Making Sense - Sam Harris - #455 — More From Sam： Guns, Propaganda, AI, and Power Unbound

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

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00:00:26.240 it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're

00:00:30.200 doing here, please consider becoming one. Okay, we're back with another episode of More

00:00:38.900 from Sam. Hi, Sam. Hey. How you doing? Good to see you. Good to see you too. Before we begin,

00:00:43.600 I just want to quickly run through yet again your upcoming shows. LA was amazing, by the way.

00:00:48.920 Yeah, that was a good crowd. Yeah, it was a great one. Again, for the audience, Sam will be giving

00:00:53.800 a talk in a number of cities in North America this year. Next week, we are in Dallas and Austin,

00:00:59.180 and March, we're in Portland and Vancouver, and then May, we're in Toronto, D.C., and wrapping up

00:01:04.880 things again in New York. If you'd like tickets, you can find all the information at samharris.org.

00:01:10.060 And also, I just have to announce that yesterday, the Waking Up app was named App of the Day in the

00:01:14.940 Apple Store. Oh, yeah. That's great. Yeah, like all overnight sensations. It only took us seven years.

00:01:19.580 Yeah. Yeah. In the making. Yeah, I don't know what took so long, but that was

00:01:23.140 hopefully that's helpful. Graphically, it looks great. It looks amazing. I think they did a great

00:01:28.280 job. The app is bigger than ever, and I can only imagine it's at least due in part to many of the

00:01:32.840 things we discuss here on the podcast. So, if you're listening right now and been meaning to

00:01:36.940 try it out, you can find Waking Up in the App Store, but now with a big, shiny Apple endorsement.

00:01:42.440 All right. Last week, we began in Minneapolis, and this week, we're unfortunately back in Minneapolis

00:01:46.880 again with another utterly depressing killing, this time of Alex Preddy, again by what appears to be

00:01:51.860 very poorly trained ICE officers. What's happened there? Oh, yeah, beyond. I don't even know. I

00:01:57.880 mean, this is poorly trained, poorly vetted. I mean, this is just people who are not behaving like law

00:02:03.460 enforcement officers that are recognizable. The most amazing thing about this killing, apart from

00:02:09.140 how pointless and horrible it was, is the response or lack of response from the gun owners of America.

00:02:19.320 I mean, there's been a few tepid complaints from gun organizations, but we would be in a completely

00:02:25.540 different world if this had happened under Biden or, you know, a Kamala Harris presidency. I'm as

00:02:31.680 astonished by this lack of outrage as by anything that's happened in this last year or so, because

00:02:38.700 this, more than anything that has happened in my lifetime, is a complete repudiation of the Second

00:02:45.460 Amendment. We have millions of Americans who have been telling us for their entire adult lives that

00:02:51.540 the Second Amendment is basically the central precept of their civic religion. And, you know,

00:02:58.180 unlike some gun owners like myself, the real reason to care about it and to own firearms is on the

00:03:04.920 account of these people, not for home defense, but for the remote chance that we're going to find

00:03:10.300 ourselves in the presence of a federal government that is acting tyrannically, they've been preparing

00:03:15.300 for this moment their entire lives, or so they've said, and where the hell are they, right? I think if

00:03:22.220 that pretty killing had happened under Kamala Harris, the next ICE deployment or the next Border 0.98

00:03:28.380 Patrol, even more relevantly in this case, because they're the ones who killed them, would be shadowed by

00:03:33.480 500 guys with AR-15s, right? I mean, it's just, it's unimaginable to me that they're having this

00:03:39.740 lack of response, because what we saw from the president and vice president to Kristi Noem to

00:03:45.480 Kash Patel to Stephen Miller, the odious Stephen Miller, we had a full court press in one direction

00:03:53.260 denying the reality of the Second Amendment. I mean, just simply saying that if you're carrying firearms

00:04:00.200 in any kind of proximity to federal law enforcement, that is very likely a death sentence and should

00:04:05.840 be, right? I mean, it's just, add to that the fact that they called him a terrorist and an assassin

00:04:10.040 who's clearly bent on massacre and just automatically lied in, once again, in impossible ways, because we

