#474 — More From Sam: Hasan Piker, Islamism, Making Sense Community, and More

Summary

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Episode #474 — More From Sam: Hasan Piker, Islamism, Making Sense Community, and More
Release Date: May 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this subscriber Q&A episode, Sam Harris—joined by producer Michael—addresses community questions, recent public conversations, and pressing cultural debates. The central themes include Harris’s reflections on controversial podcast guests, severe critiques of contemporary left-wing figures like Hasan Piker, the launch of a new online community for listeners, and the ongoing confusion in American discourse around antisemitism, Islamism, and the term "genocide". The discussion is candid, often combative, and reveals deep concern for the direction of liberal politics and rational public debate.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Launching the “Making Sense” Community

• Purpose & Structure
  • The new Making Sense Community replaces Reddit as a place for more civil, focused discussion. It’s initially web-based, with an app in development (01:19).
  • Those subscribed before June 1st retain free access; later, access may be separated from subscriptions.
  • Real names are mandatory for all users, aiming to foster more respectful, authentic dialog.
• Sam Harris' Intention:
  • “We're going to take a stab at building a community that is not selecting for any of the usual variables of engagement and weirdness and division, but just actually a place where you want to have a conversation with people.” (01:19)

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2. Reflections on Recent Guests and Political Debates

• Ben Shapiro Episode – Missed Opportunities & Voter Values

  • Harris reflects on the criticism that his interview with Shapiro wasn’t adversarial enough and that he let certain points slide, particularly regarding Trump (02:54).
  • Notable Quote:
    • “He [Ben Shapiro] was like a two issue voter. It was Israel and the Jews being one issue, and wokeness being another... if you think Kamala Harris is likely to be sufficiently bad on those two issues, there's really nothing Trump can do that you're going to regret... I disagree with him, obviously, and I think I weight those issues differently than he does.” (04:04)
  • Harris details the limitations of debating such deeply rooted concerns, concluding, “There’s not really much to debate there.”

• The Role of Antisemitism and Islamism in American Left Politics

  • Harris distinguishes his longstanding focus on Islamism from antisemitism, though noting their increasing overlap in current left-wing discourse (05:38).
  • He critiques the "sleight of hand" in discussions where “all the Jews and antisemites know exactly what's going on, but... everyone else isn't seeing that,” situating the core dilemma as one of values: Islamism vs. open society. (05:38)

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3. The Hasan Piker Controversy and Left-Wing Media

• NYT and the Mainstreaming of Hasan Piker

  • Harris is indignant that mainstream platforms (notably the New York Times and Pod Save America) elevate Hasan Piker, whom he equates to “the left’s Nick Fuentes” (07:00).
  • Notable Quotes:
    • “Hasan Piker is basically our Nick Fuentes. You know, I mean that exaggerates it by 10%, but... totally irredeemable character.” (07:19)
    • “He said he's on record saying that America deserved 9/11. He supports Hamas, he supports Hezbollah, he supports the Houthis... This is suicide in 2028.” (08:26)

• Analyzing Piker’s Statements (with Audio Clip)

  • Michael plays a clip (09:20–11:13) where Hasan Piker defends Hamas over Israel, calls Gaza “the world’s largest open air prison,” and minimizes the gravity of Hamas’s violence.
  • Harris’s reaction is swift and scornful:
    • “I don't know how Favro dealt with that, you know, vomitus confusion, but the fact that he was talking to the guy in the first place makes me worry that again, the Democrats are lost here.” (11:13)
  • Major Concern:
    • Harris warns that amplifying such views by the mainstream left is a path to political defeat and moral confusion.

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4. The “Genocide” Debate and Misuse of Language

• On Genocide Accusations against Israel

  • Harris forcefully pushes back against the claim that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, detailing the actual definition and contrasting it with historical genocides (13:50).
  • He argues that the confusion is “engineered by people who know what they're doing. This is my problem with the Hasan pikers of the world... these people know what genocide means, right? And they're lying about it.” (16:42)
  • Notable Quote:
    • "If we're going to redefine genocide to mean, you know, simply a war we don't like or a war that has too much collateral damage, well, then we're just going to need to invent a new word to signify actual genocides..." (13:50)
  • Harris refers to alarming statistics—that “77% of Democrats... think that Israel committed genocide in Gaza”—as evidence of “serious moral and political confusion” (12:51).

