Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive August 22, 2026
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Could it be true that there's a difference in the average of the outcomes of white people and black people? Of course, we all see that. Nobody's questioning there's a difference in outcome. Could it be that the legacy of slavery is rippling into the current? I say yes. I say that's obviously true. But having said that, we're talking about the average. Do you think that the person who lost their j…

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onclude that if they hate everything about why he's doing it, his intentions, even if all of that's true? It's not. But suppose all of that was true. Wouldn't they still agree that he's good at it? I think so.

Right now, if somebody is that good that they become president, would you call them an expert? Do you think that if it comes to conning people, wouldn't you call President Trump, if you're one of his critics, wouldn't you say he's an expert at that? I mean, he did become president. There are people who are writing books about his technique, including me. It's talking about it all the time. I'd say he's an expert at identifying, for example, did he not correctly identify that the Paris climate accord, although well-intentioned, was ultimately a bunch of? He did.

Right now, maybe those con man skills, according to his critics, came in handy there because he spotted a con that other people even still think is real. How about comments on other things that look like? How about when Kerry and all the experts said, "Hey, you can never create peace in the Middle East unless you get Iran on board and Palestinians first." And then apparently he's doing it. So he's doing something that was impossible. It seems to be getting it done.

I don't know how you could conclude given all of the examples that he's not an expert at being a con or recognizing a con if you're his critic. So here's the question. If he's an expert and he's looking at the election and he says in my expert opinion effectively, this is obviously a con. Why would you not listen to the expert?

President Trump's critics are obsessed with the question of listen to the expert. I would say that they have deemed Trump an expert in cons. He just called out the biggest con you've ever seen, which is the election. Why wouldn't you believe him? He is an expert at this.

Do you think that Rudy Giuliani is not an expert at identifying organized crime? He is. He is an expert at recognizing organized crime. In fact, I don't know who would be better at it. If you were going to pick one person in the whole United States that you had to trust to identify organized crime based on preliminary indications, you know, before it goes through court, who would you pick ahead of Trump and Rudy Giuliani? I don't think there's anybody I would pick ahead of those two. They're pretty much experts at this anyway.

Now somebody weighed in and said that the reason you wouldn't trust Trump on this is because this too is another con, which was pretty clever answer. Remember, I'm doing this just for fun. I'm not trying to be too logical here. But what I pointed out in return is that that's no different than your other experts. Because if you can't trust Trump to be an expert on cons because he might be conning you about the con, how is that different from your financial adviser? It's not. You just think it is.

Your financial adviser wants you to buy financial products that the financial adviser gets a cut of. Your financial adviser isn't trying to make you rich. Your financial adviser is making him rich or her rich, right? Financial advice is a con. How about scientific advice? Well, we're pretty aware that our scientists are either being paid by oil companies or they're wedded to the Green Deal and they'll benefit if the green thing happens bigger. It's all co

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ns. We don't have objective experts. That's not a thing. All the experts have something in it for themselves. So if Trump is an expert on cons but the problem is he's also might be doing a con, that's exactly the same as every one of the experts that Biden tells you to believe. Everyone. They all have an incentive for the con, which doesn't mean they're all conning, but they've all got an incenti…

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