden and obviously promising access to Joe Biden. And why does access to Joe Biden mean anything? It's not so that you can say, you know, a famous person or someone who is the sitting vice president or was just the it's because you want him to do something for you. That's that's why influence matters, because it gives you power to do something. But I've I've gotten confused, I confess, in watching just some of yesterday's

testimonials, because if we know that the Bidens are corrupt, again, let's exclude Joe from this for just purposes of argument. And and we know also Turley said this, too. You don't actually have to prove that Joe got a bribe. It's enough that Hunter was essentially bribed. You know, it's enough that they were paying Hunter all this money to have access to the Biden name. Then why are, why aren't we done? Why, why do we have to keep digging on whether Joe cashed checks or Joe got 10 to 50% of Hunter's money? Like why, why it's interesting and it's even worse. But why is it necessary? Because he's a Democrat. It really comes down to that, that the Democrat Party is standing behind him. And I think it's it's in part because the entire impeachment of Trump with Ukraine was

based on covering up for Joe Biden. So they are continuing to cover up and to present all of the evidence that connects Joe Biden to this as non-existent when it does exist. I think that Turley, though, is maybe being a little bit more nuanced on this and is saying, look, yes, we know that the money was given to Hunter, and that's enough to show that there's corruption. But to make it rise to the level of an impeachable offense, we need to give more of a connection to President Biden. I think that we are there. I think, Megan, that we're not just talking about him selling Axis. We're talking about then-Vice President, later candidate Biden, giving access.

Whether it's him picking up the phone and saying, hi, gentlemen, I'm glad you're there. Oh, isn't it a monsoon here? And talking about weather. That is proving that he had access. So we already have that. And that's the part that to me is amazing that the media is not looking at this as the huge scandal it is. We know Vice President Biden, candidate Biden gave access to these people who are paying his son. What we might not know is, did he directly benefit? And did he change American policy? I'd argue neither of those matter. But we also have evidence of both of those, again, right from Biden's own text messages, which is they didn't mean anything because he was a drug addict at the time. So don't take him credibly. Why then was he getting money for investments from the Chai

Kongs? And why was he paid to be on Barista's board? And then we also have the call that Hunter Biden made to dad two days or a few weeks, I'm sorry, not a few weeks, a week before Vice President Biden went to Ukraine and demanded the prosecutor be fired. What's the Democrats' response? Oh, well, that was American policy. They were going to fire him anyway. So the upside of that is that Joe Biden built Burisma out of this extra money for doing what he was going to do anyway. Again, we have overwhelming evidence of him participating in this selling of access, him getting money from his son and him changing American policy. We need maybe more. We have that he got money from Hunter so far, actual proof. And by the way, just let me

just table that question for one second, because the timeline really is interesting. I mean, we know they keep saying, oh, this was U.S. policy. The Europeans wanted that prosecutor looking into Burisma fired. Then they claim he wasn't even looking into Burisma. He was. The Burisma was under investigation and they were feeling the heat and they needed help. They put Hunter Biden on the board and the heat continued. And what happened in the fall of 15 was thanks to John Solomon's reporting. We know, um, they, they reached out to Hunter and they said, my God, we need help. And at the same time, the state department messaging as Joe Biden was considering going over to Ukraine was they're doing better. They're doing better on investigating corruption. And apparently they were because Burisma was feeling the heat. And, you know, we're going to give them their billion

dollars in aid. We're going to do it. That was all happening at the same time. We were pleased at state with the corruption investigation in the Ukraine. Burisma was not pleased because it was on the receiving end of it. And Hunter, as a result, was not pleased either because he was representing Burisma. And we know that Burisma pulled Hunter aside and said, for the love of God, we need help. And then came Hunter's phone call to his dad, the sitting vice president. And then what we know from John Solomon's reporting is like that. Joe Biden appears to be the one who changed the policy, who changed the messaging to the surprise of the State Department that was ready to give Ukraine the aid. He appears to be the one that said, nope,

now we're going to withhold the aid unless they fire the prosecutor, who two minutes earlier they were saying was doing a good job. Absolutely. And I actually have an article up today that gives another piece of that puzzle. Two days before the phone call, so December 2nd, 2015, there was a briefing that was high level officials. And somehow, Blue Star, who was doing the lobbying for Burisma, who was connected to Hunter Biden, was involved in that briefing, heard about the details of what Joe Biden's message was going to be to Ukraine, which was we need more anti-corruption

efforts. They sent a memo. Blue Star, the consulting company that was doing lobbying, Hunter Biden set up with Burisma. Blue Star sent a memo to Burisma saying, hey, this is what Vice President Biden is going to be talking about in Ukraine. They got that memo with these talking points two days before they had Hunter make the phone call. So there's even more evidence that this impacted what the policy was. So in other words, just to dumb that down, he, Hunter Biden, has a connection to this PR group. The PR group joins a call that was for press, but it was invited press. They were invited, but why? Who the hell's ever heard of this group? They're not a CBS, an ABC, a Fox. They get on the call and they hear state department officials saying, here's what the

messaging is going to be when the vice president goes over to Ukraine and they lay it out. It was only supposed to be for the papers and the reporting purposes, um, senior department officials. That's it. But this blue star groups connected to Hunter goes back to Burisma and they're like, holy shit, listen, this is exactly the messaging that they're going to say. And it's not good. And here's exactly who said this on the call, which, again, was supposed to be just on background. And then that group now Burisma has the inside information and they talk to their board member, Hunter. Next thing you know, Hunter calls dad. Absolutely. You laid it out perfectly. That's exactly what happened and like you said it wasn't

just on background senior officials they named these individuals and they were high up individuals in the obama biden administration how the heck did they get on that phone call i'm baffled by again more access i mean i can't get on those phone calls and I'm a reporter and even mainstream top tier reporters, it's usually a few of their kind of special gifts to it. So how they got on this was just amazing to me. And again, it was two days before that phone call. And that was a week before Vice President Biden is over there saying, you're going to fire that prosecutor. You're not getting your billion dollars in aid. It's like in response to all this, we continued yesterday to just hear no evidence, no evidence.

And it's like they're always going to say that they're not they're not going to change even when we have witness testimony, factual witness testimony, as opposed to legal experts setting the standards out before we launch into the fact witnesses, they're never going to say we've seen evidence because we've already had IRS whistleblowers. I mean, how many was like one after the FBI whistleblower, they come forward. They don't care. The Democrats are always like, no, I'm not persuaded by that either. But here's just a sampling for the audience at home of how the Democrats were messaging yesterday's hearing. We'll start with Sat 1.

This illegitimate impeachment inquiry, that is not going to yield a scintilla of evidence. The majority sits completely empty handed with no evidence of any presidential wrongdoing. No smoking gun, no gun, no smoke. Here we are in our first hearing. No one has any actual knowledge or evidence. There's nothing new here. Thank you to Mr. Donald Trump for calling this hearing today. As it demonstrates the House GOP and Donald Trump's continued attacks on our institutions and on our democracy. Really kind of, doesn't it? Remember, I've said this before. Remember when you used to respect Congress and like if somebody was a U.S. Congress person, you'd be like, wow, that's pretty cool.

