Tucker Carlson sits down with The Daily Wire's @RealCandaceO to discuss her recent comments on the war in Israel. She also responds to her colleague, Ben Shapiro, who recently called her comments "disgraceful." Watch the full interview here: https://x.com/TuckerCarlson Text “TUCKER” to 44055 for exclusive updates #TuckerCarlson #CandaceOwens #BenShapiro #DailyWire #Israel #Palestine #Debate #Interview #News #Politics #Viral #Twitter #X @RealCandaceO
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| The internet was dominated yesterday by video of Ben Shapiro, who you work with at the Daily Wire, I think it's fair to say attacking you. | ||
| Here's the video. | ||
| I just want to get your reaction to it. | ||
| Yes, and then the question is about Candace Owens. | ||
| I think her behavior during this is in distress. | ||
|
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And that is it. | |
| Yeah, I think she's been absolutely disgraceful. | ||
| I think that I think that her pro-sophistication on these particular issues has been ridiculous. | ||
| It's not pro-sophistication. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| Everybody can see the moves that she's making and the things that she's saying. | ||
| And then I'm going to distract you. | ||
| So maybe there's a point in the video he explains what exactly you did wrong and how you were wrong. | ||
| I haven't seen it. | ||
| But to call somebody, quote, absolutely disgraceful, particularly a co-worker, seems like a pretty big step. | ||
| And I really don't know the background here. | ||
| What is that about? | ||
| You know, there isn't much of a background. | ||
| I saw the video when everybody else saw it when I woke up. | ||
| No one warned you about it. | ||
| Nobody warned me about it. | ||
| It looks like maybe he didn't know he was being recorded. | ||
| It looks like it was some sort of a private event. | ||
| I got no clarity on the issue that he was particularly speaking on. | ||
| And in what was said, I also can't respond to it beyond what he's saying because it's just ad hominem attacks. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Yeah, because it's not, you know, we disagree or, you know, I don't think she's correct or maybe she doesn't know what she's talking about. | ||
| It's absolutely disgraceful. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| And so I can't respond to it on a level of intellect because there's nothing that he has expressed in that, at least in that short clip, that he fundamentally disagrees with in terms of what I said. | ||
| But I will say that I'm not going to respond with the same ad hominem attacks. | ||
| I don't think it helps further discussion. | ||
| And if that was me that was caught on a video saying that about colleagues that I work with, I would be embarrassed. | ||
| So I think that the video speaks more to Ben's character than it speaks to mine. | ||
| Does he text you to apologize or explain or anything? | ||
| No, nothing. | ||
| I haven't heard a single word. | ||
| It just was sort of something that he said. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| Ben and I have many disagreements. | ||
| So I don't think that that's particularly something that's interesting. | ||
| We disagreed on the COVID vaccine. | ||
| We disagree on Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| He has taken virtually every stance that has been the opposite of mine on every issue over the last five years. | ||
| So I don't think that that's particularly remarkable. | ||
|
unidentified
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Really? | |
| I didn't remember that. | ||
| Yeah, he was pro the COVID vaccine. | ||
| I was anti-the vaccine. | ||
| You know, we were all idiots for not getting the vaccine. | ||
| So that's totally fine. | ||
| I am totally open to people having a difference in opinion. | ||
| I would hope that amongst colleagues that it would always be a civil disagreement. | ||
| And I would never in a private event stand on a table and talk badly about Ben. | ||
| It's a little weird. | ||
| So he was on the left on those three biggest issues of our time, is what you're saying. | ||
| He has converted his opinions. | ||
| He's accepted responsibility. | ||
| He said, you know, I was wrong about the vaccine. | ||
| Oh, good. | ||
| He is, you know, obviously pro-pharma. | ||
| His mom's a doctor. | ||
| And I say to people, I'm very aware of my perspectives on big pharma, and I talk about it on my show openly. | ||
| And I think that that's a tremendous credit to the Daily Wire that they allow a difference of opinions. | ||
| But I would, as I said, hope that it would remain respectful and that you wouldn't throw your colleagues under a bus, so to speak. | ||
| I think in a private setting. | ||
| I think that's fair. | ||
| And just for clarity, because I really don't know, is he your boss? | ||
| I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about Ben's involvement. | ||
| He's not the CEO of the Daily Wire. | ||
| He is not making the daily decisions at the Daily Wire. | ||
| And I do want to make it very clear because people are like, how could you possibly save Daily Wire after this? | ||
| I have a very good relationship with the co-CEOs of the Daily Wire. | ||
| Especially right now, the acting CEO is Caleb Robinson. | ||
| He's a wonderful person. | ||
| He's worked very hard to be where he's at. | ||
| We have a lot in common that we connect on. | ||
| And so people don't get to see that, which is unfortunate. | ||
| Ben lives in Florida. | ||
| He's not a part of the day-to-day movement of the Daily Wire. | ||
| The rest of the hosts have their shows situated in Nashville. | ||
| So we see each other every day. | ||
| We talk. | ||
| There's great camaraderie. | ||
| And there's actually more agreement. | ||
| There's actually a lot of people that are, as I describe myself, just pro-America first. | ||
| And I think I've been that way consistently throughout my political career. | ||
| Whether people agree with it or not in different moments is up for debate. | ||
| But I don't want that video to become a reflection of how the Daily Wire works and the Daily Wire operates because I have had a very good experience with the CEOs and love Michael Knowles, love Matt Walsh, Andrew Claven. | ||
| We all get along really great. | ||
