Making Sense - Sam Harris - #405 — ＂More From Sam＂： Tariffs, SignalGate, Trump, Elon, Douglas Murray, & Joe Rogan

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if

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00:00:45.320 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. We're trying something new here today.

00:00:52.000 In this episode, I'm answering questions based on the topics that many of you submitted over on

00:00:57.740 Substack. And if this goes well, we'll do more of this in the future. The voice you hear is that of

00:01:04.520 my manager and business partner, Jaron Lowenstein. Jaron sat down with me to discuss the questions we

00:01:10.820 fielded from the community chat at Substack. I think there were some 4,000 comments, so this is just

00:01:16.840 the tip of the iceberg. But many of you have been calling for me to respond more quickly to topical

00:01:23.860 events. So that is the experiment we are performing for you today. This is audio from the video that

00:01:30.940 we recorded. And subscribers can watch the full video and comment and submit further topics over

00:01:36.700 on my Substack page. Enjoy. So let's start with what the hell is going on? How's your stock portfolio,

00:01:49.580 Sam? Well, this is looking expensive. I just looked at the Economist cover story editorial,

00:01:58.380 which was as bad as withering as you could imagine. They called the day of liberation the

00:02:03.880 day of ruination. And yeah, I mean, obviously, I'm not an economist. I just know that the vast

00:02:10.980 majority of economists think this is an insane, self-inflicted wound. I guess time will tell,

00:02:17.300 but it certainly seems that way. I mean, it's just crazy that one person's fixation on tariffs can

00:02:25.300 accomplish this for us. I don't know who really wanted this, but we seem to be running a global

00:02:33.880 experiment on the economy. And yeah, I mean, could he be proven right in the end? I guess it's possible,

00:02:43.100 but it's against the grain of seemingly all of economic understanding of the last hundred years.

00:02:51.100 Well, that's interesting. You said that because one of the things that we're hearing is this idea

00:02:56.700 that you wait, you just have to wait, especially from the MAGA people that are now into buy the dip

00:03:01.860 and this is all going to be okay. I mean, they were griping about the price of eggs,

00:03:06.540 eggs, right? And now, and now, and now they'd give anything to pay $12 for eggs again. Maybe

00:03:14.360 that's the move. But what do you, I mean, it sounds like you actually have a glimmer of optimism

00:03:19.260 that... No, no, zero optimism. I think it's very likely to be a disaster. I mean, Trump is a fake

00:03:27.300 businessman, right? He's a fake business genius. He's a game show host. And somehow the country 0.99

00:03:35.180 decided, I mean, he was not even a prominent... He's a famous for being famous, nearly fake real

00:03:44.340 estate developer, right? Who just had a great talent for going bankrupt and losing other people's money

00:03:50.420 and then getting sued and not paying his subs, et cetera, et cetera, right? The least ethical

00:03:56.540 businessman anyone's ever met and not a successful one. The irony is now he's probably a legitimate

00:04:02.260 billionaire, at least for the next five minutes because of the meme coin he sold to a credulous

00:04:07.200 horde of people who bought it simply to support him. And now we have foreign governments that will

00:04:12.780 be buying it to support him in an exercise in corruption, the likes of which we have never lived

00:04:19.320 through, at least to my knowledge in this country. I mean, it's completely insane that this

00:04:25.420 person's ideas about the economy are operative, but is it conceivable that all the economists are

00:04:32.580 wrong and that tariffs are going to work or that this thing that he could pull back from the brink

00:04:36.400 in a way and look like a winner because he just shocked all of our allies and enemies simultaneously

00:04:41.780 with how irrational he could be? I mean, that's totally possible. I mean, the irony for me is that

00:04:47.800 it seems like an economic catastrophe is the only thing that stands a chance of convincing his cult

00:04:54.420 that they made a bad decision. And I think it's legitimate to worry whether it would even convince

00:04:59.780 them in that case. I mean, a global depression might not convince the 30% of Americans who are

00:05:06.340 truly in the cult. But, you know, among the people I know who voted for Trump, who really, you know,

00:05:12.480 imagined that he, at a minimum, would steward the economy in ways that would be, if not advantageous

00:05:19.700 for all of humanity, advantageous for them, you know, I can imagine them recognizing that we all

00:05:26.220 made a bad decision or they made a bad decision in supporting him if there's a sufficient economic

00:05:30.940 downturn. The painful irony for me is that that's not the reason to have recognized how insane it is

00:05:38.460 to have promoted this guy to the highest position of responsibility of anyone in our society. I mean,

00:05:43.640 what's insane is that just before he shuffled out to the Rose Garden to announce these lunatic

00:05:51.100 tariffs, he was meeting with Laura Loomer about national security in the Oval Office. That's what's

00:05:56.720 insane about the Trump administration, right? We have grifters and lunatics and conspiracy theorists 1.00

