Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive August 23, 2026
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Episodes Episode #2653 Segments
MainContent Persuasion

Back to episode — Episode 2653 CWSA 11/08/24

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you're on X and you're seeing the comments from people who have worked with her for a long time, I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen such a complete endorsement of anybody politically or for anything. So whoever Susie Wiles is is apparently very well regarded and I guess it's a good pick. Everybody who knows her says it's like a home run. Now here's what's fascinating about it. Do y…

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em. So no, that's leadership. You could call it manipulating the dumb and weak people or you could say he's showing people who are not as plugged in as he is and not as strong where they should go. And they seem to enjoy that situation enough to vote for him for a second time.

So there's a fine line between manipulating and leadership. And I would say that the single defining point, the most important point, is why are you doing it? It's leadership if you're doing it for everybody's benefit or the greater good let's say. And it's manipulating if you're just doing it for your own benefit. But the president is the one job I think we should all agree on is so transparent that there is no way to do a bad job as president and then be happy about it when you're done. That's not a thing.

Joe Biden's entire term is now a disgrace basically because he couldn't keep it together long enough to get a second term and prevented Kamala Harris from having the best chance she could of winning or anybody else from having the best chance they have of winning. So Biden by failing at that critical decision point knows that his legacy is now half of what it could have been. Do you think Trump wants a bad legacy? Do you think he wants the Trump name to be dragged through the toilet of history? Or does he want to do the best job he could right in front of you as transparently as possible so that he doesn't have to convince you it was a good job? You saw it yourself. To me it seems obvious that he's deeply, deeply motivated to do a great job and anything short of that would be disappointing to Trump I would imagine. Certainly disappointing to his supporters and his family. We expect great things.

Well Putin, according to Just the News, Vladimir Putin described Trump as a courageous man who was hounded from all sides during the presidential campaign and he congratulated Trump on his victory. And Putin said, quote, "He behaved in my opinion in a very correct way, courageously like a real man." Putin said, "I take this opportunity to congratulate him on his election." He said he's ready to speak to Trump about the war in Ukraine. Quote, "What was said about the desire to restore relations with Russia to bring about the end of the Ukrainian crisis in my opinion this deserves attention at least," said Putin.

Now you know how this is going to be framed by the good guys and the bad guys. The bad guys — well let me not call them bad guys. Let's just say in the spirit of unity I'll say the Democrats for now. You know the Democrats are going to say oh you're Putin's puppet. Oh Trump why are you so nice to dictators? Why are you being so good to dictators? And then all the people who have any experience in business or any experience in politics and have ever negotiated anything are going to say are you all weak and dumb like Jason says? Because let me explain how negotiating works. First you listen to the person you're negotiating with and you try to agree with as much as possible so that you're both shaking your heads yes before you get to the h

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ard stuff. Now what would be the best way to bond, you know, to find something in common between Putin and Trump which would make both of them better at negotiating with each other? Which is your ideal situation. You don't want one of the people to think they went away oh I got bullied into something. You want both of them to think this is a good negotiation. I'm going in this strong. I'm going i…

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