Ask A Genius 1516: G20 at Trump’s Club, GLP-1 Oversight, Florida Vaccines, and ‘Alien: Earth’

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/09/22

Are politics, public health, and space-horror bound by the same accountability test?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner spar over claims that Donald Trump will host the 2026 G20 at his Miami golf club, predicting backlash and fresh grift. Rosner still sketches updates on Joe Biden—basal cell removal alongside stage-four prostate cancer—and riffs on Pete Hegseth’s “war” rebrand as cosplay. He backs FDA action against compounded GLP-1s, slams troop deployments in Los Angeles, and torches Florida’s retreat from school vaccines, condemning Joseph Ladapo. Politics: Eric Adams lingers; abroad, Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin loom. Pop culture: Alien: Earth teases sabotage aboard the Maginot. Creativity sidebar: pushback at home keeps sapping Rosner’s momentum.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: President Trump has stated that the G20 summit will be held at his Miami-area golf club in 2026.

Rick Rosner: We’ll see. The G20 is not happy about it. Remember, we’ve also got the World Cup in 2026 and the Olympics in 2028. Those events are set—they can’t be changed. But the G20 could move their summit, and I’d be surprised if they didn’t. Given Trump’s antagonism toward the G20, they might say “no thanks” and hold it elsewhere.

Unless they think showing up at his golf club, making him a few tens of millions in hosting fees, will soften him, which it won’t. Nothing makes him less of a dick.

And then, after being out of the public eye for a week, he returns and says he’d like his followers to donate $15 each to help him get into heaven. He was probably joking—since rumours were swirling that he was dead—but even his jokes are grifts.

Jacobsen: Biden had surgery to remove cancerous cells. Was that related to a fall, or was that the surgery itself?

Rosner: He underwent surgery to remove basal cell carcinoma from his skin. That was the lesson. Biden has been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer—stage four, meaning it has spread. So the basal cell carcinoma was separate from his prostate cancer.

I’ve read that he may have two to three years left, maybe more, depending on the effectiveness of hormone-based prostate cancer treatments. I’m not sure if any new gene therapies can help capture stray cancer cells. But for now, he looks pretty good—spry, happy, out and about.

They should have had him out in public more when he was president. They assumed his accomplishments would speak for themselves, but they didn’t. Republicans shouted louder. He needed to talk directly to the nation more often. Even if he stuttered, that’s partly due to his stutter and partly due to his age. If he’d just owned it—said, “I stroll, but my brain still works”—that would’ve helped. Maybe he could have rerun and done better than Kamala Harris. Harris’s campaign lasted only 107 days. 

Jacobsen: There’s now an effort by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to emphasize a “warrior ethos.” He’s been consistent. Part of it is changing subordinate and secondary titles from… The idea is to rename the Secretary of Defence as the Secretary of War, and the Department of Defence as the Department of War.

Rosner: I made a couple of jokes. I said I rebranded my penis the “war penis” to see if it excites Carol. I suggested Taco Bell rebrand with the “war chalupa.”

The renaming is the bureaucratic equivalent of putting nuts on truck wheels. It’s stupid. Lance makes a half-point that if this branding increases esprit de corps, it can’t entirely be dismissed. I don’t know how you measure esprit de corps, or how much “gung-ho” you need for modern warfighting. Combat now is conducted with drones, not trenches like in 1917. Hegseth is a jag-off. Trump is a jag-off draft dodger.

Lance says some of this posturing has increased military recruitment. If that’s true, then they have half a point. But has it increased fitness? Or are the only recruits falling for this gung-ho branding idiots who reduce overall readiness? Stupid heads.

He even put a big picture of Robert E. Lee back up on the wall at West Point. Lee killed more American soldiers than any other commander until World War II.

Jacobsen: The U.S. FDA decided to tighten control over obesity drugs amid safety concerns about imported ingredients. They plan to crack down on unapproved compounded GLP-1 drugs.

Rosner: Right, the concern is adulterated ingredients in a widely used product class. Some imported drugs are unsafe due to poor filtering and safety controls. I believe this is legitimate oversight. Not everyone can tolerate even clean GLP-1 drugs, but if the FDA is doing its job, then it’s not even newsworthy.

As far as I know, people who are severely overweight should be using these drugs if prescribed, because they can help.

GLP-1 drugs seem fairly well tolerated. Variants have been in use for over a decade.

Jacobsen: An appeals court has paused restrictions on the use of troops in Los Angeles, your home. There are multiple levels of appeals courts, up to the Supreme Court, and they often issue conflicting rulings. 

Rosner: The truth is, sending the National Guard and Marines into Los Angeles was stupid and pointless, regardless of what any court says.

Fortunately, there are built-in limits. They can only be deployed for 30 days without congressional authorization. Additionally, troops deployed for 30 days are eligible for a travel bonus. At 29 days, they do not. Trump being a cheapskate means they will cap deployments under 30 days to avoid both costs and congressional approval. It’s still bad, but less concerning than an indefinite presence with congressional backing.

Jacobsen: Florida plans to end all vaccine mandates.

Rosner: That tracks with Florida’s trend of public health negligence. Once vaccines became widely available in 2021, Florida’s COVID death rate was 150% higher than California’s. Governor DeSantis and his attorney general pushed anti-vaccine and anti-mask rhetoric, leading to roughly 80,000 preventable deaths, mostly among seniors.

Now, by ending childhood vaccine requirements, Florida risks outbreaks of whooping cough, rubella, measles, mumps, and even polio. Diseases like measles are so contagious that if classroom vaccination rates drop below 95%, an epidemic can spread with just 5% unvaccinated. Florida’s new rules, which make vaccines optional, guarantee falling vaccination rates—and outbreaks.

