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

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the lack of outrage from gun culture, the escalating humanitarian crisis in Iran, Melania Trump's pay-to-play documentary deal, the societal implications of AI-driven job displacement, the fascistic social media imagery of the Trump administration, Sam's youthful misadventures with psychedelics in Muir Woods, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and we'll only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. We don't run ads on the podcast,

and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. Okay, we're back with another episode of more from Sam. Hi, Sam. Hey, how you doing? Good to see you too. Before we begin, I just want to quickly run through yet again your upcoming shows. L.A. was amazing, by the way. Yeah, that was a good crowd.

Yeah, it was a great one. Again, for the audience, Sam will be giving a talk in a number of cities in North America this year. Next week, we are in Dallas and Austin, and March, we're in Portland and Vancouver, and then May, we're in Toronto, D.C., and wrapping up things again in New York. If you'd like tickets, you can find all the information at samharis.org. And, Also, I just had to announce that yesterday, the waking up app was named App of the Day in the Apple store. Oh, yeah, that's great. Yeah, like all overnight sensations. It only took us seven years.

Yeah. Yeah, in the making. Yeah, I don't know what took so long, but that was, hopefully that's helpful. Graphically, it looks great. It looks amazing. I think they did a great job. The app is bigger than ever, and I can only imagine it's at least due in part to many of the things we discuss here on the podcast. So if you're listening right now and been meaning to try it out, you can find waking up in the app store.

but now with a big shiny Apple endorsement. All right, last week we began in Minneapolis, and this week we're unfortunately back in Minneapolis again with another utterly depressed and killing this time of Alex Preti, again by what appears to be very poorly trained ICE officers. What's happened there? Oh, yeah, beyond. I don't even know. I mean, this is poorly trained, poorly vetted.

I mean, this is just people who are not behaving like law enforcement officers that are recognizable. The most amazing thing about this killing, apart from how pointless and horrible it was, is the response or a lack of response from the gun owners of America. I mean, there's been a few tepid complaints from gun organizations, but we would be in a completely different world if this had happened under Biden or a Kamala Harris presidency. I'm as astonished by this lack of outrage as by anything that's happened in this last year or so, because this, more than anything that has happened in my lifetime is a complete repudiation of the Second Amendment. We have millions of Americans who have been telling us for their entire adult lives that the Second Amendment is basically the central precept of their civic religion.

And, you know, unlike some gun owners like myself, the real reason to care about it and to own firearms is on the account of these people, not for home defense, but for the the remote chance that we're going to find ourselves in the presence of a federal government that is acting tyrannically, they've been preparing for this moment their entire lives, or so they've said, and where the hell are they? Right. I think if that predi killing had happened under Kamala Harris, the next ICE deployment or the next border patrol, even more relevantly in this case, because they're the ones who killed them, would be shadowed by 500 guys with AR-15s. Right. I mean, it's just, it's unimaginable to me that they're having this lack of response because what we saw from the president and vice president to Christy Knoem to Cash Patel to Stephen Miller,

the odious Stephen Miller, we had a full court press in one direction denying the reality of the Second Amendment. I mean, just simply saying that if you're carrying firearms in any kind of proximity to federal law enforcement, that is very likely a death sentence and should be. Right. I mean, it's just, add to that the fact that they called him a terrorist and an assassin who's clearly bent on massacre and just automatically lied in, once again, in impossible ways, because we all saw the footage. He never reached for his gun. He was fully disarmed, restrained, and then they, they shot him, they put 10 rounds in his body and killed him for no apparent reason. Where is gun culture on this? It's completely insane. I'm just, I mean, again, I'm as mystified by this as

anything I've seen so far. I want to discuss a different reaction online that I saw. I want you to watch a bit of this clip, and then I'll share Megan Kelly's takeaway, and then I want to get your reaction to all of this. Can we play that clip, please? This is a moment the news movement filmed on January 13th in Minneapolis, showing a man who appears to be Alex Pretti interacting with federal immigration agents 11 days before Border Patrol shot and killed him.

Our footage was analyzed by the BBC, whose facial recognition technology confirmed his identity to a 97% degree of accuracy. Okay, so here's what she said. Alex Preddy was itching for another confrontation with Border Patrol, whom he'd been stalking, harassing, and terrorizing. He had been victimizing them. His felonies are on tape. He was reckless, and it cost him his life.

Find another poster boy, illegal, loving leftists. So why can't she be mostly right, but entirely wrong? It doesn't matter what happened 11 days before. It doesn't matter who he is. I mean, honestly, he could have been something. kind of hardened criminal that they knew they were apprehending for cause, right? And they find a gun on his belt. They disarm him. That's it. They don't kill him. Once he is restrained, and he, again, he never reached for his gun. They found it on his belt when they were wrestling with him.