• Counterexamples (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, WWII)

  • Harris invokes the atomic bombings in Japan, showing that massive civilian deaths are not always genocide since intent (“the eradication project”) is key (15:10).
  • Notable Quote:
    • “No country attempting genocide sends millions of text messages and cell phone calls and drops leaflets trying to get people to evacuate buildings before they bomb them...” (14:30)

• Audience Pushback

  • An audience member objects to Harris’s argument about numbers and genocide, prompting Harris to restate his definition and reference historical precedent (15:02–16:42).

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5. Concerns for the Democratic Party & Electoral Politics

• Harris expresses profound anxiety that the mainstream left is isolating itself through association with figures like Piker and the misuse of loaded terms like “genocide.”
• He believes these trends will make Democratic candidates unelectable in the future if not reversed (11:16, 13:20).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sam Harris (on Ben Shapiro & Trump):

  • “He hasn't seen the thing that Trump has done that is sufficiently awful for him to feel any regret over his choice. So that's where we kind of left it.” (04:25)

• On Hasan Piker & the Left:

  • “If you want President J.D. Vance or Tucker Carlson... by all means, signal boost Hasan Piker for the next two years, but it's a disaster.” (11:16)

• On the Genocide Charge:

  • “[The use of this] word ‘genocide’ is nothing short of a blood libel, and it's intended as such by people who know what they're talking about. But it seems to be confusing 77% of Democrats and the New York Times is now participating in this confusion.” (14:50)

• On Political Consequences:

  • “All of this is going to come back to make whoever we put forward under these forces in 2028 unelectable if he or she has to pay lip service to this shibboleth that Israel is now a genocidal apartheid state.” (14:50)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:19] – New community launch and intentions
• [02:54] – Reflections on the Ben Shapiro interview and Trump debate
• [05:38] – The “sleight of hand” in antisemitism/Islamism discourse
• [07:00] – Harris on the NYT and the mainstreaming of Hasan Piker
• [09:20–11:13] – Hasan Piker’s defense of Hamas (audio clip and reaction)
• [13:50] – The genocide accusation and Harris’s moral framework
• [15:10] – Hiroshima & Nagasaki as examples in genocide debate
• [16:42] – Harris on misinformation by left-wing thinkers

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Tone and Style

Throughout, Harris maintains his signature analytic, sometimes acerbic, but lucid tone, making critical distinctions and offering pointed critiques—especially of left-wing moral confusion and intellectual dishonesty. His frustration at the current intellectual climate and concern for liberal values come through strongly.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode offers a deep dive into ongoing fractures in left-of-center American politics, Harris’s vision for more rational online dialogue, and the dangers of moral rhetoric untethered from clear definitions. Harris is unsparing in his analysis, challenging both his guests and the foundational premises behind much of today’s culture war. The episode is essential listening for anyone invested in public rationality, the future of the Democratic Party, and the responsible use of politically charged terms.

Transcript

[Sam Harris]

You're listening to Making Sense with Sam Harris. This is the free version of the podcast, so you'll only hear the first part of today's conversation. If you want the full episode and every episode, you can [e-mail] There are no ads on this show. It runs entirely on subscriber support. If you enjoy what we're doing here and find it valuable, please consider subscribing today.

[Michael]

Welcome back to another episode of More from Sam. Once again, we're taping this live in front of subscribers. I'll be asking Sam many of the questions that you subscribers have submitted. We'll be fielding reactions in real time so that Sam can address those. Before we get to our first topic, I just want to quickly mention that Sam has shows in Toronto, which is sold out next week, D.C. and New York City. There are still tickets for D.C. in New York. And then the following week on May 20th and 21st, you'll be in Dallas and Austin. Also, you have some great podcast guests coming up in the next month or so. Michael Poland will be released next week. Susan Cain last Elaine de Patton, who's just like an incredible human or seems to me I haven't met him. Vinod Khosla, Noah Smith, Jonathan Swan and others. Okay, I want to get to our first topic. Actually this is also a bit of an announcement, but since we're going to discuss it, I think it counts. We have launched a new community and for those who haven't heard about it yet, why don't you tell us what your intentions are with it.