But these these people are morons. They're dishonest morons. It's very obvious they could not get hired in the private sector. Truly. Dan Goldman has that job because his family is billionaires. They own Levi Strauss. I don't know who that last person was, but I think she had to run off to her track meet right after that was over. These are like children who are in here with absolutely no willingness to get a true and accurate assessment of what's being presented to. They don't care. It's all run cover for Joe. They don't care. And this really is such a huge scandal. This is truly said, never seen anything of this scale. What is going to take is one Democrat to actually have some courage and say, this is serious. We need to do something about it. I don't know if we're ever going to get to that point. I do think, though, in addition to the whistleblowers, we're going to have a lot

more information that still hasn't come out. Senator Grassley is very much involved, but on the quiet side. He is a whistleblower who has been giving him information. He's the one who gave the FD 1023 that was the information from the confidential human source about Burisma supposedly paying the $5 million to Hunter and Joe. We still have that whole area to come out. So I wouldn't be surprised that at some point we reach the tipping point. But we're going to also need the press to be honest again. It's not just the Democrats who have gone to the running track meets instead of doing their job. The media is not holding the government accountable. This type of scandal should be on the front page of every newspaper. And until the media

starts acting like a free press again, we're going to have this continued corruption going on. And instead, and by the way, we will know as soon as the messaging changes by the Dems doing, you know, these hearings and the media will know they're getting rid of Joe Biden. If they start to do their job and sound more like honest brokers, we'll know there's a Democrat plan to sub him out and sub somebody else in. I wanted to round back to the question that I paused myself on, which was the only quote proof we have so far that Joe Biden was taking a piece of Hunter's money is the Hunter email, I think to the uncle right on his own laptop, which we now know, of course, is his complaining that he had to give 50 percent to his

dad. Right. I think it was 50 percent of his money to his dad. And then separately, correspondence in the Bobulinski deals saying 10 percent reserve for the big guy. But as far as I know, just off the top of my head, those are the two so far main pieces of evidence we have that Hunter's money, the money he took in was going to Joe. Now, whether money went directly to a Joe Biden shell company and so on, Comer's investigating all that. But do I have it right? So I think the text message was actually to his daughter. Hunter was complaining, I'm not going to make you give me half the money like Pops did. But I also think there was one other part where Hunter was paying for some repairs on his father's house. I think that's the only other connection that we have. And really, in one of the grassy letters that he sent, there was reference to Bitcoin. And I think that that's where we're going to find the

money going. So again, Grassley's really what's that that we're going to see money from the not bank accounts, but it was going through that kind of the new economy, the Bitcoin Bitcoin. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I said that. They're sketchy. They use that for scams and nefarious purposes all the time. Right. And I'll put up on Twitter later today the Grassley letter that references that in a footnote. You've really got to look at everything that comes out of Grassley. But I think that that is where we're going to end up finding the connection and where the payments are coming from. So what we get instead on Capitol Hill,

instead of any open-mindedness to, all right, let's at least see where it goes, is he loved his son. He loved his son. Oh my God. I can't believe they're still trying to peddle this. I'll give the audience just a little flavor. Start with SOT3 Democratic Representative Yasmin Crockett. I will tell you what the president has been guilty of. He has unfortunately been guilty of loving his child unconditionally. And that is the only evidence that they have brought forward. And honestly, I hope and pray that my parents love me half as much as he loves his child. Well, I don't think they do. Otherwise, they would have gotten you a proper education. You wouldn't be saying such dumb ass things as a U.S. congressperson.

Then we've got Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost attacking the Republican witnesses. And you'll hear how he lands it. These witnesses are not giving any answers. They're just asking more questions. We have one witness who has a lot of questions, Ms. O'Connor. Dubinsky, one witness who knows something about accounting but has no real involvement in what's going on. And Mr. Turley stopping here on his way to his next Fox News hit. This is not a serious inquiry. And this entire fake impeachment inquiry isn't about the United States. It's about Hunter Biden. And the only thing the president is can be guilty of here is being a father. Oh, my God, what a hack that you could see. Professor O'Connor literally drops the jaw,

like stunned at how inappropriate those comments were. And the thing is, Margo, the Republican witnesses, the three lawyers were so measured and like very honest. You know, we we don't have it yet. But here's why we I think the inquiry is appropriate. And I really hope Joe Biden did not do this stuff. But we should be open minded because if he did, we need to know that's that was the messaging. These were not fire breathers. Right. And yet, for example, the attacks on Jonathan Turley, the moron who brought up something 20 years ago when he was defending the sister wives.

Remember the sister wives? Yes. The polygamist and tried to make him sound like he was a polygamist who he was like some sort of a deviant. Actually, we have it. I'll play that, too. This is Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamurthy. Sot 7.

Professor Turley, in 2006, you wrote an op-ed in The Guardian entitled, quote, Stop Persecuting Polygamists. There, you liken polygamists to, quote, persecuted minorities. And you said polygamy is, quote, a practice with deep and good faith religious meaning. Isn't that what you said? I represented the sister wives, a family in challenging a polygamy prosecutor. The answer is yes. You've been crusading for charged with polygamy.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we're counting— Can I respond? Because it's not entirely accurate. I actually criticized him. What I was dealing with was the constitutionality of what is called morals legislation. And I admit I'm pretty libertarian. Was Tom Green convicted of pedophilia and rape? Was he convicted of pedophilia and rape? The answer is yes. Just an absolute character assassination, trying to make him sound like some sort of a pervert, Margo. That's what he was trying to do. Absolutely. It was appalling what they were doing with the witnesses who,

as you said, were extremely measured. The Democrat witness, on the other hand, they were just teeing him up to bash Trump and to say this is a ridiculous exercise. The Republican witnesses were answering the question, but they never went to the level of saying, yes, he should be impeached. Yes, he did this. They were saying why an impeachment inquiry was appropriate. And for the Democrats to go forward with that character assassination was absolutely ridiculous, as was trying to tie what Joe Biden was doing as being a loving father. I'm sorry, if you have a son who is addicted to drugs, you don't put him out there to run the family business to make you more money. You try to get him help. You know, and even like the more I look at it,

the more I think to myself, OK, so I agree with everything you just said. It's not loving to put your drug addled son on these boards and so on. But I don't really care. Maybe it's loving towards your son. It's not loving toward the American people who you are being paid to represent as the sitting vice president. So I don't really give a shit whether you love your son and are trying to take care of his bank account. I couldn't care less. I care about me. I care about my audience. I care about my fellow citizens. I care about our honor as a country. That's what I care about. I don't give a shit whether you love your son. That's why I don't care what his motives were in allowing it to happen. I just care that he did it. That's the issue. Stop bringing up the love. I should say something, though,

about Jonathan Turley. He's a very well-respected legal professor, law professor at George Washington University. He's been there for years. He's used to get bipartisan love until he, oh, made the sin of becoming a contributor on Fox News. And later, even under this kind of character assassination with his three kids there watching him. He had brought his children, which is sweet. He was given the chance, not by the Democrats, but by the Republicans, to offer a word on what had just happened to him.

Listen. I'd like to explain what that attacked out with nothing else for members of the committee than for my three children here, who may be a little surprised by what they just heard. As they, I think, know, I've spent my life challenging what is called morals legislation. What the Democratic member attacked me for are laws that dictate to others how they should live their lives. Some of those laws have been used against gay and lesbian couples.

They've been used against minorities. The individual that the member described, I condemned. This has become a pattern of witnesses, whistleblowers, FBI agents, journalists being attacked in Congress. The public has something in Congress to look to, to have faith. And I have to tell you, it's not that I think that absurd attack meant any difference to my children or to the people that are watching. It makes a difference to our process. Such an honorable man, Margo. And he takes a risk of total character assassination in just doing his civic duty here. That response was amazing. And he

called it right. This isn't just about him. It's bigger. It is an attack on Congress. It's an attack on how our system should work. And instead of looking at the corruption, they are trying to attack every messenger that comes forward. We saw this with the whistleblowers, as he pointed out. We are going to see it with anyone who stands forward and says, this is what happened. You saw it with Bobulinski when he came forward with evidence, with Devin Archer. Anything that is harmful to the Biden family, it is destroy the messenger. And this has to stop. Omen. It's so scary. I think it's the scariest movie, but like in a good way. And in that movie, there's that, it looks like a Rottweiler. I think it is a Rottweiler who's protecting the little devil boy, Damien. And it turns into a nanny.