And I mean, that engagement, you know, the fact that they went hands on at that point seemed totally illegitimate. But let's just say it was fine, right? Let's just say they had reason to force him to the ground, pepper spray him, et cetera. Again, the video doesn't suggest that, but even if you're going to price all of that in and give them the benefit of the doubt, what then happened is they discovered a gun on his belt. You see one cop, grab it and walk away, and then you see him shot by, I don't know how many guys, I think it was at least two, for no reason. There's nothing about this video that changes that picture. Well, I'm saying, but even if he did those things in real time, which is what you're saying, and you get the

cop car and he grabbed the cop, all of those things. So what I'm saying is that even if he did all those things in the video and he did it in real time to the cops, Megan Kelly can be right about saying you don't behave this way. There are better ways to protest. You can do all those things. But I guess I'm just utterly shocked that the conclusion would be the cost of any of this would be losing your life. Yeah. Well, the thing I'm focusing on here, though, the thing that truly astounds me is that yes, all of this is true. This is not the way you want to behave as a protester. I have no idea who this guy was. I mean, obviously he was immediately vilified by the federal government at every level, which is insane, right? We shouldn't have a government that does that. But even if he was the

worst person on earth, the way he was killed, the fact that he was killed, and the subsequent statements about that killing are shocking, right? And they're especially shocking for how completely they repudiate the Second Amendment. I mean, that's the thing that I just cannot get my head around, that half of America that cares so deeply about gun rights or whatever it is. Let's say it's 25% of America that really cares deeply. Let's just say it's 10 million people for whom it's their single issue. Where the hell are they? Yeah.

Well, I'm sure we'll continue to talk about this on future episodes, unfortunately. But we've got to move on to another topic. Iran. It seems that last time we said it was 12 to 15,000 people who had maybe been killed. Now that number looks to be closer or over 30,000. Anything new to add to this? Yeah, well, I don't know how reliable these numbers are, but, you know, obviously Trump's demand that they not kill their protesters went unheard.

And perhaps we're getting ready to respond to that atrocity. You know, I've heard some news that we're moving, you know, necessary equipment into the region. So there remains to be seeing what's going to happen there. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we respond. And again, I do think it's sad we didn't do it earlier. but I do think we should give whatever help we can give to toppling this regime and rolling the dice with whatever is the aftermath. Again, this is kind of up to the Iranian people to figure out what the aftermath will be, and I don't know what to hope for there. But preserving this regime as it is

seems to be in no sane person's interest. Well, we don't need to spend too much time on this next topic, but Candace Owens was apparently confused this week when she tweeted, back online after internet blackout, I grew up in Connecticut and have truly never seen an ice like this ever. The temperature is 30 degrees, but the ice on our treetops is not melting at all. Never seen anything like this. Anybody else? 30 degrees? 30 degrees and the ice is not melting.

That's what you're dealing with there. She never understood much about climate. I remember going around around climate change, and there's a famous clip where she was on Joe Pogan's podcast many years ago, pretending to be a climatologist. So for that week, I guess the weather is also mystifying. Yeah, well, while we're on the topic of climate concerns, is there anything you want to update here? I feel like there are so many things to worry about these days that existential climate risk has fallen out of the top 10. Oh, yeah, nobody's got time to worry about that. It's just, it's too slow moving and it's too hypothetical. You know, it would be great if we lived

in a world where we could look at things that subtle, but we're, We're, you know, we've got, it's like the house is on fire and worrying about the climate is, I can't even imagine the climatologists have got all their bad with for the climate these days. We can't worry about emergency six months away. Forget about anything beyond that. I do want to add some good news here. I saw that we've had over 150 hurricanes on record make landfall in the Gulf of Mexico through 2024 since they've been keeping track.

But last year, after Trump changed the name to Gulf of America, ask me how many hurricanes we've had since then. Yeah, how many have we had? None. Let's give credit what credit do. Got to celebrate those victories. He and his sharpie. I mean, if push comes to shove, he can just draw a different path to the hurricane and save many, many lives that way. Well, and while we're on

funny things, I saw a clip this morning of Nikki Minaj walking out on stage with President Trump at some event. I don't know if you saw it. No, really? Yeah, we got to, let's play a bit of that clip for a few seconds. I am probably the president's number one fan.

And that's not going to change. It reminded me of something. And many are claiming that you might be the next great prognosticator right up there with Alex Jones because I want to play this clip of you from 2016 on Robbins podcast. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense podcast. The Making Sense podcast is ad-free and relies entire. on listener support, and you can subscribe now at samharis.org.