‘Dilbert' creator reveals call with President Trump after cancer diagnosis: ‘Did I just send the president to voicemail?'

He's the Commander in Mensch.
'Dilbert' creator and online pundit Scott Adams received not one, but two phone calls — and a voicemail — from President Trump following the beloved cartoonist's shocking cancer announcement.
The 'Reframe Your Brain' author, 67, revealed Monday that he, like former President Joe Biden, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.
Days after the announcement, Adams received a call from a 'number from Florida' that he didn't recognize and sent straight to voicemail, he revealed in a video shared on X Thursday.
'The first sentence of the [voicemail] transcription…is 'This is your favorite president,'' Adams said, chuckling, adding, 'Did I just send the most important person in the world to voicemail?'President Trump left a 'semi-lengthy' voicemail checking in on Adams that included a number the 'Dilbert Principle' writer was to use to call him back.
'Now obviously I don't call him back because that would be ridiculous. It was just a nice thing for him to say,' the celebrated scrawler rationalized.
Several hours later, Adams gets another call from a 'Florida number' he doesn't recognize — 'I thought to myself, 'No f—king way.''
'I answer it and it's Trump,' Adams recounted, still in disbelief.
'He was just checkin' on me and he wanted to make sure I was getting everything I needed,' he said.
The 'Win Bigly' author has been a Trump booster since the 2015 Republican Primary and a vocal online pundit for the two-time president on his daily internet show 'Coffee with Scott Adams.'
'At the end, the strangest thing happened. At the end of the call, when he found out that the situation was kinda dire,' Adams recalled, 'He said, 'If you need anything, I'll make it happen.''
'And he meant it,' he added, laughing in disbelief.
In the wake of Biden's dramatic health news announced earlier this week, Adams revealed that he has the same diagnosis and that he expects to die in the coming months.
'I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has. I also have prostate cancer that has also spread to my bones,' Adams said during an episode of 'Coffee with Scott Adams' on Monday.
'My life expectancy is maybe this summer,' he added. 'I expect to be checking out from this domain sometime this summer.'
Biden, 82, announced through a spokesperson Sunday that he has 'aggressive' prostate cancer that spread to the bones, which was supposedly discovered just this month.
'Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,' a statement from Biden's personal office read. 'On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.'
President Trump has expressed doubt regarding the claim that Biden just found out about the ghastly Stage 9 cancer diagnosis.
'I'm surprised the public wasn't notified a long time ago,' Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office Monday.
'This is dangerous for our country,' he added.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

USA Today

11 minutes ago

• USA Today

US stock futures edge up as world awaits Iran response to US strikes

U.S. stock futures are slightly higher as the world waits to see if Iran retailiates after a surprise U.S. strike on Iran over the weekend. President Donald Trump called the attack "a spectacular military success" in a televised address to the nation and said Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities had been "obliterated" though other officials' statements were more measured. Trump said the U.S. military could go after other targets in Iran if the country did not agree to peace. At 6 a.m. ET, futures linked to the blue-chip Dow added 0.1%, or 44 points, to 42,559, while broad S&P 500 futures gained 0.19%, or 11.5 points, to 6,029.50 and tech-heavy Nasdaq futures inched up 0.15%, or 33 points, to 21,877.75. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield edged up to 4.391%. Investors are worried if tensions escalate, how they could affect the economy, oil prices and inflation and interest rates. Oil prices intially rose to a five-month high but pared gains. They were last up 0.49% to $74.20 per barrel. Whether oil prices climb higher will depend on next actions by the U.S. and Iran. Higher oil prices could ignite inflation. "The immediate-term focus is on whether Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil supply travels," said Mike O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading. A member of the Iranian parliament's National Security commission said 'for now, [parliament has] come to the conclusion we should close the Strait of Hormuz, but the final decision in this regard is the responsibility of the Supreme National Security Council," according to Reuters. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on China to prevent Iran from blocking the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for U.S. airstrike. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil and the two countries are friendly. China said it "strongly" condemned the U.S. attack on Iran and said it violated the UN Charter and international law. It called for a ceasefire but didn't offer Iran any substantial assistance. Iran could also retailiate by striking U.S. bases in the region, but Trump has said that will be met with great force. The latest: US warns of 'heightened threat environment' after strikes on Iran nukes: Live updates Cryptocurrency Bitcoin initially fell below the key psychological $100,000 level amid jitters from the U.S. strikes on Iran but has since regained the level. Metaplanet, the Tokyo-listed hotel firm known for its bitcoin acquisition strategy, has acquired 1,111 bitcoin for $117 million. It paid an average of about $105,681 each. Separately, Norway said it will temporarily ban new data centers that mine cryptocurrency with the most power-intensive technology, a move aimed at conserving electricity for other industries. Texas also created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the third US state to establish a crypto reserve. Only digital assets with a 24-month average market cap of $500 billion qualify, currently limiting the fund to bitcoin. Texas is the first state to create a standalone, publicly-funded bitcoin reserve outside the usual state treasury Bitcoin was last up 0.58% at $101,560.40. Corporate news Medora Lee is a money, markets, and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at mjlee@ and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday.