00:06:02.460 advising the president on how to manage, you know, risk of nuclear annihilation with Russia and China 0.97

00:06:13.000 and our other adversaries. I mean, it's just, you know, I mean, to say nothing to the fact that

00:06:18.260 you've got RFK Jr. in there promoting anti-vaxxers and firing, you know, half the staff of the FDA and

00:06:24.620 who knows who else he's going to fire, it's madness, right? That's the thing to be agitated about. And

00:06:31.500 the fact that there could be an associated price tag with it is all too foreseeable. But in my mind,

00:06:39.420 if you're going to come to your senses just because your 401k took a nosedive, 1.00

00:06:44.960 you still haven't pulled your head out of your ass. This is a disaster on a hundred fronts. 1.00

00:06:51.100 And in two months, Trump has accomplished the unthinkable. He's ruined the reputation of our

00:06:57.840 country, perhaps for a generation. He's convinced our allies that they can't possibly trust us,

00:07:04.900 right? Because they can't trust us, right? We elected a moral lunatic to the office and he's

00:07:12.860 rescinded all of our treaty obligations, effectively, single-handedly. And he's acting like we lost a 0.96

00:07:20.620 war with Russia, right? Like last I looked, we had won the Cold War. It seems like we've lost it now, 0.70

00:07:25.760 or we switched sides at the 11th hour. And now he's doing the bidding of a dictator who,

00:07:32.680 at the time we're recording this, seems to be playing him for a fool in the negotiations 0.97

00:07:36.900 vis-a-vis the war in Ukraine. But who knows how that's going to come out. But the fact that we 0.90

00:07:44.960 have announced to the world that we no longer stand with freedom-loving democracies that aspire to

00:07:52.820 live the way we do in the developed world. We no longer stand with open societies against

00:07:59.000 naked aggressors. We stand with aggressors because the guy covered in orange face paint may want a

00:08:05.740 hotel deal in Moscow one of these days. It's mortifying, right? That's the thing to be agitated

00:08:11.700 about. And yeah, so it's just going to be an extra level of annoyance to see an economic calamity

00:08:19.680 convince people finally that maybe this was a bad decision.

00:08:22.920 I want to go back to the Signal situation with Hegseth. To me, and I want to get your thoughts

00:08:32.280 on this, to me, it just, that was the, it was such an easy opportunity for integrity.

00:08:38.380 They could have still lied. They could have said nothing, there was nothing classified,

00:08:42.940 but there was a fuck up and we're looking into it. And one of us did this and that shouldn't happen. 0.96

00:08:48.460 And that's embarrassing. And we, we do better. We know better. We're, as you said, anybody would

00:08:53.080 have been fired for that. Why is that? And, and going back to the Trump prerequisites that you

00:08:58.480 talked about, is it possible, I'm purely making this up, although Griffin said that it was in the,

00:09:03.440 his movie, I guess, The Apprentice, that there was a scene that he was talking about this. 0.99

00:09:07.760 Is it possible that in, in Trump's pre-meeting, he tells everybody, listen, if you fuck up, 1.00

00:09:12.520 just double down, like, don't ever, like the media will kill you. Don't ever apologize. Just 0.99

00:09:18.240 fucking lie, lie, lie and stay through it and just believe your story and you'll get through it and 1.00

00:09:23.480 I'll back you up, but no need to, you know, admit that. And then on, on, on, on that too, I mean, 1.00

00:09:29.180 I saw, what's her name? Uh, Tommy Lauren had come out who's, uh, she's a right wing or Republican

00:09:35.480 pundit had come out and said, listen, guys, just take the fucking L on this. This is easy. 0.98

00:09:41.820 Just take the L. Like, what, why couldn't they do that? Like, what's, why was that such an easy 1.00

00:09:47.000 opportunity? And we watched them on the other side ask for the same thing. Why is that so hard

00:09:52.780 to, to have just one area where you could fuck up and just say, okay, we, we, it wasn't confidential. 0.98

00:10:00.040 Again, you keep your lie, but why is it, right? Why couldn't they, is it just, I mean, I don't 0.99

00:10:05.260 think these people all lack integrity. There must be something. No, no, you can be sure they do. I

00:10:10.020 mean, that that's what he's selected for. I mean, no one passes through that, Steve, with integrity.