And she's his jackal. It's a jackal protecting the devil spawn. And I'm telling you, these Dems who we just showed are acting like jackals, like just protect, protect, protect without any thought for the ethics of what you may be defending. Now, maybe he will be exonerated. Maybe they won't be able to close the loop. I think we're already there because of what we talked about, how you don't really have to tie it to Joe. But whatever, if they want to set a higher standard for impeachment, I'm fine with that too. Maybe we won't get there. But what I know is these people are dishonest in the process. They couldn't care less where the pursuit will actually take them. They only care about acting like a jackal. Protect, protect, protect, kill on behalf of the

principal. And what's really dying in the process is us, is our, you know, the bounds of decorum, the way we used to approach these kinds of things, the seriousness with which we used to treat issues like impeachment or congressional hearings. It's gone. It wasn't so long ago. When I joined Fox News in 2004, I used to sit there and watch C-SPAN all day. And it was it was it had more gravitas even then. Wasn't that long ago. But bit by bit, we've lost it. I'll give you the last word on it, Margo. I would also say it's not just Congress. It's also the DOJ and the FBI. And that is the other half of the scandal that they covered up for the Biden family.

And we know it. I mean, the evidence has come out like you got those two IRS whistleblowers, you know, Gary Shapley and Ziegler. Go back and listen to them. Listen to them on Capitol Hill. We'll get you an episode number when they came on our show. You tell me whether you have any doubt. Those are truth tellers.

And they talked about how the DOJ tried to stop them at every turn from looking into the seriousness of Hunter's crimes, uh, of Joe Biden himself. Anytime it came up to Joe Biden, they were like hard. No, you will not be investigating him. You won't invest. You won't talk to the adult, uh, grandchildren of Joe Biden. You won't do anything that affects the big guy. Now we learned yesterday, you will not be investigating anything having to do with Joe Biden's foreign foreign business dealings, nothing that might bring in public integrity because there were some IRS agents who when Hunter Biden got a Democratic donor to pay off the two million in back taxes, the IRS said that's not OK either. That's actually a campaign contribution illegal. And they got shut down. Contrast that with what happened to Donald Trump,

who allegedly paid off Stormy Daniels not to come forward with her affair allegations. Oh, that the DOJ wanted to investigate that. At least the New York state prosecutors are now saying was corrupt and wasn't documented properly. And he's being criminally prosecuted for it when it's Joe Biden. No, don't go there. We're not getting the public integrity department involved. Shut it down. This is what's come out. You wouldn't know it from he's a loving father. Now I'm going to go meet with my glee club. All right. Sorry, Margo. I stole the last word as it turns out. So good to see you. Thank you for being here. Okay. And coming up next, someone I've never spoken to before, but I'm really looking forward

to meeting Scott Adams, author of Reframe Your Brain. Now a guest I'm excited to meet and talk to for the very first time, Scott Adams. Scott is the creator of one of the most beloved and successful comic strips of all time. A comic that has resonated with nearly everyone who spends the majority of their time in an office environment, and that is Dilbert. Now, Scott's also the host of Real Coffee with Scott Adams and author of the new book, Reframe Your Brain, the user interface for happiness and success. Welcome to the show, Scott. Great to have you. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

And I understand you are from, originally, my neck of the woods. I grew up first 10 years in Syracuse and the rest in Albany. And you're from Wyndham? Yes, Wyndham. You know, Syracuse is the reason I moved to California. My car broke down on a winter highway, and I almost died in the snow. And I promised myself that if I lived, I would trade my car for a one-way ticket to California and never see a fricking, never see a snowflake again. And so far that's been my plan. My God, Syracuse knows snow and Buffalo too, which is, you know, not, not too far away. They know snow. Like nobody knows snow. When I went back there for college and I used to

laugh because now, you know, you get two flakes of snow in places like D.C. I lived in Virginia for a little bit. Everything is shut down in Syracuse. They would literally set up ropes so you could tow yourself to class. There was no canceling because of snow. Snow is your life. Yeah, I would go outside sometimes in upstate New York and you couldn't find the car. Like, I'm going to have to start digging somewhere. But I know there's a car under here somewhere. Yeah, that was that was fun. It's true in any event.

And yeah, we stay in Wyndham is a great place to ski to. Anyway, there are pluses to upstate New York. It's got a lot of natural beauty, mountains, lakes, not too far from the ocean. So I love it for a lot of reasons. My mom is still up there. So that's one thing in one way in which we are bonded. Another is you're a very frank communicator. And I like that about you. You're, you know how to cut to the chase and we would later find out about you when you rose to prominence as both a, not, not just a man behind Dilbert, but also a social commentator. You've studied it. You actually are

an expert in hypnosis. And I guess it's related the field of persuasion. So how did that come about? Well, I got interested in hypnosis when I was a kid because my mother gave birth to my little sister while my mother was hypnotized. So instead of using painkillers, she just was hypnotized by the family doctor who was also a hypnotist. Now, I'm not entirely sure if she told the story correctly. Maybe there were some painkillers there that I didn't hear about, but I was so impressed that when I was in my 20s after college, I signed up for an evening class to learn to be a hypnotist. And it turned out to be the most useful thing I've ever done. Second most useful is the Dale

Carnegie course, different topic. But hypnosis changes everything because it gives you an understanding of persuasion in general, but more importantly, how brains work. And once you understand how a brain works on a practical level, it changes everything in the way you do things and the way you understand the world. The biggest reframe that hypnosis gave me is that I used to think that people were, well, we were irrational 90% of the time. But sure, every now and then we get a little crazy. But basically, we're rational creatures. Hypnosis flips that and says we're irrational 90% of the time and 10% of the time for very unimportant stuff, such as what's the shortest distance to the grocery store?

You know, you can do that stuff with your rational brain, but the rest is rationalization. And once you realize that we're rationalizers after we make the decision, but we don't realize it, that's not how our mind processes our own experience. But science confirms it. The part of your brain that does rational thought gets triggered after the decision is made. So once you learn that, it just changes everything. And then I picked up a lot of the tips along the way. Help me understand that. First of all, when you say the Dale Carnegie, do you mean How to Win Friends and Influence People? Well, that's the book.

But there's also a series of classes where you just learn to be comfortable speaking in public and speaking to strangers. Two things that are just enormously valuable in life. Okay. I give myself that course in the context of practicing law, where they just throw you in with the sharks and you better swim or you're going to get eaten. That also works. Although speaking of persuasion, the reason that Dale Carnegie works even better than what you described, because I've done that kind of training too, where they tell you what you did wrong.

The Dale Carnegie course, they only allow the other students and the instructor to you what you did wrong. The Dale Carnegie course is only, they only allow the other students and the instructor to say what you did right. That's the only rule. And I watched an entire class of people go from, couldn't even get out a word in front of other people, like actually couldn't speak, couldn't even form sentences. And by the end of the class, we were all expert speakers and I watched it especially with one student who got up there in an air-conditioned room and sweat just came all the way down dripped off the nose onto the carpet while she stood in front of the crowd and we all sat there just horrified because you know we know we had to go to, and it was just the scariest, most horrifying,

embarrassing thing I've ever seen. And she meekly goes back to her seat, completely defeated, humiliated, embarrassed, beyond all repair. The instructor walks up to the front of the class and he says, wow, that was brave. It changed everything. Because we realized that what we'd seen is an act of bravery that we almost couldn't even imagine. It was so hard what that woman did. The next time she goes up the next week, she had to volunteer again. She wasn't much better, but she got her words out. When she sat down, the instructor said, wow, that was way better.

