#454 — More From Sam: Minnesota, Greenland, Iran, S**thole Countries, and More

Summary

Podcast Summary: Making Sense with Sam Harris

Episode #454 — More From Sam: Minnesota, Greenland, Iran, Sthole Countries, and More**
Release Date: January 21, 2026
Host: Sam Harris

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Episode Overview

In this "More From Sam" installment, Sam Harris and his co-host delve into a sweeping range of urgent and contentious current events. This episode’s central theme is the breakdown of political, ethical, and institutional norms in the United States under the Trump regime—touching on ICE’s increasingly aggressive tactics in Minnesota, broader immigration clampdowns, the administration’s erratic overtures toward Greenland, and the global ramifications of these actions for NATO and America’s standing. Harris explores the psychology and consequences behind these developments, urging listeners to remain vigilant and engaged in protest.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. ICE Actions and the Killing of Renee Goode

• The Situation:
  • Harris sharply criticizes the conduct of ICE agents in Minnesota, labeling their belligerence and violence as "not even normal bad policing" ([02:24]).
  • He recounts the police killing of Renee Goode as totally unjustified and draws attention to the immediate, blatant falsehoods spread by authorities:
    “These weren't even normal lies. They were impossible lies—being told when everyone could see what happened from three different sides.”—Sam Harris [04:41]
• Governmental Response:
  • Harris is appalled by the administration's refusal to admit or apologize for errors, noting a “completely unprofessional contempt being expressed for half of American society” ([05:19]).
  • He compares the current government’s rhetoric and tactics to the rise of fascism:
    “If you saw this happening in any other society, you could safely assume those people were living under a dictatorship... what we're seeing... is fascist style governance. There's just no question about that.”—Sam Harris [05:56]
• Media Coverage:
  • Reference to Damon Linker’s article indicating conditions on the ground are even worse than portrayed by the media ([06:06]).
• Counterarguments & Protester Tactics:
  • Harris cautions against counterproductive forms of activism that alienate potential supporters (referring to BLM protests where activists confronted bystanders in cafes) ([11:29]).

2. Political Implications & Public Response

• Impact on Elections:
  • Harris asserts that Trump’s current actions are “all quite unpopular” and could damage him in midterm elections ([10:27]).
• How to Respond:
  • Harris strongly supports continued protest—but “try to do that as safely as possible.” He derides escalating confrontational protest as alienating and counterproductive ([11:29]).

3. Immigration Crackdown & Visa Policies

• Visa Reform:
  • Discussion shifts to the State Department's new policy halting visas from 75 countries deemed likely to create “public charge” applicants ([12:41]).
  • Harris acknowledges a nation should control borders and admit people beneficial to society but expresses fundamental distrust of the Trump administration’s motives and execution:
    “We have the kinds of people who will separate families and put kids in cages running our immigration policy.”—Sam Harris [13:39]
• Golden Visas:
  • Brief discussion of “buy-a-visa” programs, which allow wealthy foreigners to purchase entry to the U.S. for a multimillion-dollar fee ([14:15]).

4. The “Greenland Problem” & Erosion of Alliances

• Misguided Policy Moves:
  • Harris deconstructs the administration’s bizarre spat with Denmark and the idea of acquiring Greenland, emphasizing the longstanding alliance and existing U.S. access to the territory ([14:42]): “If I understood [Greenland] I’d be the one person on Earth who does. It makes no sense. We have full access to Greenland... Denmark has been one of our best allies for, I think, 200 years.”—Sam Harris [14:43]
• Risks to NATO:
  • Harris warns that U.S. threats and actions risk “shattering NATO if it isn’t tacitly shattered already.” He suggests U.S. commitments to defend allies like Poland are no longer credible ([15:38]).
• Trump's Motives:
  • The host questions whether worries over China or Russia taking Greenland are legitimate. Harris responds that such scenarios would be a NATO issue—again emphasizing the administration’s incoherence and isolationism ([16:18]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On ICE’s Justifications for Violence:
  “We're talking about people who were upset over the Twitter files... And now we have thousands upon thousands of maniacs in the street, breaking people's windows and hauling them out of their cars and throwing them on the pavement without any probable cause.”—Sam Harris [03:12]