00:10:16.400 It's, uh, well, I mean, it's a famous piece of advice that's, that has been talked about. I'm sure,

00:10:22.100 I'm sure it is in actually some of Trump's, uh, fake autobiographies that he didn't write,

00:10:28.940 where, that where Roy Cohn gave him the advice that you do never admit a mistake, right? I mean,

00:10:34.780 that's, that's the, the, the, the, and you just, you just lie, uh, and change the subject and move

00:10:40.560 on, but you never apologize. You never admit, admit that you were wrong about anything, even when it's

00:10:45.660 obvious to everybody. And it's part of, you know, the, uh, a generic, you know, authoritarian or,

00:10:52.060 or fascist playbook. I mean, paradoxically, the harder the lies are to believe, I mean,

00:10:58.920 really the impossible lie functions even better in this kind of environment because it, it functions

00:11:06.640 like a loyal loyalty test, right? Like this, this is a, this is code for being in the cult.

00:11:11.940 And what it does is it nullifies everybody's efforts to even understand what is going on in

00:11:22.140 the world. I mean, this is the, you know, Steve Bannon's point of, you know, flooding the zone with,

00:11:25.720 with bullshit. It was, uh, uh, Hannah Arendt's point in, in the origins of totalitarianism that, 0.97

00:11:31.520 that, that, that, you know, a sufficient amount of lying is not, it's, it's not, it's not designed

00:11:37.980 to get people to believe false, these falsehoods. It's designed to get people to believe nothing,

00:11:45.180 right? It's to get, is to get them to declare epistemological bankruptcy. So they just, they just

00:11:51.040 realize, okay, who knows what's going on in the world. It's not my job to know what's going on

00:11:55.920 in the world. I'm just going to be obedient to keep my head down. I'm just going to put a, you know,

00:12:00.420 sign in the window, you're claiming to believe the big lie so that no, no one, uh, you know,

00:12:07.180 drags me out of my shop and beats me to death on the sidewalk, right? I mean, like that, that's where

00:12:11.660 this heads when there are no checks on it, right? That's, this is the, the history of fascism. And

00:12:19.880 there's no question that Trump is an authoritarian. He's, he, every, his every inclination is to

00:12:25.920 govern as an authoritarian. And his line is, is a principal part of that. I mean, he just lies about

00:12:31.840 everything. And he lies in ways that are clearly not meant to successfully deceive anyone. I mean,

00:12:39.420 it's crucial to realize the difference, right? You know, when Lance Armstrong is lying about doping,

00:12:44.600 you know, in the, in the Tour de France, he is really trying not to get caught, right? He is,

00:12:50.140 he is just kind of doing the cognitive math, trying to remember what he said last time.

00:12:54.920 You know, he's, he's applying pressure to people covertly. He's trying to keep secret,

00:13:00.760 whatever he can keep secret, right? He's having conversations behind closed doors.

00:13:04.240 He is trying to get away with it, right? And to be believed. And then finally he, it all kind of

00:13:12.880 smashes into a, an obstacle that he can't navigate, right? Which is the fate of many frauds and many

00:13:18.840 liars. That is not what Trump is doing. And that is, that is not what Trump has done for decades now.

00:13:26.120 He lies in ways that are totally transparent, right? He'll tell you a building he built is 10 stories

00:13:32.600 taller than, than it is in fact, right? And all you have to do is stand outside and count the floors.

00:13:38.280 It's all bullshit, right? And it's, this is a fascist style. I mean, it doesn't matter when you're a 1.00

00:13:44.660 fucking game show host, but when you bring it into a government, this is what, this is why people are 0.99

00:13:50.320 worried about fascism, right? Because this is the, the fact that you can have half of a society 0.99

00:13:55.120 claiming to believe the unbelievable is terrifying.

00:14:01.800 I mean, this is so upside down. The, the, the, the, the right wing has been complaining about George

00:14:07.600 Soros funding things, right? That are, that are of interest to people on the far left.

00:14:13.760 Now that, that seemed worth complaining about, but now look at what Elon is doing.

00:14:18.180 Who's complaining about that? And what Elon is doing is so much more intrusive, so much more corrupt,

00:14:24.160 so much more a matter of self-dealing. I mean, he's getting regulators fired who are regulating

00:14:29.440 his companies, right? I mean, it's, it's, he's, it's not even on the same part of the map as what

00:14:36.700 George Soros has been accused of. And I'm not even sure that all the accusations level that Soros are

00:14:41.560 true, but assuming they are true, it's nothing like what Elon is involved in.

00:14:46.500 And you think there's no way to steal man Elon for at least his intentions at all at this point?

00:14:51.400 Not at this point, because I know what he does when you point out his obvious errors, right?

00:14:57.240 Errors that are really harming people's lives. He does nothing about it, right? He doesn't apologize.

00:15:02.680 He doesn't correct them. He just tells you to go fuck yourself and he moves on. 1.00

00:15:05.960 If we ever have, you know, a full eruption of anti-Semitic intolerance in America or, or Western Europe again, 0.99

00:15:15.520 if we really descend into something awful, much of the responsibility will be on Elon at this point,

00:15:23.040 because of what he's done on X, because how he's turned X into a platform for the world's anti-Semites.