Like you've really improved. By the 10th time she gave a speech, she was an expert. And I watched the entire class go through that process. And that's like the ultimate reframe, that if you just focus on what you're supposed to be doing right, it crowds out the thoughts about what's wrong. Now, the other process where you tell people what they're doing wrong, you're really working on the wrong problem. You're working on the specific thing they did. Let's say they had their hands in their pocket,

they were jiggling their keys. If you say, don't put your hands in your pocket and jiggling your keys, all you've done is you've probably just transferred the tick to another part of their personality so that they use their hands too much or some other thing. But if you tell them that they did a good job, even if they didn't, just find something that's true, that they believe, then they get confident. It turns out that being confident is what makes somebody a good speaker. And that's it. I'm so interested in everything you're saying. Wait, I think it was interesting, too, that you said something that's true. So you people can have a- I'm so interested in everything you're saying. Wait, I think it was interesting too that you said something that's true. So you can't do it with false praise. No, no. Because people know what's not true.

But when he said, wow, that was brave, she knew that she did something super hard in front of people. She knew that was true, but we didn't know it until the instructor said so. It was phenomenal. I want to hear more about this course. I didn't know, like, I knew the book, of course. Is the course still out there? Like, anybody could sign up? Or do they have to be in New York City? You can do it online? Do you know any details about it? Well, I think it's national. It's the Dale Carnegie. I think there are several varieties of the classes. And all you have to do is Google it and sign up for one near you. You just probably go at night, one night a week, two nights a week, something like that for several

weeks. And they also teach you how to make conversation with people. In fact, this is one of my reframes in my book. If you have social anxiety and you're thinking, oh, I have to go to this networking event or this big backyard barbecue where I don't know anybody, it's just super frightening if you have social anxiety. But Dale Carnegie teaches you a conversation stack, a set of questions to ask anybody you just met that they will be comfortable with and so will you. And you've created a situation where instead of going into a gathering and you feel like a victim, it's like, oh, everybody's better than me. Everybody's going

to look at me. I'm embarrassed. You walk in thinking, oh, if I know these five or six questions, which are basic stuff, where do you work? Are you married? Do you have any kids? That sort of thing. Then you walk in and you say, I can solve problems for people. Oh, there's somebody who looks a little awkward over there. You walk right up to them and solve their problem. Hi, my name's Scott. What's your name? Why are you here? What brings you here? Where do you work? Are you married? Now, when I say those things, you say to yourself, nobody is going to be comfortable if a stranger walks up and starts interrogating them. But what you learn is that they are, because their problem is they didn't know what to do or what to say.

Same as yours would have been. But once you learn what to say and what to do, which is just go introduce yourself, say your name, look them in the eyes and also use their name. That's another thing that they'll teach you. So as soon as they introduce themselves, put it in your head. And I like to use it right away. If it's a name I like, I'll say, oh, I love that name. Or I like that name so much, I'd name my cat that. There's always something. And when people hear their name, if they hear their name and you ask them questions and show interest, when you leave, they'll say, I met an awesome person. And all you did was just- Do they teach you how to rap a conversation?

Because this is what I'm terrible at in a social setting. Oh, yeah. It's a rejection. I feel like the person's going to feel bad. And my husband always sells me up the river because we'll be sitting there and it's very obviously time for the conversation to rap. And I'll be just about to say, oh, I'm just going to go to the bar and get a drink. And Doug will be like, I'm going to go get us some drinks.

I'll be right back. I'm like, oh, no. No, no, no. I'll get my other drink. I was going to make two suggestions, and that was number one. Number one is, oh, my drink evaporated. Now, people have been using that for years, and it always works. If your glass is empty, that sounds like a legitimate reason.

But here's one that you can use that will save you forever. You're going to be so grateful. It goes like this. Hey, Bob, it's been great meeting you. I love talking to you. I've got to do a little bit more mingling. So you say I've got to compliment them before you leave. Well, that's the indication also that it's the wrap up. But when you say you need to do more mingling, they also probably need to do the same. And it's a perfect excuse. It's what I call it's what I call the fake because in the persuasion world, sometimes any reason is good enough if you both want the thing to happen. So if you can't think of a reason, if you can't think of a reason to make sense, you say anything and the other

person is ready to say, oh yeah. So you just say, well, I've been talking too long. It's not really a reason, but sounds like one. So yeah, if you go with that, I better do some more mingling. Everybody accepts that immediately. Okay. So it's been great talking to you. I get paid to mingle. And that's what you can say if you're the host. I've heard other hosts.

I always feel so false when I say I feel like I'm rejecting people. I really need to get over this. I'm going to work on it in our next segment with Scott Adams, who remains with us for the show. Super excited. And don't forget, the book is Reframe Your Brain. We're going to get into some of the specifics, which are just as helpful as that last conversation. So much to get to. We'll be right back.

Scott, when we were talking about this method of sort of only complimenting the performance and not raising the downsides, this is how my husband and I parent our children. You know, we try really not to even acknowledge. It's almost like the way you train a dog. Our friend is a really good dog trainer. And she said she does this with the animals and we do it with our kids where you just, you don't reinforce the negative behavior by giving it any energy. And we're, but we're quick to say like great manners, you know, at the table, nice job with your fork and knife, or that was so nice how you complimented your sister. And I will say our kids are very well behaved. I think this is why. It's probably part of it. And, uh, what, one of

the reframes that's, uh, sort of connected to that is that you can't, uh, forget negative thoughts. So you have, you know, people have negative thoughts. It might be negative about something that somebody said about them or just, you know, some negative worries. And I tell people you can't get rid of a thought. The only thing you can do is fill your shelf space. So it's the shelf space reframe. So if you fill your mind with positive thoughts, keep yourself busy, you can starve the negative thoughts.

So just like in your example, it's sort of a cousin to that reframe that if you just put positive thoughts in people's heads, you might be able to fill up their shelf space. There's just nothing left for anything else. But what you definitely can't do is forget an elephant. If I say

don't think about the elephant, you can't do that. But you could certainly spend time thinking about other things for long enough to forget the elephant. If I say, don't think about the elephant, you can't do that. But you could certainly spend time thinking about other things for long enough to forget the elephant. And I love that you added stay busy. This has been the key to my own management of all sorts of things that have happened to me over the past 20 plus years. Just stay busy. People who are woke and annoying and inventing problems based on identity, they're never busy. They have too much time on their hands. Yeah, that's totally true. One of the reframes in the book is to think of your brain

as being not just a little blob that's inside your skull, but think about it as your room and the environment and your body. Because sometimes if your brain isn't right, you can fix it by moving these external elements. So you can go to a room that makes you feel better. You can go outside and stand under a tree and it makes you feel better. You can, you know, as you say, stay busy moving stuff around in the real world that needs to be moved around, do some chores. So I always tell people that if there's something wrong with a little blob inside your skull, just don't think that that's the problem. Your brain is everything connected. It's like one big brain, your body, your environment,

your room, everything. Well, one of the things, one of the reframes that you offer in the book is the usual frame of mind would be, um, my feelings are the result of my situation. In other words, like, you know, I just had somebody, somebody died or like I got fired or I got canceled, whatever it is. So my feeling, I feel bad. I feel sad and I feel, you know, grief stricken because of my situation. And you, your reframe is how I feel is my choice. So I love this. I'm a big fan of your only problem is your belief that you have a problem. Yeah. I'll give you an example that made that real for me. When I was working my corporate jobs and I was doing the Dilbert cartoon on the side

and the comic hadn't reached the point where I could just quit and do that. Before I was doing the comic, I was just coming to work in this awful environment, cubicles and coworkers and backstabbing and all this bureaucratic stuff. And it would drive me crazy. I mean, so crazy that I created a cartoon strip around it. But the moment I no longer needed to work, but I was going there anyway, I started to go there more for collecting material, frankly, for the comic strip. For a few years, I thought I'd run out of material if I quit,

but it changed my experience, which was identical. The problems were just the same, but I found this different filter, which is now that's just material for the comic strip. So simply by reframing it as material to make me laugh, it took this enormously frustrating life and turned it into entertainment. And it was just that. Now, in that situation, it happened to me. But I've also found that I could just sort of change my frame of how I'm processing things. And it works. And one of the reasons that you can do something that doesn't feel true to you, which is, you know,

tell yourself that the problems aren't important because maybe they are. It's that your brain processes fiction, almost the same way it processes reality. That's why if you go to a movie, you can know the movie is all made up, but it still might make you cry, might make you laugh. So we can, you can install a little fiction in your brain to temporarily help you get past anything difficult because the fiction does a lot of the work of reality. Like all of this is so interesting on a personal level. And of course we, I don't know, but like,