| Which certainly speaks well to the Daily Wire then. | ||
| So it's not, I mean, a clip like that on the internet, oh, Candace Jones is out or something. | ||
| That doesn't sound like that's what it means. | ||
| Yeah, no, it's a, you know, it's, it's a small group of people. | ||
| We see each other every day. | ||
| Brett Cooper is another one who just joined about two years ago. | ||
| She's great. | ||
| She's up and coming. | ||
| And there's a lot of stuff that we're working on. | ||
| And that's why I think this video is even more unfortunate because people see him as a figurehead, rightfully so, of the Daily Wire. | ||
| And it allows people to speak energy into the Daily Wire that isn't necessarily there because he's not there on a day-to-day basis. | ||
| Okay, that's very interesting. | ||
| So if we could say three steps back and give us the context for this debate, how are you on different sides of it? | ||
| I haven't heard you endorsing Hamas. | ||
| No. | ||
| Well, I have not endorsed Hamas in any way. | ||
| And yet people have interpreted things that I say, or actually rather things that I don't say. | ||
| It's becoming very much reminiscent to me and why I have used my platform to say this of Black Lives Matter, where if you don't say anything, they say your silence is violence. | ||
| If you say something and it's even-handed and it's nuanced, which is to say, you know, during the times of Black Lives Matter, you might say, I don't support police brutality. | ||
| Who does? | ||
| I don't support racism. | ||
| Who does? | ||
| But also, I think that police are a crucial part of every city. | ||
| We need to have policing in cities. | ||
| So these calls to defund the police are immoral and wrong and are going to lead to more black deaths. | ||
| People didn't want that nuance when Black Lives Matter, following George Floyd, there was no nuance. | ||
| You had to explicitly say defund the police. | ||
| You had to post a black square. | ||
| If you didn't post a black square on Instagram, by the way, specifically on the platform of Instagram, and you, maybe were busy that day. | ||
| Maybe you were in another country. | ||
| You know, maybe you just didn't log on to Instagram. | ||
| You were accused of being a racist. | ||
| I'm seeing a lot of that behavior right now when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a conflict that I have seen every single person, including myself, condemn what happened on October 7th. | ||
| I have, because who wouldn't condemn terrorism? | ||
| It's obvious. | ||
| Who would not condemn innocent Israelis dying? | ||
| But if you then say that it is also sad when an innocent Palestinian child dies, suddenly this is pro-Hamas, or you need to say, even when you're talking about how sad it is that a child dies, you need to button that statement by saying, but that child was a human shield. | ||
| That's not going to be my response. | ||
| First off, as a mother, that's not going to be my response as somebody who is about to give birth. | ||
| When I see these images of children involved on both sides of the conflict, I've pointed to the people that are mocking dead Israeli children and said that they are horrific. | ||
| I am even keel on this matter, and yet people think that you need to be extreme. | ||
| So people that have become more radical and extreme are perceiving a moderate stance as not enough. | ||
| Because I was about to say you don't, people can disagree with you or agree with you or whatever, but you certainly don't seem radical on this topic. | ||
| Definitively not radical. | ||
| My stance has not changed in terms of whether or not America should be involved in this conflict. | ||
| Whether we were talking about Afghanistan, my comments have been clear. | ||
| They've been documented for years. | ||
| Whether we are talking about Ukraine and Russia, my comments have been clear and they have been documented. | ||
| I mean, you can go back to me even talking about NATO expansion before things erupted between Russia and Ukraine and having a meaningful discussion about how much expansion is too much expansion. | ||
| How would we feel if we had troops on our border? | ||
| These are things that should be allowed in an academic discussion. | ||
| You should be able to sit on stage and should be able to debate these ideas without using odd hominid attacks to say that you're a pro-Putin puppet or you're pro-terrorism. | ||
| Even in the aftermath of 9-11, something that we all remember as part of my childhood. | ||
| I think I was in seventh grade at the time and I'm born in the New York City area. | ||
| So this was a very big deal. | ||
| If a person the day after 9-11 wanted to debate the Patriot Act, it's not fair to call them terrorist sympathizers. | ||
|
unidentified
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No. | |
| Actually, they would have been proven right in the long run. | ||
| That we give up a lot of our freedoms. | ||
| And I think there was only one congressman, Republican, that was against the Patriot Act at that time. | ||
| So it's important, actually, when you start making decisions in a highly emotional time, that people sit down and have these academic debates. | ||
| And there are people that are saying, no, it doesn't matter because people are dead, that you need to just choose a side. | ||
| And that needs to be it. | ||
| It needs to become tribal. | ||
| There's also, I can't help but notice that your views reflect mine. | ||
| I would say pretty much. | ||
| I'm an American. | ||
| I was horrified by what happened on October 7th. | ||
| Honestly, it was pretty strange. | ||
| I don't really understand how it happened, but Innocence died, and that's awful. | ||
| And I hated watching that. | ||
| And I feel so sorry for the Israelis who were killed. | ||
| However, there's an emotional response that is disproportionate, I think, on the part of some commentators. | ||
| I mean, our country's being invaded right now by millions of young men whose identities we don't know, who probably don't even like America, and they're now living here. | ||
| Over 100,000 Americans die every year of fentanyl. | ||
| I've known a couple. | ||
| Those are real tragedies. | ||
| I've never seen anything like the emotion from any commentator around those tragedies as I'm watching about a foreign tragedy. | ||
| I think that's odd. |