00:15:29.660 And it's not just anti-Semitism, it's white supremacy, it's, it's fascism, it's, you know, 0.87

00:15:34.180 every species of bigotry and awfulness. He has made it the preeminent platform for all of that, 0.86

00:15:41.760 not just the sentiment, but the conspiracy thinking and the lying and the distortion of reality

00:15:46.980 that turbocharges all of it. And not only has he done that as a matter of, you know,

00:15:52.400 tuning the algorithm and bringing the worst actors back on with great fanfare, you know,

00:15:58.100 bringing Nick Fuentes back on and Alex Jones and, but he's done it in, in the way he's personally

00:16:04.540 interacted with these accounts and passed on misinformation, right? You know, personally

00:16:10.020 to two, over 200 million followers. And when anything, any of this gets pointed out to him,

00:16:14.940 he does not care. Right. And so that's, it's in that context that, you know, you have to see

00:16:19.620 his, you know, Hitler salutes that are, no one thinks are Hitler salutes. Right. And I don't even

00:16:24.020 think they're Hitler salutes. Right. I mean, it's like, it's, it's, it's crazy to think that he

00:16:27.680 really was invoking that reference when he said, when he, you know, when he zig heiled twice, 0.92

00:16:34.120 but the guy is always, if only by accident, promoting Nazis and far right lunatics and 0.99

00:16:42.560 conspiracists and liars, right? He's not accidentally amplifying trans activists and far left conspiracists 0.99

00:16:49.480 and liars. So to ascribe it to error seems pretty far fetched. I mean, the error he's never making is 0.89

00:16:55.760 to criticize the Chinese communist party, right? If he, if he, if he's just a bull in a China shop 0.73

00:17:01.500 making mistakes everywhere, well, then he would make errors of that kind. He never makes those

00:17:05.920 errors, right? He's only amplifying right-wing intolerance and it's completely irresponsible.

00:17:12.300 It's unforgivable at this point. And yeah, so, you know, what, what could people do in response?

00:17:19.300 I mean, you know, the, the vandalism and violence directed at Tesla is obviously the wrong thing

00:17:25.160 to be doing. I mean, one, it's illegal to, it victimizes innocent people who just bought a Tesla

00:17:30.920 because they thought it was a great car and, and it is a great car, right? It's like, as they just

00:17:35.000 think of, think of someone who stretched to buy a, you know, a nice car and love the car until

00:17:41.940 yesterday. And now people are hurling abuse at them or, you know, key in their car or worse, right?

00:17:48.500 It's awful. I like it just, that's a, you know, and whoever's doing that, I mean, these are almost

00:17:53.100 certainly far left dummies. It's totally counterproductive, but what, what is, would not

00:17:59.060 be counterproductive is a full-on boycott of Tesla, right? That would be, you know, insofar as that's

00:18:05.200 happening, I think that's a entirely good thing. It sounds like it's happening in Western Europe.

00:18:09.660 I would love to see Tesla stock get beaten down to a plausible, you know, price to earnings ratio,

00:18:16.260 which is one-tenth of its, of its current value. Because I think that's, you know, I think that

00:18:20.820 would be a totally appropriate ethical response to what Elon is doing in the world, right? I mean,

00:18:27.540 and it seems to be the only signal that could conceivably matter to him or anyone close to him,

00:18:33.400 right? I mean, if you're going to imagine what it would take to rein him in, you know, to have his

00:18:37.700 board of directors, one of his board of directors rein him in, it would only be something like that.

00:18:42.540 And I'm not even sure he would care at this point. He's got obviously many other irons

00:18:46.220 in the fire beyond Tesla, right? He's got SpaceX, he's got other, you know, he'll be spectacularly

00:18:51.400 wealthy even if Tesla goes to zero. But it's still, it would, it's the only lawful mechanism

00:18:58.620 we have to resist his obviously unethical and I think probably unlawful behavior at this point.

00:19:07.340 Well, I want to talk about somebody who's responsible for that in large part and somebody

00:19:12.420 who may have gotten Trump elected and somebody who I actually believe that you do believe has

00:19:18.740 good intentions and is doing well and means well. And I wonder, I know that your friendship and I'll

00:19:26.100 tell you what it is in a second, but one of the things we're thinking about is, would you ever

00:19:30.440 have Rogan on your podcast? Yeah, I mean, you know, it hasn't occurred to me, frankly. It would be a hard

00:19:38.220 conversation. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at

00:19:45.620 samharris.org. Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense

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00:19:56.120 afford a subscription, please request a free account on the website. The Making Sense podcast

00:20:01.160 is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support. And you can subscribe now at samharris.org.

Making Sense - Sam Harris - April 04, 2025

#405 — ＂More From Sam＂： Tariffs, SignalGate, Trump, Elon, Douglas Murray, & Joe Rogan

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