CNN

13 minutes ago

• CNN

Make Alberta Great Again: In this Canadian province, separatists see Trump as an ally

It's a Monday night in June and hundreds have braved the haze of Canadian wildfires to gather in a cavernous sports facility in the city of Red Deer, Alberta. An Alberta team, the Edmonton Oilers, are taking on the Florida Panthers in a National Hockey League finals game tonight. The atmosphere is heavy with anticipation. But these people aren't here for hockey. This is a rally for Alberta independence. It might be hard to believe, given Canadian sports fans' recent booing of 'The Star Spangled Banner,' but not all Canadians took offense to US President Donald Trump's questioning of their country's sovereignty. In oil-rich Alberta, where a movement for independence from Canada appears to be gathering steam, many see in Trump a powerful and important ally whose haranguing of their former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was as welcome as his calls to 'drill baby, drill.' Though some see US statehood as a step too far, many in the Red Deer crowd believe the US president – as a fellow pro-oil conservative – would recognize a breakaway Alberta should a vote on independence go their way. 'Donald Trump is not the savior of the world,' says Albert Talsma, a welding contractor from Bentley. 'But right now he's North America's best asset.' With their 'Make Alberta Great Again' hats, 'Alberta Republic' T-shirts and posters declaring 'Albertans for Alberta!' it's not hard to see parallels to the US president's MAGA movement and the forces that inspired it. Separatists here have long argued that Canada's federal system fails to represent their interests; that the federal government's efforts to stymie climate change are holding back Alberta's lucrative oil industry (the largest in Canada); that they pay more than they get back through federal taxation; that their conservative values are drowned out by the more liberal eastern provinces. 'Alberta hasn't been treated fairly since 1905, when we joined Confederation. They basically used the west as a colony, to take wealth from the west to support the east,' says Kate Graham, a singing grandmother from Calgary. She opens the rally with a rendition of Janis Joplin's 'Mercedez Benz,' the lyrics modified to promote independence. Like Janis, she sings it a cappella, before spending much of the rest of the event at a booth by the door, selling merch emblazoned with the slogan 'I AM ALBERTAN.' Similar disenchantment is voiced by a steady stream of Albertans, each venting against their mother country on a stage flanked by a large provincial flag strung across a soccer goal. 'They want to stifle our (oil) industry,' says Mitch Sylvestre, a businessman from Bonnyville and one of the rally's chief organizers, his hoarse voice echoing over the PA system. 'We have cancer. We have a problem,' says Sylvestre. 'We have it large.' In a strange twist, the push to get Alberta out of Canada has gained momentum just as much of the country has united in patriotism in the face of Trump's tariffs and threats of annexation. Soon after Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberals rode a wave of anti-Trump sentiment to win the 2025 federal election in April, the Alberta Legislature passed a law making it easier to organize a referendum on independence. Under the new law, petitions for a province-wide vote now require just 177,000 signatures – down from 600,000 previously – and those signatures can be gathered over a period of four months rather than three. The province is home to nearly 5 million people, according to Statistics Canada, representing more than a tenth of the population of the entire country. One of the most vocal advocates for a referendum is Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer and co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), which organized the Red Deer rally. Rath, well over six feet tall in a cowboy hat and boots, has a ranch just outside of Calgary. He raises race horses there and follows the sport closely, especially the Kentucky Derby – where this year, he notes with a grin, ''Sovereignty' beat 'Journalism.'' 'If you wanna know what's special about Alberta, just look around, right?' Rath says with a sweep of his hand. The view from the rise above Rath's horse pasture is superb: quaking aspen, white pine and green rolling hills. 'It's one of God's treasures on earth. And the people here are very distinct people that have a very distinct culture and that are interested in maintaining that culture.' In Rath's eyes, Trump's attitude toward Canada is an opportunity. His group is counting on US government support in the event of success at the ballot box. 'Trump's election has given us a lot of hope,' Rath says. 