[Sam Harris]

Yeah, this is really, I guess, I mean in my mind something like a replacement for Reddit. Not no offense to all the Redditors out there, but I just think we need a situation where there's less noise and more signal and more civility. And so we've created something here which where it's going to be web based for the first month, but there's an app in development and anyone who subscribed now or subscribes before June 1 will have access to the community for free. I mean it comes with the subscription, but after June 1st we're breaking them apart. I believe should this thing work, we're going to go on a month to month basis. If the whole thing catches fire, we're going to yank it and realize that social media of any sort is impossible. But we're going to take a stab at building a community that is not selecting for any of the usual variables of engagement and weirdness and division, but just actually a place where you want to have a conversation with people. Right.

[Michael]

I think the goal for this community, for it to work, it should feel like we've just widened our friend circles and so some of the experiences we have in WhatsApp app or, or the communication we have in Slack, you should feel that comfortable. And everyone there will be using their real names. So that's also going to change.

[Sam Harris]

That's one. That's one innovation which hopefully will, will mean something. Yeah. So it's an experiment. I'm looking forward to it. I think it'll be fun.

[Michael]

Me too. You've had some great conversations this past month. Rahm Emanuel, Francis Fukuyama, Ben Shapiro, Lloyd Blankvine and others. I'm curious if you have any post mortem thoughts on any of those, especially something you may have enjoyed or wish you would have done differently.

[Sam Harris]

I think I got some criticism for the Shapiro conversation. That wasn't as much of a debate as some people wanted or I didn't hold his feet to the fire on Trump's record as much as I could have. I think that's probably true, actually. Yeah. Rabbi David Wolpe wrote a very nice email on that topic, criticizing me for not having pointed out some specifics about how much damage Trump has done to our standing. At one point, Ben compared the president, really any president, to a plumber. He's not looking to him for inspiration. He just needs to unblock the toilet. And I sort of let him get away with that facile analogy. It's just not true. He's not a plumber. He's somebody whose character affects everything. I think I said something about the effect on culture and our politics, but he's also affected our standing in the world by alienating all of our allies and giving comfort to many of our actual enemies. So I mean, the thing I found with Ben, which was interesting, I guess I could have anticipated it, is that he's such a Calling him a single issue voter is probably not fair, but he was like a two issue voter. It was Israel and the Jews being one issue and wokeness being another. And wokeness in large part is a problem for how it affects that first issue. And if you think that in a fourth choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, if you think Kamala Harris is likely to be sufficiently bad on those two issues, there's really nothing Trump can do that you're going to regret unless it crosses the line into something so awful that it's worse than your worst imaginings about what Kamala Harris was going to be like on those two issues. So every time I pushed him on what was wrong with Trump and Trumpism, he more or less agreed. And yet he said explicitly or implicitly that none of that's as bad. I mean, Trump grifting billions of dollars for his family and friends is awful, corrupt, embarrassing, et cetera, but still not as bad as what Kamala Harris could have done or would have done on those two issues. And it's a counterfactual. I can't really adjudicate. No one can. I mean, I disagree with him, obviously, and I think I weight those issues differently than he does. But, you know, it's not really. There's not really much to debate there. He just. He hasn't seen the thing that Trump has done that is sufficiently awful for him to feel any regret over his choice. So that's where we kind of left it.

[Michael]

Yeah. I thought that email he wrote would have been great for new community. So hopefully he'll join us over there.

[Sam Harris]

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm hoping for.

[Michael]

Yeah. You know, one thing Ben Shapiro mentioned that felt right to me was the line about the sleight of hand. That seems to be happening around anti Semitism, where all the Jews and anti Semites know exactly what's going on, but it feels as though everyone else isn't seeing that.

[Sam Harris]

Yeah. I mean, again, I think that's a good way to describe what's happening. I think we'll get to people like Mamdani and Hassan Piker, and that's part of the problem there. People just don't see what's happening there. But I don't view it as so much a matter of Jews and anti Semites. I view it as a matter of fact Islamism and the values of open societies. Right. So, like, that's what I'm tracking. I mean, I'm also tracking antisemitism, unfortunately now. But antisemitism was not something I was been focused on for the last quarter century. Islamism is so. And it overlaps with the problem of anti Semitism, but they're not quite the same problem.

[Michael]

Yeah. Well, we'll get to those two guys shortly. I thought the Lloyd Blankfein conversation was great, too. He seems like a very.