• On Right-Wing Reaction to Federal Overreach:
  “Think of Ruby Ridge—that radicalized the entire far right for a generation. Or Waco... any intrusion of the feds coming into our lives. What the feds are doing now is stopping traffic randomly and hauling people out of cars... It's awful.”—Sam Harris [09:34]

• On Activism Tactics:
  “Whenever these things become oppressive to the rest of the citizenry... it's counterproductive. That was so ridiculous about Black Lives Matter protests, where they would get in people's faces in cafes... That’s just not a way to win hearts and minds.”—Sam Harris [11:29]

• On Immigration Policy:
  “We obviously don't want jihadists or Islamists or lunatics... I would say we don’t want Communists, we don’t want Nazis... And that requires we figure out who people are and have some orderly process... but again, we have the kinds of people who will separate families and put kids in cages running our immigration policy.”—Sam Harris [13:39]

• On the Greenland Controversy:
  “This is something that has emerged from Trump's brain.”—Sam Harris [16:18]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• ICE violence and Renee Goode’s killing: 02:11–06:06
• Comparisons to fascist regimes and governmental lies: 05:19–06:06
• Media coverage and the gap with reality (Damon Linker): 06:06–06:26
• Protest strategies—good and bad activism: 11:06–12:10
• Immigration visa clampdown debate: 12:41–13:39
• Golden visa discussion: 14:12–14:31
• Greenland as an international issue; NATO at risk: 14:42–16:13

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Tone and Attitude

• Harris’s tone throughout is incredulous and deeply concerned, combining analytic clarity with moral outrage. He oscillates between dark humor (“If I understood [the Greenland situation], I’d be the one person on Earth who does”) and grave warnings about fascistic trends. His stance is firmly secular, rational, and norm-defending, repeatedly calling out hypocrisy and encouraging listeners to resist normalization of institutional cruelty.

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This summary covers the core discussions and arguments of Episode 454—capturing Sam Harris's critiques, the episode’s urgent tone, and the relevance of these events to wider issues of democracy, activism, and global security.

Transcript

[Sam Harris]

Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Just a note to say that if.

[Sam Harris]

You'Re hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to [e-mail] 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.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Okay, we're back with another episode of More from Sam. Hi Sam.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Hey. Good to see you.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Good to see you as well. Once again, I just want to quickly remind everyone that you will be giving talks in a number of cities in North America this year. This week we have la, which has sold out.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Congrats.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

That'll be fun. And then coming up, we have Dallas, Austin, Portland, Vancouver, Toronto, D.C. and ending in New York City again. So if you want to see Sam, now is the time to do it. While touring can be a lot of fun, it's also hard work. Not to mention you have to stand up there for nearly two hours straight.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Yeah, yeah, the talk keeps getting longer. I keep trying to cut it back, but events happen.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

So yeah, yeah, I've learned to stop making any suggestions. I keep asking you to cut 15 minutes and then you add 15 minutes. So I'm just going to be quiet. But it's a great show and it's a cool experience to see you deliver it live. And anyone wanting to buy tickets can head over to SamHarris.org now and you can find all the info there. Okay, so many things happening that I don't even know where to begin from. Renee Goode ICE in general, Greenland tariffs on the EU for intervening in Greenland, the potential collapse of NATO. And I haven't even gotten to Iran and Venezuela and Maduro might as well have happened a year ago. And it seems like that was just.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Like two weeks ago. I mean, it's been an incredible two weeks. Yeah.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Well, it seems like the Epstein files have successfully fallen out of the news again. And do we even have time to cover the latest round of Anti Semitism? Plus, I want to get your take on prediction markets and gambling apps, the latest on AI, and discuss Ben Shapiro's appearance on Gavin Newsom's podcast and anything you hope to discuss with Ben when he's on your podcast next month and more. Let's see how much of this we can get to today. So which emergency would you like to start with how about ICE and Renee?

