Sam Harris

I think it'll be fun.

I think I got some criticism for the Shapiro conversation that it 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 I'm

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 on 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 forced 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.

You know, 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.