[Sam Harris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael]

Thoughtful guy.

[Sam Harris]

I liked him.

[Michael]

He seems like somebody who would make for a great politician, the right kind that you'd want. He's just a great communicator and a great thinker. Speaking of politicians, I, you know, this is just my intuition, but about Rom, you know, I know he's looking at into perhaps running for president. But my sense is I don't think he has, thinks he has the best shot at winning, but I think that's probably one of the best platforms for him to influence other with others with his, his, his ideas. And I think, you know, if the Democrats win in 2028, he'll, he'll use that as an opportunity to play a big role in the next administration. What do you think about that?

[Sam Harris]

Well, I'm happy he, he'll be if he is actually in the race for the duration, I, I'm happy he'll be there because I think he'll push the Democrats to have something like a sister soldier moment around the lingering shades of wokeness which are all too lingering. I mean, from what I can tell, we're really poised to pitch back into some sort of George Floyd hysteria. I mean, we'll get to Hassan Piker. I think the fact that the New York Times is burnishing Hassan Piker as though he were the future of progressive politics in America is a very bad sign. I think it's done immense brand damage in my mind to the Times as though that hasn't been happening for years and years. But it's just such a colossal moral and political error. But it makes me worry that I'm just wishcasting all of this and that the Democratic Party is unrecoverable now. I just think the fact that the people at the New York Times think that Hasan Piker is worth signal boosting tells me something that it tells me that I'm out of either they're out of touch or I'm out of touch with the culture left of center because he's basically our Nick Fuentes. You know, I mean that exaggerates it by 10%, but I mean totally irredeemable character. I mean, I'm just launching to Hasan Piker now because it's time keep going

[Michael]

since you're on him.

[Sam Harris]

But I mean he's someone who he said he's on record saying that America deserved 9 11. He supports Hamas, he supports Hezbollah, he supports the Houthis. Needless to say, he thinks that Israel is an apartheid state that is guilty of genocide in Gaza. I'm sure we'll get to the genocide charge in other contexts and just remember what the New York Times has done. They gave him a very favorable style section profile. They gave him his own op ed. Ezra Klein idiotically embraced him in an op ed titled Hasan Piker is not the Enemy. There was more. He was on at least two New York Times podcasts, one of which he was there celebrating micro looting against corporations that you just think have too much money. I mean, this is just not anything like sanity for the Democrats. Right? This is. This is suicide in 2028. So, I mean, we can talk. I mean, obviously wealth inequality is a huge problem.

[Michael]

Can we play a clip for a second? I'd love to play a clip from. I think it's pot. Save America. Yeah, that's his. Hamas is a thousand times better than a fascist settler colonial apartheid state.

[Hasan Piker]

I stand by that. Do you actually mean that or is that a rhetorical move or like a solidarity signal? Like what? I mean, it's all of the above. I do mean it. I think it's a rhetorical move because it frustrates a lot of people. I've also said I'm a harm reduction voter. I'm a lesser evil voter and therefore I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time. Because I'm looking at the situation as, as, as a paramilitary organization that has, like a political party as well, a politburo as well, that is entirely comprised not as an alien force, but of orphaned children. Children that have, you know, had their parents killed by an apartheid state that has been dominating the lives of Palestinians for 80 years at this point. And they've done a genocide at this point as well. But like, it started off with the Nakba and has only evolved as technology has gotten better to become more heinous. And Gaza is this hermetically sealed area that many people correctly point to as the world's largest open air prison before October 7th. So my perspective on this has always been that I think that Hamas's tactics, which I oppose at times. Right. Or it's like internal governance issues are secondary to this conversation because it's like political placing a lot of emphasis on the Nat Turner Rebellion or, Or instead of talking about the. The much larger, much more consequential, much bigger harm that, you know, chattel slavery was to, to black people, to like sell black people and to, to rape them and.

[Sam Harris]

Okay, I think. I think I got enough of this clip. Right.

[Michael]

I think that's the end of it anyway.