Polio vaccine, tetanus vaccine—if school vaccination rates in Florida cities drop below 85%, outbreaks are inevitable. And it will not stay confined to classrooms; it will spread into the general population. Some adults may be vulnerable if their immune system has weakened. Everyone my age was vaccinated, but parents in their 40s or grandparents in their 70s or 80s might be susceptible if it has been 60 years since their last shots. Dangerous and stupid.

One silver lining: because of term limits, Governor DeSantis must leave office in January 2027. So there’s less than a year and a half left of his administration. He’s an asshole—though unfortunately not beyond compare. Politics is full of them.

The Florida Medical Association should revoke Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s license. The AMA should as well. Even if revocation achieved nothing practical, it would be a statement.

Ladapo is a liar. What he promotes—discouraging vaccination—undoes a century of public health progress. In 1900, U.S. life expectancy was about 47. That was not because people died at 47, but because so many children died before age five or ten from infectious disease and poor sanitation. Vaccination was one of the key factors that raised life expectancy in the U.S. and worldwide, from 47 in 1900 to about 79 today. A century ago, one in five children did not live to see their first birthday.

By undermining vaccines, Ladapo is playing with mass death. He is a murderous asshole—no different in effect from RFK Jr.

Jacobsen: Mayor Eric Adams is staying in the race. Any thoughts?

Rosner: Nobody likes him. He comes across as sleazy. From afar—about 2,500 miles away—it looks like the candidate people prefer is the Muslim socialist, not because of his religion or ideology, but because he appears charismatic and has tolerable ideas. Everyone else looks like sleazy operators—like Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor over sexual misconduct scandals.

The candidate who makes “anybody but progressives” nervous seems to be the stronger choice, because the rest are scumbags.

Jacobsen: So, what’s happening in episode five of Alien: Earth? 

Rosner: It’s a flashback aboard the Maginot, the ship returning to Earth with five alien species collected from some far-off world.

It was a trip that took more than 30 years out, with most of the crew in cryonic suspension, and then more than 30 years back. Now it’s 17 days from Earth. There’s been a fire in navigation equipment, leaving them unable to navigate. They’re going to crash land.

A couple of facehuggers have latched on, and I’m not sure if a full-grown alien has gotten loose yet. A lot is going on. We know there’s a saboteur—the fire couldn’t have hit that one panel by chance. Some of the crew are breaking rules and sleeping together, which leads to lax procedures.

We also know from earlier episodes that everyone but one crew member will die. The style is like the first Alien movie, but with more skullduggery and incompetence.

And, like every other ship in the Alien series, the Maginot has artificial gravity. You have to suspend disbelief, because the only way we know to create gravity is a spinning ring using centrifugal force. Here, everyone walks around as if they’re on a planet. That implies “gravity coils” in the floor, which is nonsense. The show is set only 95 years from now, and there’s no chance we’ll have artificial gravity by 2055. But you forgive it for the sake of the plot. Rotten Tomatoes.

There’s something else. You and I have been talking for over 10 years now—since 2014. Thousands of mini-interviews, chapters, and Ask a Genius sessions. Across all those hours, it’s rare—less than 1% of the time—that I say something so asinine you call me out. Usually, you just let it roll as part of the whole picture of me.

Carole, though, always reacts differently. When I share my ideas with her, her initial response is negative. She calls it honesty or playing devil’s advocate.

For example, I told you and her about my novel idea: Trump in 2028 tries to run for president again but gets blocked by the Constitution, age, and election rules. Then he pivots and runs for Senate in a red state, maintaining his influence and pulling in tens of millions of dollars a month in contributions—money he funnels into his own purposes and crypto schemes, now worth $5 billion.

Your reaction was, “Interesting idea.” Carole’s was, “It’ll take two years to publish, so by then it won’t be relevant. Maybe use another politician.”

But Trump is the central politician of our time. And it’s a novel. I don’t need to get the future exactly right. Even if events change, I can edit later.

In the next three years—maybe sooner—Carole still defaults to devil’s advocate. I’ve told her for at least 15 years: I don’t want negativity, I want support. When I fail, it’s on me, but it doesn’t help when the first response is, “Here’s why your idea sucks.” She got offended when I called it out, but it’s a long-standing issue.

Some people can persevere even when everything they do gets negged. I’m not one of them. I didn’t like it from my writing partner, though I tolerated it because I was paid. I didn’t like it from my boss. I didn’t like it from Lance and JD, so I shut down the podcast. And I don’t like it at home. It drains gumption. I don’t need a gumption-sucker.

Last updated May 3, 2025. These terms govern all In-Sight Publishing content—past, present, and future—and supersede any prior notices.  In-Sight Publishing by Scott  Douglas  Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons BY‑NC‑ND 4.0; © In-Sight Publishing by Scott  Douglas  Jacobsen 2012–Present. All trademarks, performances, databases & branding are owned by their rights holders; no use without permission. Unauthorized copying, modification, framing or public communication is prohibited. External links are not endorsed. Cookies & tracking require consent, and data processing complies with PIPEDA & GDPR; no data from children < 13 (COPPA). Content meets WCAG 2.1 AA under the Accessible Canada Act & is preserved in open archival formats with backups. Excerpts & links require full credit & hyperlink; limited quoting under fair-dealing & fair-use. All content is informational; no liability for errors or omissions: Feedback welcome, and verified errors corrected promptly. For permissions or DMCA notices, email: scott.jacobsen2025@gmail.com. Site use is governed by BC laws; content is “as‑is,” liability limited, users indemnify us; moral, performers’ & database sui generis rights reserved.