Sam Harris appeared on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, where he suggested that President-elect Donald Trump may not have been struck by a bullet during an assassination attempt at a Butler, PA rally.
Instead, Harris speculated that Trump might have been injured by a shard of shrapnel from a shattered teleprompter.
“I’m surprised that a rifle round making any degree of contact with an ear wouldn’t do more damage,” Harris stated. “I think a shattered piece of shrapnel from a teleprompter is far more likely to do that to his ear than a rifle round.”
Maher pushed back, calling the theory “silly” and noting that the trajectory of a bullet could still cause minor injuries if it grazed its target. “If it just hit it by the slightest possible degree, it makes much more sense,” Maher replied.
Harris countered by referencing the tragic death of firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was killed during the attack. “There’s no question that rifle rounds went flying.
Someone was killed. I’m not debating that at all,” Harris said. “Just, if in fact, a teleprompter was hit by a rifle round and we know there was shattered glass, that makes more sense to me.”
Sam Harris claims it would be more believable that Trump was hit by a piece of shrapnel from a teleprompter at the first assassination attempt.
— Media Lies (@MediasLies) January 12, 2025
X user @Brick_Suit took a photo of the teleprompters after the attack, showing them completely intact. pic.twitter.com/iquclZdmsq
Maher conceded the possibility but maintained that the basic narrative—that Trump survived an assassination attempt—remains unchanged.
Photo Evidence Disputes Shrapnel Theory
A photo posted by X user @Brick_Suit, who attended the rally, contradicts Harris’s theory, showing that no teleprompter appeared to have been damaged. Despite this, the idea gained traction when MSNBC host Joy Reid repeated the theory, fueling further debate online.
Jack Posobiec, host of Human Events Daily, criticized Harris’s comments on X (formerly Twitter), writing: “The reason Sam Harris has to spread hoaxes about the Trump assassination attempt is that it was hate and lies like his own that caused the attempt in the first place. Deep down, he knows this and thus has a psychological need to deny the attack took place, even when a man died.”
Harris’s History of Controversial Statements
Harris’s remarks on Trump have drawn criticism for years. In a 2022 interview on Triggernometry, he described the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story as a deliberate “conspiracy” by left-wing media to help Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
Despite acknowledging the suppression, Harris minimized its significance compared to what he called Trump’s “infinite” corruption.
“We could just go down that rabbit hole endlessly,” Harris said, referencing accusations of corruption within the Biden family. “It is infinitesimal compared to the corruption we know Trump is involved in. It’s like a firefly to the sun. It doesn’t even stack up against Trump University.”
Harris faced further backlash when he remarked, “Hunter [Biden] literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement. I would not have cared.” Critics seized on the comment as evidence of Harris’s extreme partisanship.
Harris’s Departure from Twitter
Towards the end of 2022, Harris released a 2.5-hour podcast explaining his decision to leave Twitter after Elon Musk acquired the platform. While some speculated his departure was in protest of Musk reinstating Trump’s account, Harris denied this.
“I’ve heard that many people are interpreting my leaving Twitter as an act of protest over what Elon is doing to the platform,” Harris said. “It really wasn’t that… Elon can do whatever he wants with it.”
However, Harris expressed concern about the platform’s role in shaping public discourse and its use by governments to control narratives. “Its ubiquity in society and politics has led to governments attempting to control what can and cannot be said… even to use the platform to help fulfill political desires,” he explained.