I'm definitely thinking about Donald Trump over here on this side because you're you're the guy who saw it. You saw his abilities before anybody else saw them. And it's just listening to you. It's so clear why you saw it. He's got this crazy, great power of communicating. And it's no accident. You were able to identify it as somebody who's got it and understands it yourself. And honestly, it's what he does. I remember Scott, I had him on,

you know, we had that debate, which you and I can talk about. I know you've written about it. And then nine months later, I went to Trump Tower and I asked him to knock off the nonsense. And he did immediately. And I said, can we sit together and just like sort of have a, it's kind of like a makeup interview. So he said yes. And we did. And, uh, it did fine. They aired it on Fox broadcast, but we were across from like some series finale of survivor or something like that. So the ratings weren't what we hoped they were, they would be, but they were okay. So I talked to Trump the next day, of course. And he's like, the ratings were amazing. You know, we, we killed everybody. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. You know, that's what he does

every time. It doesn't actually have to be linked in reality. That's how he thinks. It's genuinely how he looks at everything around him. Well, so remember my first reframe, which is that we're irrational 90% of the time. He understands it and lives in that world, apparently. I mean, I can't read his mind, but it looks like it. So he'll tell you something that's directionally true, because emotionally, that's what's going to move you. It's like, oh, it's criminals coming across the border. Well, as a percentage, it's a pretty small percentage, but you could feel it. And you could feel that there might be more criminals coming later. And sure enough, there's a lot more immigration. So, you know, if you fact check him, he's maddening. But if you

just say he's working on the 90%, the irrational part of this, but he's got a positive, you know, direction, he's pushing you in. Better border security, for example, better economy, for example, then it's not so objectionable if you realize he's just working on an emotional, kind of irrational basis, but toward a good point. This is why he gets away with, everyone's going to be happy. I'm going to cut an abortion deal that everybody's going to be happy with, something that's never been done in the history of the country, but everyone, everyone's going to be happy. Also, the Ukrainian war is going to be over in 24 hours.

Iran's not going to get a nuke. Obamacare is going away and everyone's going to be thrilled with whatever I replaced it with. You're just kind of like, great, Chris. Everybody's going to love it. It made me laugh because that's a classic example of making you think past the sale the sale is can you negotiate something that you know would at least be a result and he makes you think past that to the fact that you're gonna love him for it and then

you're arguing about whether you're really gonna love him for it and he's already made you accept that there's going to be a negotiation that could be productive. So yeah, everything he does works on that level of making you think into the future, to the future he wants to get you to. And do you think he came by this naturally? Like you took a class. I can see how you learned this stuff. But how do you think Donald Trump came by these skills? Well, I asked him that question in person, and I was really curious, too. I'm going to forget the name, but the power of positive thinking, who wrote that, was a famous author. I'll think of it in a minute. Was his pastor in his church. So the most famous positive thinking person,

who some people call the hypnotist, the author of the book, was one of his biggest influences. And he did mention how much of an influence that was. So I think it was modeled possibly by his father. Norman Vincent Peale. Norman Vincent Peale. Thank you. So Norman Vincent Peale, when I was a kid, I was influenced as well by his, you know, his books, etc. And I had grown up with the idea that if you kept your mind positive, you could make almost anything happen. And I think he had that influence as well. And he came by it naturally in a church setting. This is like, you really are kind of like a Trump whisperer. Yeah. I don't know if you like that term. I've heard other people use it about you. You are because even sitting here now, so he and I had our interview recently and it went very well. There were some tense moments, you know, so when I kind of got after him a little bit on some of the documents, charges and so on, but for the most part, it was very friendly. And he, he said a lot of really interesting things. And, but he then a couple, like a week later, it was very friendly. And he said a lot of really interesting things.

And but he then a couple like a week later, he was like, those are some nasty questions, right? That's how Trump perceives anything that is not positive. That's he thinks it's not. There was no nasty question, but it's how it's just not how he communicates. He would prefer like, so everything's going to work out with the criminal prosecutions, right? Like those aren't going anywhere, are they, Mr. President? Well, so he does a trick

that I saw one of my coworkers back in the phone company do, which took great success. She was a really strong personality, woman who got things done. And if you were in her way, she would go to your boss and tell them that you should be fired. I mean, she would really go hard at somebody who wasn't giving them, you know, a coworker who wasn't doing what she wanted. But if you did what she wanted, she would buy you flowers. She would go to your boss and say,

you know, you've got a superstar here. Did you know how good your employee is? You should really think about this person next time you're doing a promotion. So what she did was she created the widest gap between making you happy and making you unhappy. That's what Trump does, right? If you make him happy, he will go on television and say you're the greatest thing that ever happened. You've seen him do that a number of times. But if you're not, oh, you're a nasty, nasty woman, and you're the worst person in the world. So biggest range between making them happy and

making them unhappy. It's just good technique. Yes, yes. And yeah, I'm familiar with the making him unhappy lane. But, you know, in my job, it's kind of part of the deal. So it's like but I see I see how he, you know, uses this power. And I don't know if it's conscious at any at this point or if it's just instinctual. But you've written about that famous question and exchange that he and I had at that August 6th, 2015, very first GOP presidential debate. It was eight years ago now. Seems like, I don't know, another lifetime, but like record setting in terms of the numbers. No one had ever seen 24 million people tune in for a primary debate before the whole nation was watching. It was the first. It was exciting. And he and I sparred over, you know, what was definitely a tough question about things he'd said about women.

And he interrupted it with only Rosie O'Donnell. And the crowd laughed. You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Your Twitter account. Only Rosie O'Donnell. And you, you analyze that in a way that made so much sense. Can you do that here? First of all, I'm just realizing how much you changed my life with that question. Because the entire, the entire direction of my life changed in that moment. When, when he said the Rosie O'Donnell line, I actually stood up

and walked toward the TV. And I said, I don't know what's happening here, but this is big. And then that was the thing that pulled it all together for me, that he wasn't just a big joker personality, that he had some special skill, because I don't think anybody could have gotten out of that trap. Like that was, yeah, but you had the goods on him. There's nothing you could say that wouldn't make him talk about the thing he doesn't want to talk about. Because just talking about it, like you said, it would bring energy to the thing he doesn't want to have energy to. And that was also when I realized he's what I call an energy monster. If you throw him energy, he's not going to die from the energy.

He's going to reuse it and send it back to you even stronger. So the news learned this the hard way in 2016. They kept trying to give him more and more negative attention until you forgot anybody else was in the race. And he's the ultimate energy monster. Yes. So saying Rosie O'Donnell was like, he made people laugh and he, and he made,

you wrote about how now they're thinking about, oh, Rosie O'Donnell, no one likes her. No, no one on the right likes Rosie O'Donnell. She's terrible. Yeah, team Trump, as opposed to, who'd he say that about? Could it have been my mom? Could it have been my sister?

