Sam Harris is one of the most acclaimed and widely recognised public intellectuals of his generation.
Alongside Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett, he was labelled one of the ‘Four Horsemen’ of New Atheism, a position he secured off the back of his divisive bestseller The End Of Faith (2004).
Since then, he has published several acclaimed works exploring rationality, free will, radical honesty, determinism, neuroscience, politics, terrorism, and the philosophy of mind. Sam has also debated many of the most influential thought leaders of the 21st century, from Jordan Peterson to William Lane Craig, and from Deepak Chopra to Reza Aslan.
For several years, he was aligned with the ‘intellectual dark web’ - a loosely connected group of iconoclasts, united in their opposition to political correctness and identity politics. Today, he hosts Making Sense, a highly popular podcast covering science, politics, and current events.
Why did we invite him on?
We’ve hosted Sam thrice before. The first time proved to be a hinge moment in our show and Sam’s public image, as he declared that “Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement - [he] would not have cared.” The clip went viral, creating schisms in the discourse.
More recently, in 2023, he joined us and Eric Weinstein for an open, no-holds-barred conversation in the aftermath of October 7th, and in 2025, he came on alone to reflect on the happenings of Israel-Gaza and its relation to the Trump presidency.
Even just a year on, much has changed again. We sit down with Sam days after the midterms, and we’re curious. His loathing of Trump is no secret; what does he make of his ungracious defeat? Given his ardent support for Israel against the increasing pressure of regular Americans, what does he see in, and hope for, that alliance’s future?
What did we talk about?
In the days following the midterm elections, the American right is caught in a reckoning, as it’s clear that a large sector of Trump voters are changing their tune on the man and his movement. The signal is so great that the only way Republicans could miss it is by doing it deliberately. The overwhelming likelihood is that MAGA, at least in Trump’s image, is over for good.
Sam has been one of the President’s most vicious critics for over a decade. He must be thrilled.
”I have mixed feelings. I’m glad Trump fans are starting to react to all this, but what took them so long? This has been obvious for a decade. All he wants is money and fame, and we’ve known that long before he ever decided to run for President. His political aspirations were always completely self-promoting. He’s a game show host who successfully marketed himself as a businessman, and then as a politician. His obliviousness, his nastiness, his shamelessness, his total lack of a moral centre, has led us here.”
And where is here? To Sam, it’s an America that bears little-to-no relation to the country once so admired the world over. Its role on the globe has been changed so drastically, its relationships so totally overhauled, that its historic connections have been frayed, perhaps permanently. To Trump’s admirers, his scorched earth approach is one of his boldest, most entertaining traits. Unfortunately, America suffers it as much as anyone.
”He vilifies our allies and lionises our genuine enemies. There needs to be a reckoning; we need a reset of America’s role in the world, hopefully with a sane administration. But we’re certainly not out of the woods - he still has two years to go. Who knows what he’ll do in his lame duck phase. He’ll certainly never admit that’s what he is. There’ll be more friction now, but he can still do a tremendous amount of harm.”
Sam does at least have one, perhaps mild, compliment for the commander in chief.