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Good. Yeah, I guess we could. I did speak about that on Scott Calloway's podcast at some length, so some people have seen that, I think. But, yeah, I'm happy to cover that.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Yeah. Just why don't you give us a little synopsis of what you said over there and then we can go from there.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Well, I mean, there's so many aspects to it that are regrettable. I mean, there's nothing about this that is normal. The more general problem is that we're getting lulled into a sense of a new normal that is so aberrant, so unacceptable, or it should be so unacceptable to everyone. I mean, this should be just a completely nonpartisan feeling of revulsion that is coming over the country for what we're seeing here. I mean, just the behavior of ice, the fact that you have masked and quite obviously poorly recruited and poorly trained people expressing a totally unprofessional level of belligerence to everyone in sight, right? I mean, this is not normal policing. I mean, it's not even close to even normal bad policing.

[Sam Harris]

Right.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

I mean, so just how anyone has felt that this is defensible, you know, right of center, it just boggles the mind. I mean, we're talking about people who were upset over the Twitter files. Just remember that, right? I mean, that was the level of Orwellian federal government overreach that had them fucking vomiting online, right? I mean, just the calls from Joe Biden when he's not in power, right? He's just got a presidential campaign and he's calling Twitter to have naked photos of his son removed. And he's just asking, right? And this is the thing that gets the Matt Taibbis of the world just round the clock 24:7. It's their entire career to chase this down. And now we have got thousands upon thousands of maniacs in the street breaking people's windows and hauling them out of their cars and throwing them on the pavement without any probable cause. And these can be immigrants. They can be citizens. They're using flashbang grenades on peaceful protesters. They're using people's kids as bargaining chips in negotiations to get people to surface from homes. And, I mean, it's just the footage is awful. But what is even more awful than the violence, the totally unwarranted violence we're seeing, is the government's response to the worst excesses of that violence when people react. So the killing of Renee Goode was, in my view, totally unjustified. We can dissect that a little More if you want. But the most shocking thing was the lies that came from the President and Vice President and Kristi Noemi, everyone on down, immediately. Right. And they were not even normal lies. I mean, they were impossible lies. They were lies being told when everyone could see what happened from three different sides. She's being described as a terrorist who tried to kill ICE agents. There is no way of looking at that footage to justify that claim. That was obvious from the beginning. And no one, I mean, these aren't errors. These aren't normal errors. No one corrects an error. No one apologizes, no one says, oh, yeah, so we had some initial reports. We got that wrong. Obviously. We've got to investigate this. There's a sense of completely unprofessional contempt being expressed for half of American society. I mean, this is the framing of everything, is that we have an enemy within and we are now going to war against that enemy. And the enemy within is basically everyone who didn't vote for Trump and who isn't going to ratify his excesses at every turn. I mean, this is. If you saw this happening in any other society, you could safely assume that those people were living under a dictatorship. This is not hyperbole. I mean, I'm not saying we live under a dictatorship fully achieved at this point, but what we're seeing in the streets of Minneapolis and what we're seeing communicated from the Oval Office on down is fascist style governance. There's just no question about that.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Yeah. And according to Damon Linker's article, the substack piece, which the main point was that whatever you think you're seeing in the media, it's worse. I mean, it seems like every quote said something to the effect of the media is just not conveying to you just how awful this is. And so whatever you just said and whatever you think we know, it's worse on the ground, apparently.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Yeah, it was hard to know what to do about it. I mean, obviously, I think people need to keep protesting. They should try to do that as safely as possible. So let's take the other side of this. Let's just bend over backwards to be charitable to ICE and the Trump regime. There's no question that some of what protesters do is unwise and illegal and almost certainly unnecessary to express their free speech opposition to what's happening. So, I mean, I'm sure there are maneuvers with people's cars blocking traffic, and it's still uncertain to me just what Renee Goode was doing that was illegal or not. But let's just Price all of that in. Let's just say this is, to some degree the fuck around and find out principle is operative. You shouldn't be doing dangerous, illegal things in order to protest. Okay, great. But what she clearly wasn't doing was trying to run over cops with her car. There was no reason to escalate this situation. This was not a situation that had to be violent. That was running off the rails. This was not. The ICE officers weren't being threatened by anyone. They came in so aggressively and were shouting contradictory commands. Whatever you think about the first shot, I still think that was unjustifiable. But even if you're gonna bend over backwards and say, all right, this is an officer who perceived any movement of the car to be imperiling his life. I mean, first of all, moron that he is, he's walking in front of the car. He actually thought he was in a hostile situation. Why would you walk in front of front of a car like that? You simply wouldn't. This is bad training, bad recruitment, bad common sense. But just leave that aside. And what is he doing with his phone? Right? He's making his own home movies of the situation. What are these ICE guys doing with their phones? I've heard that some of them are using facial recognition. Maybe that's the case. That's also a little weird and dystopian. If they're running around doing facial recognition on everybody, we should have a public conversation about that. But again, leave that aside. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He found himself in front of somebody's car, he started moving. He thought, again, idiotically, that the best way to stop a moving car to keep yourself safe from it, is to shoot the driver at close range. I can't imagine any training suggests that's the case. But in any case, within a second, he was to the side of the car, not at all in harm's way, and then delivered two more shots to Renee Goode and kind of ensuring that she was dead, the purpose of those shots were not self defense. This is not a fleeing fugitive who has several murders on her record. And you know, she's a threat to the public, right? So it's just. There's nothing about this that makes sense from a law enforcement point of view. And yet you have people defending. I mean, forget about all the liars and maniacs who are calling her a terrorist. And Trump said the guy was in the hospital and lucky to be alive, Right? That's the level of communication. But forget about all that. There's still People right of center, defending this as somehow a kind of normative policing that we want our law enforcement to come in this hot, and if you simply don't obey them, you have fucked around sufficiently so as to lose your life.

