Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive October 12, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
Search ideas

Context —

I can before I make a decision, just in case. I think that I'll probably take it. But here's the other interesting thing about this Oxford-AstraZeneca story. The accident may have discovered something that's really, really important, in the same way that yellow sticky notes were discovered by accident and I think penicillin was discovered by accident and a lot of things get discovered by accident…

← Previous segment →

o look for that. Just think about where's all this damage that the Democrats are fixing and what are they doing to fix it.

So remember I predicted that if Joe Biden won, Republicans would be hunted. And I was roundly mocked through society for such a ridiculous thing. Well of course we've seen people get assaulted just for being Trump supporters. So indeed they are hunted on the street and certainly they will be ferreted out in employment, etc.

But here's something that Rachel Maddow said last night I guess. So Rachel Maddow asked an NAACP legal defense counsel, Sherrilyn Ifill, she said Trump officials are challenging the election. She asked if they should be sent to jail for challenging the election, which is not a crime. And she knows it, right? So Rachel Maddow is literally in public. Right, this is not a private conversation and there's no question about whether she said it or not. You know it's on video. It's public. And she's asking the question in public if people who broke no laws, because there's no even allegation of a broken law, just questioning the outcome, if they should be jailed.

You piece of shit, Rachel Maddow. She's asking if Trump's supporters should be jailed for not breaking a crime, just doubting the outcome of an election. Think about that. Now when you were mocking me for saying that Republicans would be hunted, what the fuck is this? What the fuck is this? If this is not a pretty clean signal that Democrats are willing to jail, I mean that's her word. She used the word "jail." I'm not interpreting. The word "jail." Should be sent to jail so they feel like they did something wrong. It would stop Trumpism from becoming the norm. She actually said that. Amazing.

I hope that Trump does some kind of a clever pardon before he leaves office. You know, something like stepping down on the last day of his term and having Pence pardon him for everything he's ever done. I hope that happens. Now normally I would say I sure hope that anybody who committed a crime gets caught. I mean typically I would like people to get caught for doing crimes. But what exactly is Trump's crime? Can you think of one? I have not heard a crime even alleged. Have you?

Apparently there are all these lawsuits in the Southern District of New York and they're looking through his financials and stuff. But do be a fact check on this. Has anybody alleged a crime and why haven't we heard it? What's the specific crime? Because otherwise it looks like they're just looking for a crime. Are you okay with that? Are you okay that a politician can be examined just to see if there's a crime without any evidence that there was a crime? Are you okay with that? I'm not okay with that.

And as a principle I would prefer that if you imagine that Trump broke some law, I would prefer that he'd get away with it rather than have a norm that you can just go looking for crimes if there's no evidence of a crime. So which looks like what's happening. Now if it turns out there is all this evidence of a crime that I don't know about then I will revise my opinion. But based on what we know it looks like they're after him for political reasons and I think that should be shut down.

So if Trump and Pence used a political trick, you know, to sort of pardon him for everything that happened up to that point in life, I think that would be appropriate because there's a trick being used against him. So if you use a trick to counter another trick I'm okay with that 100 percent. And I very much hope that it happens. And again I don't care if there's a real crime or not because whether or not there's a real crime is a much lower priority than we shouldn't be doing this. We shouldn't be doing this because you know if I could go to your house and tear it apart and look through all your financials could I find any crimes? I'd probably find something. That's why we don't do that.

So I guess Joe Biden has picked Jake Sullivan to serve as national security advisor. And Joel Pollak points out that Sullivan would be taking the job that Mike Flynn had briefly and that Sullivan had falsely accused Flynn of Russia collusion. So the guy who would take Flynn's job is somebody who falsely accused Flynn of a crime of Russia collusion. Not even just a normal crime like the crime of all crimes.

All right, you've got Bill de Blasio closing public schools because the city is at three percent positivity for coronavirus but the schools themselves are only at point two eight. So we should follow the science, right? Here's, I can say this a million times and most people won't be able to hear it. There are some ideas that we just can't hear. I don't know. It's an unusual phenomenon. I'll give you one. Some of you will be able to hear what I say next. Some of you just can't hear it. Like it'll be like noise, like Charlie Brown's teacher. And so this will be an experiment and it goes like this.

We all know we should trust science and we should trust the experts but they interpret things differently. The experts and the scientists look at the same data and they interpret it differently. So who, how can you trust them? Trusting science is a good idea. Trusting scientists is the dumbest idea in the world because they're people and people can't be trusted. People can be right and people can be wrong but you can't trust them. You can't trust them. You can trust them if you've got lots of visibility and you know their controls and somebody's double-checking. But that's not really trusting, is it? That's more like making sure that all of the opportunity for cheating and mischief has been removed.

But trust science. But I don't have access to science. Do you reach into your pocket and grab me a handful of science? Do you have any? Because I don't have any. I look at my shelves. I got some books on my shelves but I don't have any science. I don't have science. I can't get my hands around it. Don't have access to it. I'll tell you what I do have. People telling me their opinions. That's what I have. I don't have any science. I got people telling me their opinions about science. I don't trust people. Are you kidding me? I don't trust people at all in that way.

Whereas somebody wise said, I forget who, somebody said recently the one thing you can trust is that people will act like people. You can definitely trust that. You can trust that.

All right. Hypothetically here's a question I asked and I got some answers I think are pretty good. Hypothetically what would happen if the process goes forward and it goes all the way through the Electoral College process, Biden gets confirmed, goes to the House, I

Context —

don't know the exact process but I guess the House says that they confirm it or they validate it or whatever. Let's say it goes all the way through the system and Biden is ready to be inaugurated or even he gets inaugurated. My understanding is that the actual inauguration is unnecessary. It's more of a ceremony. But let's say he goes through the process that he's absolutely the president of the U…

Next segment → →