Like, I don't want somebody who talks that way about my daughter, right? It was a completely rejiggering of the whole situation. But watch how deep the technique goes. When you said, blah, blah, blah, women made accusations, what I saw in my head was nothing. Women. I don't have a picture. It's just a concept. As soon as he said Rosie O'Donnell, who in fact really didn't have much to do with the larger point, it was just one person, her image went in my head. I had a reaction to her. And I thought, well, that's perfectly fair if Rosie and Trump are insulting each other. That feels like a fair fight. It just completely put an image and of course something

like 80 of your brain is visual so as soon as he puts a visual on something you're done he's got the visual on you it worked it worked with low energy jab that's a visual because the next time you saw him you're like you know i hadn't noticed this before but now that you point out the low energy i thought he was this capable executive, kind of calm and cool. But it turns out he's actually low energy. So the picture you had. And then the ultimate is the wall. He's not just going to build a wall.

He doesn't say, I would like to improve the border security. Wrong. I'm going to build a big, beautiful wall. And Mexico is going to pay for it. Right. But the Mexico is going to pay for it was the ultimate persuasion thing because that also makes you think past the sale. If you're wondering who pays for it, you've already, in your mind,

you built the wall in your head. So perfect technique on the wall, maybe the most classic example of perfect persuasion. You didn't get the wall done because there was a lot of resistance. But in terms of how he persuaded on it, you couldn't do better. That was perfect. Well, and speaking of perfect, it was a perfect phone call, perfect phone call. And then that was the Ukrainian thing on which he got impeached the first time. And then when he got in trouble for the call to

the Atlanta officials, the Georgia officials trying to find me the 11,000 votes, which again, you have to go back and listen to the whole context. He's basically saying, I think I've been defrauded out of hundreds of thousands. All you actually need to count to is 11,000, but whatever. They're going to have a whole criminal trial over that now. But he said about that, that was even more perfect than my other phone call. Extra perfect, even more perfect. So he calls it a perfect phone call so often that as soon as the topic goes up, if it's people have been listening to him, in your head pops this phrase, perfect phone call. It does. Now that is what hypnotists do. They put words into your head so that you're using

their preferred word because words are how you program people. It's the word. Sometimes it's just the word itself, not even the greater meaning of the sentence. So an example of that in a reframe I used in the book is I once said that alcohol is poison. And I said it a few times in public. And people got back to me later and said, I quit alcohol after you said that. I was like, what?

I wasn't even trying to make you quit alcohol. But apparently just the fact that the word poison and alcohol kept pairing in their minds, because they kept thinking about me saying it, that the pairing alone made it easy to put the glass down. Now, for alcoholics, that's different, but people who just drank too much. So Trump is using the same trick.

It's just when you hear perfect, perfect call, the irrational part of you wants to blend perfect call with whatever you're talking about. So it's just an irrational blending of things that happens automatically in your head. That's how reframes work. It's how hypnosis works. It's how persuasion works in general. It's like my friend Sarah was saying. She thinks everybody on earth definitely would have gotten that COVID vaccine if they had just said, it makes you lose weight. It makes you lose weight. Yes. Triple boosted. We get biannual.

No, better. All you have to do is say, you know, I've seen people who got the shot and they looked, I don't know, they look sexier. I don't know what it is. I can't, you know, if you ask me specifically, I don't know. There's just a, there's just a life to them. I can't explain it. No, no, no. You, you actually caught, you touch on attractiveness and reframing it in the book. And I love this because there are a lot of people who feel like, my God, I'm not so great with the ladies or with the men. And I'm not doing so great on the online dating sites. And maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just not attractive enough to get a mate. And you got a great reframe on this. Well, I think you're talking about the one where 90% of the world isn't going to like

anything. So you could take the most famous, successful musical act and then go to China and say, what do you think of this? Probably not so much. So 90% of the world isn't going to like even the best quality of anything. You could take the finest wine and just, you know, randomly ask people in the street to taste it. It wouldn't be much to them unless you're a wine expert. So instead of trying to please everybody and say, oh, 90% of the world doesn't love me, just look for the people who do. There's always some weirdo that's just like you. You know, there's somebody who's got compatible weirdness and feels more comfortable with your flaws than they would with somebody who didn't have them so don't worry about the number of people that don't like you

uh take me for an example i you know i do a cartoon strip still it's behind a paintball at the moment but i don't worry about the 95 of the world who doesn't like my comic and never did i care about the five percent who cut it out buy buy a book, ask for a calendar, put it on the wall. That's enough to make my life complete. And so your advice is meet more people, get out more, because if you're looking at percentages, you just have to increase, I guess, the denominator. Right. You have to increase the number of people you come into contact with because you're hunting for that 10%. And if you only talk to three people, your odds are not so good. So meet more people. It makes perfect sense.

Now, wait, before we leave Trump, I have to ask you about my executive producer, Steve Krakauer, is a big fan of yours, and he forwarded me a great piece. And this is, let's see, from December 22nd, 2015. So this is, you know, as I said, just for time frame, that debate we just talked about was August of 15. It was a few months later. Scott Adams' blog, A Deeply Unscientific Test of Your Political Bias, and then in parentheses, Trump Persuasion Series. And you make reference to the moist robot hypothesis. And you have a picture on this thing of,

do we have it made, Steve? We can put it up on the board, but it's, yeah, there we go. It's of a bunch of tools in a circle, like almost like around in a clock. And you ask the reader to look at these tools and to assign the tool that maps to the then presidential candidates, Rubio, Cruz, Trump, Carson, Clinton, Fiorina, Christie and Paul. And you ask the reader before you start, remember to observe your own mental processes as they happen to see if the thinking happens before or after you decide which tool is which candidate. And I think most of us probably had the same reaction. You're thinking of Trump first. And it's pretty obvious which one we all think is Trump given this field. So why is that?

Well, Trump, like I said, he's an energy monster and he projects power and mostly power and energy. And so when you're looking at a bunch of tools, you know, the one that projects the most power and destruction and also creation is the one that just automatically your brain is going to map to that. And but if you were to use your rational mind, you'd say, well, let me think, let's see, this tool has many qualities. It's precise, it's expensive. And you would go through all these variables and you talk yourself out of being able to match them with anybody. You'd be like, I don't know, this was expensive, but it's also precise. So, but if you just say, how do you feel about it? Oh, this one does a lot of damage. This tool, it's got, you know, you plug this one in, uh, that feels like Trump. So it's just a way to audience. It's mostly all different skinny screwdrivers. And then there's one big drill.

Like, so it's, I confess, I didn't realize it was a drill. I just thought it was a large screwdriver, but I, when I read further, I realized it was a drill, not big in the tool department, but yeah, you're exactly right. And so you say that, that Trump is operating on the reflex part of your brain and intentionally the other candidates are appealing to your reason. He isn't winning the game so much as playing an entirely different one. That's from December 15, eight years ago. And here we are again, Scott, with the Republican debates. I spent years of people mocking me saying,

there's no way Trump is persuasive. Are you kidding me? He's just this weird clown that people like for some reason because he's entertainment. Now we come to this cycle and the left is like, oh my God, he's so persuasive, he's going to win despite all of these things we have on him. And so finally, you know, I got my due, they at least agree, they don't think they don't like how he's persuading, but they certainly agree, he can move the needle. And he's got the strongest base I've ever seen.

So if I read The Power of Positive Thinking, if I take a class on hypnosis, and if I potentially take the Dale Carnegie class, am I going to be as persuasive as Trump and as effective at persuasion and language as you are? Well, you know, you're using yourself as an example and you're a perfect talent stack example. That's another reframe. Instead of being really, really good at one thing, it pays to be top 20%, top 10% as several things that work well together. So you learn persuasion in your legal field. You learn persuasion, you know, doing what you do, talking to people and interviewing. So you're about 80% there already. You learn persuasion, doing what you do, talking to people and interviewing.

So you're about 80% there already. And I imagine you're pretty good in a social situation. So you'd get maybe a 20% boost because you're already operating at a high layer. But somebody who is just 20 years old and doesn't know how to do anything and hasn't assembled any skills, best place to start, Dale Carnegie course. By the way, Warren Buffett would tell you this. Warren Buffett says the same thing. And also the book Reframe. So here's a question I have for you.