'If anybody is going to have the guts to recognize an independent Alberta, (it) would be the Trump administration.' Separatism is not new in Canada, but it's only had real political power in the predominantly Francophone province of Quebec, which has numerous pro-independence parties and voted in two referendums on independence in the past 50 years, rejecting it by a 60/40 margin in 1980 and by around one percentage point in 1995. In Alberta, enthusiasm for separation has waxed and waned for decades, fueled initially by 'Western alienation' – resentment felt in western Canada against a federal system dominated by the more populous eastern provinces. More recently, the movement has attracted Albertans who were angered by federally mandated lockdowns during the Covid pandemic. Among them was Rath, who has in the past faced controversy for suggesting government officials should face murder and negligent homicide charges over what he claims are the ill-effects of the Covid vaccine. A recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute found about a third of Albertans currently support independence, though that support does not break down equally throughout the population. Some of the loudest critics of the idea come from Alberta's indigenous communities, whose treaties with the Canadian crown are older than the province itself. Under pressure from that community, the government added a provision to the referendum bill that guarantees their treaty rights whatever the result. Another poll, by CNN's Canadian broadcast partner CBC, found that more than half of the governing United Conservative Party (UCP) would vote to separate from Canada if given the chance. It also found that, while the percentage of the population backing independence has remained static over the past few years, the share of people who 'strongly' back it has grown. 'We can't ignore the fact that a third or more of Albertans are fed up,' Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the leader of the UCP, tells CNN. While Smith's party proposed the referendum bill, she says she is against separation herself, preferring to 'get Alberta to exert its sovereignty within a united Canada.' 'We have had, from time to time, these kinds of initiatives flare up,' says Smith. 'And they're almost always in response to a federal government that's out of control. But they have all subsided when the federal government got back in its own lane.' 'I think that it's a notice to Ottawa that they've got to take this seriously,' Smith adds. 'The question is, what can we do to address it?' One of the more explosive questions surrounding secession is whether an independent Alberta might join the United States. In February, a billboard appeared along the highway between Calgary and Edmonton, with text urging onlookers to tell Premier Smith that Alberta ought to 'Join the USA!' superimposed over a picture of her shaking hands with Trump. 'I don't think Albertans are very keen to trade a bad relationship with Ottawa with a bad relationship with Washington,' Smith says when asked about the possibility. In Red Deer, the crowd seems divided on the issue. Most who speak to CNN say they would rather see Alberta as a fully independent country. But others, like construction worker Stephen Large of Czar, Alberta, feel it would be good to have the might of the US on their side – particularly if negotiations fail in the event of a 'yes' vote for independence. 'The minute something happens here toward independence, our federal government is going to be furious,' says Large, who wears a red 'Make Alberta Great Again' cap. 'They will pull out all the stops, military and police and whatever they can find to lock us down, lock us in.' Large points to how former Prime Minister Trudeau briefly invoked the Emergencies Act when Canadian truckers blockaded downtown Ottawa to protest cross-border vaccine mandates in 2022. The statute, which had never been used before, allowed Canadian law enforcement to take extraordinary measures to restore public order – including freezing the bank accounts of certain protesters and banning public assembly in parts of Ottawa. The law also allows the government to deploy troops within Canada to enforce the law, though Trudeau did not invoke that part of the provision in 2022. 'We're gonna need some support from somewhere, and the only place on Earth that is worthy of their support is the United States military,' Large says. A woman sitting in front of Large overhears him and turns around, nodding in agreement. 'I'm with him,' she says, introducing herself as Evelyn Ranger of Red Deer. 'I'm not sure that Alberta or the western provinces, even together, can make it on their own. So, the States is still the better way to go, because you've got the military, you've got the trade and everything already set there.' For his part, Rath refuses to consider whether the federal government might invoke the Emergencies Act or use other measures to put down his movement if it were to unilaterally declare Alberta independent in the event of a 'yes' vote. 'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but we don't see that happening,' Rath says. Asked if he would be up for an interview at that point, he grins. 'Yeah,' Rath replies, before letting out a laugh. 'It might be from a jail cell.'