[Sam Harris]

Right.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

I mean, that's basically the center of narrative gravity over there. It's insane. And again, it's coming from people who. It's from the right. These people who get radicalized by every. Or at least, you know, heretofore got radicalized by every overreach of federal power. Right. I mean, think of Ruby Ridge that radicalized the entire far right for a generation. Or Waco. I mean, this is what got Timothy McVeigh to blow up the federal building. Right. It's like any intrusion of the feds coming into our lives. And what the feds are doing now is stopping traffic randomly and hauling people out of cars who are just driving home from work and throwing them on the pavement, restraining them and beating them up after they've been restrained. It's awful.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Do you think these videos, these horrifying videos, bode well for midterm elections for the Dems?

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Well, I think, you know, technically, everything Trump is doing now bodes well because it's all quite unpopular, at least from the polls I've seen. You know, the ICE operations are unpopular, the Greenland stuff is unpopular. So, yeah, I mean, he's.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Subsidies.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Yeah, yeah, the tariffs are unpopular. It's hard to know what he thinks he's accomplishing from a political point of view with any of this.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Yeah. And, you know, I know you had touched on the takeaway of what you think we should do. It's protesting. I wanted to get a sense of what you thought we could do. But before you answer that, I just want to show you a video clip of what I think you should not do.

[Activist or Protester]

Renee Gurd. Renee Gunn. Renee Gunn. All these comfortable white people who are living lavish, comfortable lives while children are dragged into concentration camps. You're living real life, nice lives with your lattes, doing absolutely nothing for your Latino and Somali brothers and sisters.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

You come here to listen. I think you want to model the civility you want to see in your society.