And I'm just going there because you're so helpful. My little guy, he's 10. He's constantly saying like, it didn't work out. I didn't get it. You know, I was telling the audience over the summer, they sailed and they were supposed to get candy. And he's like, there was no candy. They promised candy.

We didn't get it. And his little buddy came over and he's like, yeah, but they promised we're going to get candy tomorrow. We're getting the candy tomorrow. And later we talked with Thatcher like, you know, this is another way of looking at it, honey. You know, they're probably going to bring you double candy tomorrow. So how do you reframe with a little one, right? Is it all the same method?

No, kids are, you know, even less logical and more easy to influence with persuasion. I'll tell you the one that reminds me of that, that I used to use with my stepson when he was young and he'd get a cut or a bruise or something and he'd be wailing. And you're going for the Band-Aids and he just won't stop wailing. I found out that I would say to him with confidence, which was unearned, I'd say, let me see that.

And he'd say, yeah, that looks like a, that's about a four minute situation. And he'd say, what? I go, yeah, that's going to hurt about four minutes. We'll get the bandaid on. I'll set the timer. And as soon as she's told me it was four minutes, complete change in attitude.

Still hurt. But now there was an end of it. We'd done everything we needed to do. He was heard. Problem solved. So four minutes later, four minutes later, he would forget that there was a timer even set.

That worked pretty well. Anything's doable as long as it's time limited. The other thing with kids is distraction works really well. I remember with my first wife, I had a couple of young kids in the back. They were bickering, bickering, bickering.

My ex-wife goes, look, a deer. And everything stops, and we're all looking for the deer. There was no deer. But once she taught me the trick, I used it probably 50 times. And every time, there was never a deer. There was not once there was a deer. But little kids will stop whatever they're doing if you say there's a deer. Try it. Try it at home. Just look out and including you write that you had a terrible childhood, that it was traumatic and that your,

your reframe on it is that, I mean, the first, I guess it's just my trauma sucks and ruined my life. And the reframe is my trauma is my superpower. I love this one. Yeah. My, my trauma is why I couldn't kick your kick your ass. If you put me in a bad situation, like a really bad situation, I've got to work really hard to get out of some problem or something. I'm going to say, I've been here before. This is just familiar. I know how to get out of this. I've been much worse.

So my frame of reference is so different from somebody who had a good childhood. They had a rough patch. They're like, I don't know. This could be the end of me. I had a rough patch and I'm like, ah, bumping the road. So if you with your good childhood are crazy enough to go up against me in a competition, I'm going to smoke you every time because I can go darker, deeper, farther. I can suffer more. I can hurt more. And I'm going to get to the other side of it. But a little bit of trauma might be useful for people. So make sure that you don't- It's like being an emotional marine.

Yeah. Yeah. There's certainly bad that comes with the trauma, but if you see it only as bad, you're missing the best part. It just turns you into a creature that is hard to stop. So is this synonymous with positive thinking or is this, it seems a little bit more layered than that. It's yeah, way more complicated than positive thinking, but positive thinking is absolutely the, you know, maybe the, the number one thing you should do right is try to get your mind in the right mindset. Think that you have someplace to go, which is important. You should have someplace you're mindset, think that you have someplace to go, which is important. You should have someplace you're aiming at and that you're making progress every day,

which is what I call it, a system. So if you have a system that you're doing every day to get closer to your goals, that will make you satisfied, almost guaranteed. Learning a lot, loving this conversation. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and we'll talk about Scott's self-cancellation a couple of months ago and why he did it and what's happening now. All right. More Scott Adams right after this quick break. So Scott Dilbert, you decided you were working at Pacific Bell and you were kind of pushing paper and doing a bunch of different stuff. You had a financial background, you had an MBA, but you really had this creative talent. And so you start sketching and Dilbert was born.

And I'm sure you, I don't know if you knew back then about the power of positive thinking, but you, one of the reframes is change your thinking from, I would like to do this, I have a goal of doing this, to I will do this. Like, this is happening, more definitive. And you had that thinking around Dilbert. And how long before you first started sketching it and thinking about it to when it was one of the most successful comic strips in the world? It was in 200 plus newspapers. What was that time frame? Well, in 1989, it launched. And Dilbert had a job, but it was not a workplace comic.

It was sort of generic stuff at home. And he would hang out with his dog, Dogbert and stuff. But sometimes he would be in the office. So as time went by, more and more, he would be in the office and people would write to me on email, which was brand new then. And they would say, I don't have anybody else to write to on email because I just got email and you're the only person I know. But I thought I'd give you this advice. That's actually what most of the email was. It was email was so new that they saw my address between the panels of the strip. And they thought, well, I finally found somebody I can email.

So they would email me and they would say, we love it when Dilbert's in the office, but we kind of like it when he's home, but we love it when he's in the office. So I thought, huh, I'll put him in the office more. So I started putting him in the office and things started to take off. But what really mattered was when I wrote the book called The Dilbert Principle. And that really was one of the big things that launched it. But the reason I wrote that, and this is another good reframe, if you're trying to figure out what things you're doing that might take off, what is a good idea but you don't know yet, you want to know early if it's going to work out, people would email me and they'd say, we took your comics and I cut them out and I organized them by topic, like these about marketing and these about sales and these about engineering. And I created a binder.

So I created my own book and I thought, well, that's a, that's a pretty weird thing to do. And then somebody else would write me and tell me that they had also created a book of my comics or organized by. So I thought, well, you know, I did go to business school. And this is like a little flag telling me something. Maybe I should write a book. So I wrote a book.

It was a number one bestseller. So the way that you can tell that something's going to work is if they take your product in its terrible form and the early versions of the comic were not very good, and they extend it. So in this case, they extend it to make their own book. That is a guarantee that you've got something that'll work. With my current book, Reframe Your Brain, people are buying 10 copies, 5 copies. People have asked if they can already turn it into a different form.

People have asked if they can use AI it into a different form. People have asked if they can use AI to create a different version of it. So that's almost a guarantee of success that people want to extend it in some way. So you were, I mean, nailing it. And I would say there was some controversy around you because you were so dead on about Trump that some people were like, he likes Trump. He's, he's rooting for Trump. And that of course will make you a hot potato, but you were doing your thing. You weren't, I don't think being canceled. Um, I don't know the whole story, but then earlier this year, you stumbled upon this Rasmussen poll, which was shocking. I wouldn't have known about it had you not done your thing. But it was a national survey of a thousand adults conducted February

2023. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? It is OK to be white. And it wound up that 53 percent of the 117 black participants said, yes, I agree. It is okay to be white. But some 47% either disagreed or said they were unsure. 26% disagreed it was okay to be white. 21% said they were not sure. And that led you to do a bit on your YouTube show that completely shook up the internet and the national news cycle for a few days. Here's a little bit of what you said in Stop 15. Normally you see a poll, you just look at it, you go, ah, whatever. But as of today, I'm going to re-identify as white because I don't want to be a member of a hate group. If nearly half of all blacks are not okay with white people,

according to this poll, not according to me, according to this poll, that's a hate group. That's a hate group. And I don't want to have anything to do with them. The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people. Just get the fuck away. I'm going to back off from being helpful to black America because it doesn't seem like it pays off. Like I've been doing it all my life and I've life and the only outcome is I get called a racist. It's over. Don't even think it's worth trying.

And it feels good not to be in a racist hate group anymore. So I'm now independent, not a member of any group. I do not align with any group, not the white supremacists and not the black racists. So cue cancellation everywhere. It's like all the newspapers and the publishing company and I'm probably your agent, probably everybody. And everybody was confused, I think, for a while. But like, I know I was confused. I didn't understand what was happening there.