CBS News

17 minutes ago

• CBS News

Trump suggests regime change for Iran amid questions over damage from U.S. strikes on nuclear sites

Tel Aviv — Israel said it carried out more strikes on Iran on Monday, targeting missile, satellite and radar sites two days after the President Trump ordered American warplanes to join Israel in attacking the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities, fueling concern around the world of an escalating conflict in the heart of the Middle East with the potential to draw in major world powers. The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that Israeli warplanes had also struck six airports in Iran, "as part of the effort to expand air superiority over Iranian skies," targeting runways, various aircraft and underground hangers. Iran also launched a new wave of missiles at Israel on Monday, sending people to bomb shelters across the country. Dozens of missiles were reportedly launched at Israel, with impacts in at least two sites in the northern port city of Haifa and on a road in the southern city of Ashdod. A girl carries a doll at an impact site following an Iranian missile attack on Israel, in Haifa, Israel, June 22, 2025. Florion Goga/REUTERS Israel Electric Corporation said that, following a strike near one of its strategic facilities in southern Israel, there was disruption in the supply of electricity to a number of communities in the area. The attacks came after U.S. B2 bombers and attacked three of Iran's nuclear sites over the weekend – the first direct U.S. military action against Iran after a week of Israeli attacks. Iranian nuclear sites "totally obliterated" by U.S. strikes? President Trump said in a televised address on Sunday that Iran's highly fortified Fordo nuclear enrichment site, along with the Isfahan and Natanz nuclear facilities, had been "completely and totally obliterated" by the U.S. strikes. "Initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction," the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, said during a news conference, noting that a full assessment of the damage would take time. But while Mr. Trump said in a social media post that the "spectacular military success" in Iran had taken "the 'bomb' right out of their hands," The New York Times reported that the head of the global nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, believed Iran could have moved at least some of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to another location before the U.S. attack, as Iranian officials have claimed. In remarks to the United Nations Security Council on Sunday, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi did not mention that prospect specifically, but he said "no one — including the IAEA — is in a position to assess the underground damage" at Iran's most sensitive site at Fordo, where the regime is believed to have carried out advanced enrichment work in secret. "We must return to the negotiating table and allow the IAEA inspectors, the guardians of the NPT [nuclear non-proliferation treaty], to go back to Iran's nuclear sites and account for the stockpiles of uranium, including, most importantly, the 400kg enriched to 60%," Grossi said, referring to the bulk of Iran's highly-enriched uranium, previously known to have been stored at the Isfahan facility. Uranium enriched to that level is only a short technical step away from the 90% purity required to make a nuclear weapon. "We have a window of opportunity to return to dialogue and diplomacy. If that window closes, violence and destruction could reach unthinkable levels and the global non-proliferation regime as we know it could crumble and fall," Grossi warned the delegations at the U.N. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation" it would take days to confirm whether Iran's enriched uranium stockpile had been moved, but he thought it was unlikely. "No one will know for sure for days, but I doubt they moved it, because you really can't move anything right now. They can't move anything right now inside Iran. The minute a truck starts driving anywhere the Israelis have seen it, and targeted it and taken it out. So our assessment is, we have to assume that - that's a lot of 60% enriched uranium buried deep under the ground there at Isfahan. And that really is key. What they should do with that is they should bring it out of the ground and turn it over. Multiple countries in the world will take it and down-blend it. That's what they should do with that," Rubio said, adding another call for Iran to agree to abandon its enrichment work to end the crisis. Rubio said if Iran were to "call right now, and say 'we wanna meet, let's talk about this,' we're prepared to do that. The president's made that clear from the very beginning. His preference is to deal with this issue diplomatically." Trump suggests regime change for Iran Rubio also reiterated on Sunday President Trump's previous statements that the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites were carried out with the sole purpose of removing the threat of the regime obtaining a nuclear weapon. Mr. Trump had, right after the U.S. strikes, said they would be the extent of America's involvement in the conflict unless Iran launched retaliatory attacks against U.S. assets in the region. But late on Sunday, in a social media post, Mr. Trump stoked concern about a possible further escalation of the conflict. "If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change???" Mr. Trump said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top aids have also suggested in recent days that the military action taken by Israel could make room for an uprising in the Islamic Republic to topple Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime, and Netanyahu has called directly on Iranians to take to the streets. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Iran "reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people." Araghchi arrived Sunday evening in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has fostered closer ties with Iran for years. About 40,000 U.S. military personnel are deployed in the Middle East, on warships and bases across the region. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement Sunday that "the number, dispersion, and size of U.S. military bases in the region are not a strength, but have doubled their vulnerability." The U.S. State Department issued a new alert on Sunday, meanwhile, to Americans traveling anywhere outside of the country to "exercise increased caution," due to the possibility of the strikes fueling anti-U.S. sentiment or protests. contributed to this report.