#472 — Strange Days on the Right
4/24/202616 min
Sam Harris speaks with Ben Shapiro about their pre-election debate and the fractures on the right. They discuss Trump's second term surprises, familial corruption, tariff policy, the ideological world of Tucker Carlson, the spread of conspiracism on the right, antisemitism as the ur-conspiracy theory, JD Vance's political calculations, the future of Israel and the Palestinian question, and other topics.
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First 90 secondsSam Harris· Host0:00
[gentle music] 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 subscribe at samharris.org. 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. I am here with Ben Shapiro. Ben, thanks for joining me on, on the podcast.
Ben Shapiro· Guest0:28
Good to see you. How you doing?
Sam Harris· Host0:29
Uh, I'm good. How are you doing? You... It's getting crazy out there. I've noticed, uh, from afar that your life has, uh, gotten more interesting in the last, uh, 12 months or so.
Ben Shapiro· Guest0:38
Yeah. You know, the, the, the, the old, uh, Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times, is definitely, uh, applying itself, so that- Yeah ... that's been fun.
Sam Harris· Host0:45
You appear to be Chinese at the moment. Um, well, I, I want to talk about the cleavages in the Republican Party and in, in the MAGA cult, as I think of it, but before we get there, let's, uh... I mean, 'cause, 'cause it is, it is extreme i- in a way that I- I think none of us would anticip- uh, have anticipated. I think m- many of the Republicans are... I mean, the Republicans seem to be divided between those who are Nazi sympathizers and those who think, all things considered, Nazis are probably still bad. But the level of, um, confusion about that is, uh, fairly astounding to me, so I want to get your postmortem on that. But you and I last spoke a little over a year ago, I, I guess a year and, and a half ago, before Trump's election, when, uh, our friend Barry Weiss,