00:04:16.480 all saw the footage. He never reached for his gun. He was fully disarmed, restrained, and then they

00:04:21.880 shot him. They put 10 rounds in his body and killed him for no apparent reason. Where is gun culture on

00:04:27.920 this? It's completely insane. I'm just, I mean, again, I'm as mystified by this as anything I've seen so

00:04:33.900 far. I want to discuss a different reaction online that I saw. I want you to watch a bit of this clip, and then

00:04:39.100 I'll share Megyn Kelly's takeaway, and then I want to get your reaction to all of this. Can we play that

00:04:43.720 clip, please? This is a moment the news movement filmed on January 13th in Minneapolis, showing a man who

00:04:49.560 appears to be Alex Preddy interacting with federal immigration agents 11 days before Border Patrol shot and

00:04:56.120 killed him. Our footage was analyzed by the BBC, whose facial recognition technology confirmed his

00:05:02.720 identity to a 97% degree of accuracy. Okay, so here's what she said. Alex Preddy was itching for

00:05:09.280 another confrontation with Border Patrol, whom he'd been stalking, harassing, and terrorizing. He had been

00:05:14.040 victimizing them. His felonies are on tape, he was reckless, and it cost him his life. Find another

00:05:19.680 poster boy, illegal, loving leftist. So why can't she be mostly right but entirely wrong? It doesn't

00:05:26.140 matter what happened 11 days before. It doesn't matter who he is. I mean, honestly, he could have

00:05:31.060 been some kind of hardened criminal that they knew they were apprehending for cause, right? And they

00:05:38.480 find a gun on his belt, they disarm him, that's it. They don't kill him. Once he is restrained,

00:05:46.740 and he, again, he never reached for his gun. They found it on his belt when they were wrestling with

00:05:52.520 him, and I mean, that engagement, you know, the fact that they went hands-on at that point seemed

00:05:56.800 totally illegitimate, but let's just say it was fine, right? Let's just say they had reason to force

00:06:02.000 him to the ground, pepper spray him, etc. Again, the video doesn't suggest that, but even if you're

00:06:06.320 going to price all of that in and give them the benefit of the doubt, what then happened is they

00:06:10.400 discovered a gun on his belt. You see one cop grab it and walk away, and then you see him shot by I

00:06:18.540 don't know how many guys, I think it was at least two, for no reason. There's nothing about this video

00:06:24.720 that changes that picture. Well, I'm saying that even if he did those things in real time, which is

00:06:30.060 what you're saying, and he kicked the cop car and he grabbed the cop, all of those things. So what I'm

00:06:34.460 saying is that even if he did all those things in the video and he did it in real time to the cops,

00:06:39.340 Megyn Kelly can be right about saying, you don't behave this way, there are better ways to protest,

00:06:44.460 you can do all those things. But I guess I'm just utterly shocked that the conclusion would be

00:06:49.540 the cost of any of this would be losing your life. Yeah. Well, the thing I'm focusing on here,

00:06:54.520 though, the thing that truly astounds me is that, yes, all of this is true. This is not the way you

00:06:59.240 want to behave as a protester. I have no idea who this guy was. I mean, obviously, he was immediately

00:07:04.720 vilified by the federal government at every level, which is insane, right? We shouldn't have a

00:07:09.820 government that does that. But even if he was the worst person on earth, the way he was killed,

00:07:15.020 the fact that he was killed, and the subsequent statements about that killing are shocking,

00:07:20.280 right? And they're especially shocking for how completely they repudiate the Second Amendment.

00:07:26.740 I mean, that's the thing that I just cannot get my head around, that half of America that cares so

00:07:31.780 deeply about gun rights, or whatever it is. Let's just say it's 25% of America that really

00:07:37.420 cares deeply. Let's just say it's 10 million people for whom it's their single issue. Where

00:07:42.520 the hell are they? Yeah. Well, I'm sure we'll continue to talk about this on future episodes,

00:07:48.160 unfortunately. But we got to move on to another topic. Iran. It seems that last time we said it

00:07:53.180 was 12,000 to 15,000 people who had maybe been killed. Now that number looks to be closer or over