So what was happening there? So a bunch of context. Number one, only Democrats canceled me. I don't think any Republicans, once they heard the full context, they were like, oh, okay, well, that was offensive, but not cancellation worthy. The first thing you need to know is that the whole itself was not terribly important to the larger point. It was just a jumping off point for the conversation. The larger context is that we're living through the world of critical race theory being taught, ESG being required of our corporations, and corporations having DEI groups. Now, if you're not familiar, if your audience is not familiar with all those terms, what they have in common, okay, I guess they would be, what all those things have in common is the idea that there's

a victimized group and a victimizer group. And since I had been placed in the group of people who are the victimizers, that sort of puts a target on your back. And since I had been placed in the group of people who are the victimizers, that sort of puts a target on your back. And it causes people to have a negative feeling about you because they've been taught that you have their stuff. In other words, they would be doing better if you were not doing whatever it is that you're doing that's promoting systemic racism, for example. Now, the larger context is that anytime you're in a situation where you're around people who think that you have their stuff and they're trying to get it back, but you believe that's not the case, you should get away from that environment. Now, that's, of course, hyperbole because you live in America, you're not going to go move or do something like that. So there's no way to practically do that.

I was trying to make the point that we've poisoned relations by making a framework in which one group is the victimizers, one group is the victims. If you ever find yourself in that situation, whether it's about race or anything else, you should try to get as far away from it as possible. I'll give you a concrete example. Bloomberg recently did a, did a article and I guess it was a survey in which they found that for a year after the George Floyd situation, that the, the fortune 100 companies only hired only 6% of the people they hired were white. 94% were people of color because they were desperately trying to get their diversity numbers up. Now, is there anything wrong? I think in a Bloomberg piece, we just saw similar numbers in a Bloomberg piece.

Yeah. Now, if you were a white applicant and you knew that that was the environment, you knew that the company was desperately trying to get their diversity up, your best bet strategy-wise would be to go to a non- Fortune 100 company. If you are Black, your best strategy would be go directly there because they're very much recruiting and looking for you. So everybody has a different strategy, but we finally reached a point in American life where everybody can find a way. So here's the reframe that I was heading toward, and I never got a chance to do it in real time because I got canceled first. My regular audience knows that I often provoke them, but if they wait, I bring them back into a compatible point of view. So here's what I was planning to do. I was reframing this that instead of looking at the average black person's performance

and the average white person's performance or the average anybody, that we're in imaginary land. There's no average black person and there's no average white person. So the longer we pretend that we should compare them, we're in the wrong conversation. When we got to intersectionality where we said, okay, it's not just about your color. It might also be your color. Plus you might be LGBTQ. Plus you might be disabled or whatever word we're using now.

So you could have several things going on. Now, that being things worse, but it was definitely the right intention and impulse, because it drove you away from these weird average people that don't even exist, towards something that was more like, well, there is this one person who has this one unique situation. But I think we need to go further than that, keep going in that direction to the individual. So the frame that makes sense that can save us is that individuals are infinitely diverse. I'm not like even my own siblings, much less the people who share some kind of color with me. I don't have much in common with just a random person.

We're all infinitely different. So if you say, what can I do about these two average people who don't actually exist, I'm out. I no longer care about the difference in the averages. However, if you're my neighbor or friend or family member and you happen to be black or white or anything else and you've got a specific thing you need, let's say you need some advice, you need some mentoring,

you need a connection, you need a job, you need a suit, maybe you need just some advice. I'm all there. So help for individuals completely on board. I don't care who you are. I love black people, by the way. And nothing I said had anything to do with genetics, had nothing to do with even culture, had everything to do with the fact that America, white people mostly, are selling a guys and another group of us is the victims and that is an untenable situation you've got to get out of this average

versus average and into what can i do for you specific black person how can i help you i'm all on board with that i like helping people and and i in fact, mentored quite a few black people. But that doesn't become part of the story, obviously. So how did that affect you, you know, understanding that you are so good at the reframing? Because it had to be traumatic in the moment when it just blew up. Like, how did that affect you? How did it affect your personal relationships? And how were you able, I assume, eventually you could reframe it? You know, the weirdest thing about this is that it did not cause trauma for me. It didn't make me angry at any point. It didn't make me sad. It was sort of lucky

because I was 65 and looking for a way to retire, which I defined retirement. In the modern era, I defined retirement as still working every day, but you're doing stuff you want. And that's the only difference. You know, nobody's telling you what to do. So I ended up moving it, moving Dilbert behind a paywall and the locals platform,

scottadams.locals.com. And it's also on the subscription service within the X platform. So you could get it there as well. So I got to do what I want and now I can make the make the comic as edgy as I want most people have said it's the best it's ever been because I can go places I couldn't go when I was merely a newspaper cartoonist and it did the most important thing that I wanted which is I'm also an energy monster. And I don't think they counted on that. And so what did that buy me? This. I'm having a conversation on a major

platform with you to give you my reframe that we need to forget about these imaginary average people because we're now close enough that everybody has a different strategy that they can succeed and we should work on the personal strategy in fact um i have a a a student guide that i'm working on with joshua lysik and we're going to put it out for schools so that they can actually teach the basics of success which i believe is the biggest problem in the black community, because they have what I call a imitation glass ceiling. The number one way anybody succeeds, and I've told you, I've done this, you know, I've actually mentioned it several times, just here, that I copy people. So I look for successful people, and I say, what did you do?

All right, I'm going to try that. What did you do all right I'm gonna try that what did you do you try that but imagine if you will you're a young black kid and the world has taught you that there that the oppressors are the ones who are doing well are you gonna copy are you gonna copy your oppressor I wouldn't if you put me in that situation I would act like a normal person let's say well I'm not gonna copy the people who are victimizing me for hundreds of years. So who else do I have? And then that's a problem. So it's a student guide, which any student can read to figure out the basics of what are the reframes, what are the tips that can make anybody successful. So rather than being useless on what

I consider the most important topic in the world, I thought I would make as much trouble as I can. I did not expect to get fully canceled. I made way more trouble than that. I did not expect that. But I did expect trouble. And I thought the trouble would form energy. I thought the energy would come at me in the form of an attack, and then I would have attention. Attention is the first part of persuasion. So until you can get attention, I had no way to be part of this conversation really until I forced my way in.

So I forced my way in, and now we can talk about the current situation. I can give you an alternative, and you can say, do I like that or do I not? But I can tell you, I've never met an individual who wanted generic help more than they wanted specific help that was designed for them. So that's what I'm all about right now is how can I design something? It's so interesting to me because I didn't know you and I didn't, I hadn't been listening to you, but now spending the past two hours with you, I get it. I totally get it. I see exactly what you were doing.

And I remember at the time some of your biggest fans saying, this is what he's trying to do. You have to understand Scott. I feel like I do understand you a bit better now. I love talking to you. And in the break I said to Danny, my Booker, I want him on more. He needs to go on. And she's like, he's very hard to get. So, Scott, please don't be so hard to get. Please come back more often. I know you don't surface that much, but whether it's to promote the paperback of reframe your brain or otherwise, would love to continue the conversation.

I would love to come back. Thank you. Awesome. All the best to you. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. On Monday, I want to tell you that our friend Dave Rubin will be back on the show. Looking forward to catching up with him. You know, he's a big DeSantis supporter. So what does he think about the way the race is right now? I have the numbers and so on.

He's very positive about DeSantis's chances still online. And I'm looking forward to finding out exactly why, given the horse race numbers, we'll get into that and much, much more. Meanwhile, go to megankelly.com for all the content from our show this week. And you can sign up for our American News Minute. That's my email to you once a week, only on Fridays. We don't clog up your email. And everybody tells me they love it. Everybody tells me that they love my email on Fridays. And you can keep up with the latest shenanigans of my little man, Strudwick, who is not getting any better. Okay.

Have a great weekend. And I'll see you over at megankelly.com. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.