[Sam Harris]

Yeah, yeah, so I didn't see that podcast and I don't know how Favro dealt with that, you know, vomitus confusion, but the fact that he was talking to the guy in the first place makes me worry that again, the Democrats are lost here. Right? So if you want President J.D. vance or Tucker Carlson, or I guess in the best case, Marco Rubio, well then by all means, you know, signal boost Hasan Piker for the next two years, but it's a disaster. Yeah. So I don't know. You know, it's very hard for me to know what's going on in the Democratic Party, really. We have 77% of Democrats who think that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Those are Hasan Piker's people. 77% is a big number that attests to some serious moral and political confusion on that issue alone. I mean, for anyone who's confused about that, I mean, the word genocide means something. It meant something yesterday or the day before that. It means the effort to eradicate a people in whole or in part as such. Right? The Nazis killed Jews, tried to kill every last Jew they could get their hands on because they were Jews. The Hutus tried to kill all the Tutsis with machetes over the course of 100 days in 1994. Those are genocides. And there's a. And we need that word if we're going to redefine genocide to mean, you know, simply a war we don't like or a war that has too much collateral damage. Well, then we're just going to need to invent a new word to signify actual genocides, which are, again, efforts to eradicate people simply because they. They belong to a specific group. And by that measure, Hamas is, is explicitly and has always been a genocidal organization. This group of paramilitary fighters who are exclusively orphans. Whose what? Internal procedures Hasan Piker can quibble with, but they have a politburo. I mean, this guy is such a colossal moron. It's a genocidal organization that aspires to genocide directly in his charter and since October 7th has said it would repeat October 7th again and again and again ad infinitum, if it had the ability. It would kill every Jew in Israel. We know that. All the Palestinians know that. Hasan Piker knows that. There's a lot of people on the left who apparently are confused about that or don't care either because they're so anti Semitic or they're so deranged by the psyop that's been worked on them over Gaza. But there has been no genocide in Gaza. Right? It doesn't matter how many people were killed. It's still not a genocide, as witnessed by the fact that Israel could commit genocide anytime it wants and hasn't. No country attempting genocide sends millions of text messages and cell phone calls and drops leaflets trying to get people to evacuate buildings before they bomb them. No country trying to commit genocide opens humanitarian corridors in the middle of its war. No country trying to commit genocide sends its own sons and daughters at great peril to clear booby trapped buildings rather than just obliterating them from the sky at no risk to themselves. Right? None of this makes any sense. So that the use of this word genocide is nothing short of a blood libel, and it's intended as such by people who know what they're talking about. But it seems to be confusing. 77% of Democrats and the New York Times is now participating in this confusion. And Pod Save America, one of the biggest liberal podcasts, is participating in this confusion. It's just not, I mean, it's deeply immoral, but it's also just not functional politically. I mean, this, all of this is going to come back to make whoever we put forward under, under these forces in 2028 unelectable if he or she has to pay lip service to this shibboleth that Israel is now a genocidal apartheid state. And we all know that, you know, the war in Gaza was totally unjust,

[Michael]

so we're getting pushback from the audience. Saying it doesn't matter how many people were killed, it couldn't be a genocide is not an accurate statement.

[Sam Harris]

Okay, so we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II, right? You might quibble with that. You might think that was a war crime. You might think that was a horrific evil. It wasn't a genocide. And no one calls it a genocide. We vaporized 100,000 people instantaneously and then we killed another hundred thousand slowly by radiation poisoning and fire and infection. No one calls that a genocide. No serious person calls that a genocide. And no human rights organization calls that a genocide. Amnesty International does not call that a genocide. But do you know what they call the war in Gaza? A genocide. Right? So that's the moral confusion. We know our dropping atomic bombs on Japan wasn't a genocide because what did we do after Japan surrendered? We went in there and we occupied them and we rebuilt their society. And by 1952, when we, when we left, they had ceased to be our enemies. They were our allies, right? At no point did anyone think that our goal was to eradicate the world of Japanese people, right? So that's what a genocide is, the eradication project. And the fact that people are confused about what this word means is culturally appalling. But this confusion has been engineered by people who know what they're doing. This is my problem with the Hasan pikers of the world and the people who influence him. And it's a problem with the Zoran Mamdanis of the world, which I'm sure we'll get to. These people know what genocide means, right? And they're lying about it.

[Michael]

So before we get to Mamdani, how do you think that explains Andrew Sullivan's position? What is he getting wrong here?

[Sam Harris]

Members can hear the full conversation by [e-mail] subscribers. Get a private RSS feed you can use with your favorite podcast player.