[Sam Harris]

Right.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

So I just think whenever these things become oppressive to the rest of the citizenry, I just think you're. It's counterproductive. I mean, that's what was so ridiculous about so many Black Lives Matter protests, where they would get in people's faces in cafes and aggressively force them to. In some kind of struggle session to comply, to grant assent to the legitimacy of the protest, right, you've got bend the knee right now or we're going to ruin your life. That's just not a way to win hearts and minds in any way.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Also, these are not leaders of the party. There's a difference. This is not the behavior of those that are leading that party.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Again, this is asymmetric political warfare. The right and the Trumpists have very few rules. They'll dox people, they'll shatter all the norms that I think we're right to live by when we oppose our political opponents. So it's hard to know. I don't think Michelle Obama's aphorism has weathered the test of time. When they go low, we go high. I just don't, I think that probably admits of some exceptions, but I just don't think you want to be an unethical asshole at any point.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

All right. Somewhat related to ice, the State Department is halting visa processing for migrants from 75 countries in its latest immigration crackdown. They're basically pausing entry for any applicants they fear would become reliant on taxpayer money if allowed into the U.S. what's wrong with that?

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Well, I'm sure everything's wrong with it given the people who are in charge, right? I mean, given that we've got, we're living in Stephen Miller's world, at least on this front. I mean, it's got to be unethical, it's got to be callous, it's got to be too blunt force in every application. I'm sure there's nothing good about it, but in the abstract, I think we could admit that we, one, want to know who's coming into the country, which is to say we want a secure border, and two, we want to admit the people into the country who we want in the country, right? Who we think are going to add value on whatever level, whether they're high skilled or low skilled or refugees who we just have a compassionate policy around. We obviously don't want jihadists and Islamists and lunatics of any other ideological flavor. We don't want, I would say we don't want Communists, we don't want Nazis, lots of people we don't want in this country or we don't want more of. And we shouldn't be eager to import them intentionally or haphazardly. So that requires that we figure out who people are and have some orderly process of letting them in. And that's all fine, but again, we have the kinds of people who will separate families and put kids in cages running our immigration Policy.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Wait, what happened to the $5 million visa where you could just.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

I mean, I think that still exists. The golden visa. Yeah.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Is that happening?

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

I think that happened.

[Sam Harris]

Yeah.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

I don't know how many people bought it, but I think that is a thing. Yeah.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

That's like a hundred scandals ago. I don't even remember that. So people are buying, and I believe.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

That, you know, we'd have to fact check that, but I believe that happened. Yeah.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Well, okay, well. Well, clearly we know we want people in this country that have $5 million to spend on a visa.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

All right. Help me understand what's happening with Greenland.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Well, if I understood that, I would be, I think, the one person on Earth who does. It makes no sense because we have full access to Greenland. I mean, Denmark is one of our. Has been one of our best allies for, I think, 200 years. I think they lost more per capita, more soldiers per capita than any other ally in our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I mean, these are people. This is a country that has joined us even in our unpopular wars, wars that were unpopular in their own society, for better or worse. There's no reason we should be at odds with them, much less be mistreating them, much less be threatening to kill their soldiers. Right. Which is effectively what we have done by saying we might. You can do this easy way or you can do this the hard way, and we might invade. Obviously, we risk shattering NATO if it isn't tacitly shattered already. I think it probably is. I don't think anyone thinks we would defend a country like Poland if Russia rolled in there now. So our Article 5 obligations, I think, are void. It makes no sense because we already have bases on there. We have older bases on there. I think at one point we had something like 17 military bases on Greenland. I think we have one now, but we have full access rights. We can do anything we want there with respect to defending Arctic sea lanes or mining for minerals. This is just not. It's not a thing, this problem of Greenland not being available to us strategically, why Trump thinks we need it for the. I mean, he said something like America needs it, like, psychologically or something. I mean, that just is.

[Podcast Host or Co-host]

Well, I thought he said it because he was worried that China or Russia wanted to take it.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

Well, no, but if China or Russia attempted to take it, they would be attacking a NATO country. Right. Which we're sworn to defend. It would be the same situation. This is something that has emerged from Trump's brain.

[Sam Harris]

If you'd like to continue listening to this, conversation, you'll need to [e-mail] Once.

[Sam Harris (Guest or Main Speaker)]

You do, you'll get access to all.

[Sam Harris]

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