Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive July 10, 2026
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Episodes Episode #34 Segments
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Back to episode — Episode 34 - Why Kanye and John Legend Are Watching Different Movies

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Hey everybody, it's time to get in here. We're gonna do a little whiteboard talk on our favorite topic. Try to ignore the sounds of gardeners outside.

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Today I'm going to talk about the disagreement between Kanye and John Legend. If you're following the news, you know that Kanye has expressed some love for President Trump as a person. No discussion of policies, just that it's okay for him to like him. John Legend has weighed in publicly on Twitter and said, hey, you know, he's not happy about this because it seems to be validating who he thinks is a racist, which is President Trump.

And then it got more interesting because Kanye this morning sent a screenshot of the text exchange between them. John Legend had contacted him by text and made an impassioned and genuine request that Kanye rethink his support of President Trump because it's harmful, in John Legend's opinion.

Let me start by saying both of these people, John Legend and Kanye, are trying to help. So all credit to them, because both of them are absolutely putting their reputations on the line. They're putting some skin in the game. They both have completely positive intentions.

But here's the interesting thing. They're looking at the same set of facts but seeing two completely different movies. And I wanted to give you just a brief explanation of how these two smart, accomplished, well-informed people can look at exactly the same stuff but see completely different things. John Legend sees, you know, what kind of monster Trump is, a racist. Kanye sees it differently. How can that be? They're both smart, well-informed, and I'm pretty sure Kanye is not crazy, at least in this sense. So how can that be?

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And let me explain it. Now, the normal world, as you know, it's quite common. In fact, it's universal. It's not just common, it's the universal way that human beings look at things. We have confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, and we imagine that we're rational creatures, but we're not. Now if you said to both these people, hey, John Legend, have you heard of these concepts, cognitive diss…

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