Sam Harris argues Trump is a 'worse person' than bin Laden
Podcaster Sam Harris argued that former President Donald Trump was a worse person than Usama bin Laden to defend his support of censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Podcaster Sam Harris doubled down on his attacks against former President Donald Trump, suggesting that he is "a worse person than Usama bin Laden."
The prominent atheist argued on his "Making Sense" podcast last Thursday that the claim is a frequent statement he’s made to grab attention and continued to defend it.
"I’ve said on several occasions that I think Donald Trump is a worse person than Usama bin Laden. The statement is obviously meant to get your attention. I get that it’s surprising, but it’s not meant to be hyperbolic. I can defend every word of a statement like that. What I can’t defend are people's misunderstandings and erroneous extrapolations of a statement like that," Harris argued.
He went on to argue that bin Laden, despite the harm he caused, was "a more or less normal human being psychologically."
Al-Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden was killed by SEAL Team 6 in May 2011. (Reuters)
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"But within the framework of his [bin Laden's] odious beliefs, he demonstrated many virtues. He was a man who certainly seemed to be capable of real self-sacrifice and he was committed to ideals beyond his narrow self-interest. He was by all accounts personally quite courageous. I don’t claim to know that much about him, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he was generally a person of real integrity and generosity and compassion in his dealings with his fellow Muslims. None of these things can be said about Donald Trump. Trump is without question one of the least honest and malignantly selfish human beings I have ever come across," Harris argued.
This response followed a controversy Harris faced on Aug. 17 after defending social media censorship of the New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story. While Harris acknowledged it was a true conspiracy to limit the story to help President Biden in the 2020 election, he claimed that the effort was justified.
"At that point, Hunter Biden could have literally had the corpses of children in his basement, I would not have cared," Harris said, claiming the laptop story was "infinitesimal compared" to Trump’s corruption.
Sam Harris came under fire for saying he would not if Hunter Biden "literally had the corpses of children in his basement" so long as Trump was not re-elected. (Getty images | New York Post)
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Over one week later, Harris continued to claim that Trump "isn’t psychologically normal" and is a morally despicable human being.
"The seeming paradox is that if Trump were a better person he would be worse in many ways. If he were brave and self-sacrificing and idealistic, if he were capable of being strongly committed to something beyond his self-interest, he would be capable of creating much greater harm in the world. But he’s not. He is a child in a man’s body. He lies as freely as he breathes and just as compulsively. He can’t even put the interests of his children above his own, much less commit himself to any ideal that requires real self-sacrifice," Harris said.
He concluded, "When I say that wherever you are on earth, you could probably walk 1000 miles in any direction and not meet a less admirable being than Trump, I mean it in the terms I just described. The man is almost completely lacking in personal virtue. If he weren’t funny, and I admit he can be funny, he might actually be the least admirable person on earth."
Former President Donald Trump has been compared to al-Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden by Democrats and liberal media pundits. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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While Harris noted that people can take his statement as "hyperbolic," various Democrats and media pundits have made similar comparisons for Trump and his supporters.
Democratic California Rep. Eric Swalwell compared Trump to the former al-Qaeda leader in 2021, claiming that both were responsible for "radicalizing" violent individuals after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Frequent CNN columnist Dean Obeidallah admitted on Twitter in August that he "literally" viewed Trump supporters and bin Laden supporters as the same.
Fox News' Joe Silverstein contributed to this report.
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