Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive May 24, 2026
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Episodes Episode #2880 Segments
MainContent Persuasion

Back to episode — Episode 2880 CWSA 06/27/25

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holding out some kind of belief that maybe Biden would sign a little document or give somebody the word in person. So they at the very least the person who operates the autopen had direct knowledge that the president wanted something signed. But apparently not. Apparently not. So the person doing the autopen literally did not know if it came from the president. Does that seem like a problem? Yeah…

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there were an agreed upon, reasonable conclusion for Gaza, that would lead to more people joining the Abraham Accords, that'd be a big deal. So that's possible.

But there's no word about hostages or where do the refugees live for the many years it would take to make Gaza livable again and do they all get to move back and who exactly is going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza and all that. So I'm going to say that there's some details missing that obviously would have to be there if there were a deal such as the hostages. And I don't think the two-state solution is likely enough that the entire reporting could be accurate. So that's my red flag on that one.

Anyway, it's interesting. The only thing it does, I think, is it helps you understand what is possible.

All right. And CNN is reporting I think Newsmax is reporting on this too that the US is kicking around the idea of helping Iran become a peaceful nuclear energy country without the ability to make a bomb. And that part of that might be making available to them as much as $30 billion to build a civilian nuclear program that doesn't have any enriched uranium access or anything except for what goes into the nuclear energy for domestic use. And that money would not necessarily come from America, but rather from other Middle Eastern countries.

Does that seem like something that might happen? I always like the Trump approach of saying you've got two choices. We will either attack you militarily or we'll help you develop your economy so you can make a lot of money. I love that. I always tell you about one of the principles of persuasion is that you lay out a really big gap between doing what you want them to do and not doing what you want them to do. And that's a pretty big gap. If you try to make your own nukes again, we will bomb your country again. Very, very bad. But if you work with us for domestic nuclear power, we'll help you get funding for $30 billion from your neighbors. And that's pretty good. So I like that. I like that. That's even a conversation.

Well, according to Trump, the US and China have quote signed a trade deal. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the US and China have signed a trade deal? I don't believe that. There may be some elements that they've agreed upon or have a framework for, but I don't believe there's an overall China trade deal. I'm pretty sure there will be nothing about protecting intellectual property and probably nothing about fentanyl. So is there I mean there might be some crawling forward on some things like the rare minerals. There might be a rare mineral deal, but no, I don't believe there's any signed comprehensive China trade deal, but the market might. And we'll see.

And I guess Lnik says the US is going to drop some countermeasures against China because China is loosening up about rare earth materials. But we'll see if any of that matters. But Trump's team says that by July 9th, which I guess is the new deadline for all the countries to make a deal. He said that there will be a tariff hammer coming down for any nation that doesn't look like they're negotiating in good faith. So basically just

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more tariffs. So they do think that there are a lot of tariff deals coming. Now, do you remember when the tariffs were first announced? This would be a good time to see who was right and who was wrong. And there were some people who said, "Oh, these threats of tariffs will never get you anything good. It will just all be bad." And by now, the stock market has fully recovered. So we're all the way…

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