00:07:58.080 30,000. Anything new to add to this? Yeah, well, I don't know how reliable these numbers are, but

00:08:02.980 obviously Trump's demand that they not kill their protesters went unheard. And perhaps we're getting

00:08:09.600 ready to respond to that atrocity. I've heard some news that we're moving necessary equipment into the

00:08:19.080 region. So it remains to be seen what's going to happen there. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if

00:08:23.440 we respond. And again, I do think it's sad we didn't do it earlier, but I do think we should

00:08:29.120 give whatever help we can give to toppling this regime and rolling the dice with whatever is the

00:08:35.040 aftermath. Again, this is kind of up to the Iranian people to figure out what the aftermath will be.

00:08:39.560 And I don't know what to hope for there. But, you know, preserving this regime as it is,

00:08:44.380 seems to be in no sane person's interest. So. Well, we don't need to spend too much time on this next

00:08:50.080 topic, but Candace Owens was apparently confused this week when she tweeted back online after

00:08:54.740 internet blackout. I grew up in Connecticut and have truly never seen an ice like this ever. The

00:08:59.760 temperature is 30 degrees, but the ice on our treetops is not melting at all. Never seen anything

00:09:04.980 like this. Anybody else? So. 30 degrees? 30 degrees and the ice is not melting.

00:09:12.520 All right, Candace. That's what you're dealing with there.

00:09:15.460 She never understood much about climate. I remember going round around with her around

00:09:20.800 climate change. And there's a famous clip where she was on Joe Rogan's podcast many years ago,

00:09:27.300 pretending to be a climatologist. So. For that week.

00:09:30.160 I guess the weather is also mystifying. Yeah. Well, while we're on the topic of climate

00:09:34.200 concerns, is there anything you want to update here? I feel like there are so many things to

00:09:38.780 worry about these days that existential climate risk has fallen out of the top 10.

00:09:42.480 Oh yeah. Nobody, nobody's got time to worry about that. It's just, it's too slow moving and it's,

00:09:47.820 um, it's too hypothetical. You know, it would be great if we lived in a world where we could look

00:09:53.680 at things that subtle, but we're, you know, we're, we've got, uh, it's like the house is on fire and

00:09:59.560 worrying about the climate is, I can't even imagine the climatologists have got all the, all their

00:10:05.920 bandwidth for the climate these days. We can't worry about emergency six months away. Forget about

00:10:10.820 anything beyond that. I do want to add some good news here. I saw that we've had over 150 hurricanes

00:10:15.560 on record, make landfall in the Gulf of Mexico through 2024 since they've been keeping track.

00:10:19.760 But last year, after Trump changed the name to Gulf of America, ask me how many hurricanes we've had

00:10:25.280 since then. Yeah. How many have we had? Exactly. None. Let's give credit where credit is due. Got

00:10:29.980 to celebrate those victories. Me and his sharpie. I mean, if push comes to shove, he can just draw a

00:10:34.200 different path to the hurricane and, and save many, many lives that way. Well, and while we're on, uh,

00:10:39.480 funny things, I saw a clip this morning of Nicki Minaj walking out on stage with President Trump

00:10:44.240 at some event. I don't know if you saw it. No, really? Yeah. We got to, let's play a bit of that

00:10:48.380 clip for a few seconds. I am probably the president's number one fan.

00:10:58.940 And that's not going to change. It reminded me of something. And many, many are claiming that you

00:11:05.540 might be the next great prognosticator right up there with Alex Jones, because I want to play this

00:11:11.080 clip of you from 2016 on Rogan's podcast. Let's see. If you'd like to continue listening to this

00:11:16.280 conversation, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. Once you do, you'll get access to

00:11:22.040 all full length episodes of the Making Sense podcast. The Making Sense podcast is ad free and

00:11:27.560 relies entirely on listener support. And you can subscribe now at samharris.org.

00:11:35.540 And you can subscribe to our channel. And you can subscribe to our channel. And we'll see you next time.

00:11:38.540 Bye.

00:11:39.540 Bye.

00:11:40.540 Bye.

Making Sense - Sam Harris - January 30, 2026

#455 — More From Sam： Guns, Propaganda, AI, and Power Unbound

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