Ben Shapiro used to be a regular Uncensored guest - but he stopped responding to our calls after Piers Morgan became critical of the Israeli government. He has, however, taken a few recent jabs at Uncensored on his own show, last week referring to us as "the Jerry Springer of political TV" with a "clown car Battle Royale" style - plus he accused Piers of "bringing on actual Nazis." Listen to Piers' response... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Ben Shapiro Reacts to Woke TikToks00:03:03
Ben Shapiro is undoubtedly an intelligent and influential commentator.
I've always liked and respected him, even when we disagree.
And I still do.
He's stridently partisan and staunchly conservative, of course, but he's willing to criticize Trump and others in the administration when he thinks they've got it wrong.
Well, one thing he doesn't criticise, however, is Israel, and he routinely gets very upset when other people do.
It's such a blind spot for Ben that through the red mist of his rage, he sees an alternate reality where anybody who disagrees with him is a demonic America-hating terror apologist who can only possibly be doing it for ratings.
And it was brought to my attention that he was very upset about a debate last week featuring Dave Smith.
So last night on Piers Morgan, which is the Jerry Springer of political television, where people gather to throw chairs at one another and determine paternity.
Piers Morgan, who has sort of made a mockery of the entire industry by putting on screen whatever dregs are still willing to go on screen with Piers Morgan.
He had on Dave Smith, who has, you know, apparently his job is never to tell jokes, but to instead give poorly informed foreign policy tags.
And also to hate America.
Here we go.
Well, first, Jerry Springer was a very good friend of mine, and he was a beloved national treasure who actually hosted one of the most successful shows in television history and became a media mogul worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
So thank you for that comparison, Ben.
Second, we proudly host lively debates on things that people care about, featuring guests that people care about to cover both sides of complex news stories in an engaging way.
Do the debates sometimes get a bit combative?
Yes.
Do audiences tend to enjoy a bit of theatrical rough and tumble?
Of course they do.
That's why the Daily Wire, Ben's company, has an entire political debate show which is literally called Bar Fight.
That's why Ben's own show features hard-hitting segments including Ben Shapiro destroys celebrity ice reactions.
Ben Shapiro destroys the Golden Globes.
Ben Shapiro reacts to woke TikToks.
Ben Shapiro reacts to woke socialist TikToks.
Ben Shapiro reacts to woke religious TikToks.
And when it comes to humiliating the industry, please tell me why the Pullet Surprise Committee did not reward Mr. Shapiro for this masterpiece.
What the f, Ryan?
You could say that makes a mockery of the industry.
Third, I want to examine the charge that I've committed a sin against journalism by hosting what Ben Shapiro describes as whatever dregs are still willing to appear on my show.
The Sin Against Journalism00:07:58
Well, on the subject of Iran and US foreign policy specifically, recent guests have included Masi Alinejad, Lisa Daftari, Patrick Bet David, Carlos Sands, Rob O'Neill, Goldie Gamari, Jonathan Conrickers, Alan Dershowitz, Alika LeBon, Ambassador John Bolton, General Wesley Clark, General Mark Kimmid, a former UN prosecutor accusing Iran of mass murder, Ambassador Mike Huckabee, former Vice President Mike Pence, Eric Weinstein, Josh Hammer,
former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and the IDF spokesman Nadav Shoshani.
Now it's unlikely that Ben is talking about any of these people because they are either vehemently pro-Israel or to some extent they are supportive of attacking Iran to destroy its regime.
It's also unlikely he's talking about, say, Michael Knowles or Isabel Brown, who make very valuable contributions to the show on a regular basis and do, of course, work alongside Ben Shapiro at Daily Wire.
So what is he really talking about?
Well, we know he doesn't like Dave Smith and flat out refuses to debate him, which strikes me as pretty cowardly.
You can make up your own minds about why he refuses.
And what Ben really takes issue with is that among the many guests supporting his worldview and specifically supporting Israel, we also invite many people who don't support his worldview and don't support the Israeli government.
Take Piers Morgan, of course, suggesting the only reason that I was not appearing on his show anymore was his criticism of Israel, which is weird because I appeared on his show for literally months after October 7th, even though he was already critical of Israel.
And I really haven't said anything on peers or about peers or to peers for probably a year.
I just stopped appearing on his show.
Why?
Well, honestly, he kept bringing on actual Nazis and the Nazi adjacent and then treated them all too often as voices worthy of a large audience, like, for example, these people.
I believe that Jewish supremacy is the greatest threat to America, and I think it's the greatest threat to the world today.
I truly believe that.
You think Hitler was very cool?
Yes, I do.
One of those.
And I'm tired of pretending he's not.
It's going to be the headlines tomorrow.
Peers Morgan.
Israel is ISIS leadership.
Only amongst people who weren't listening.
That's how I feel about those young men in Gaza.
You ask me why I won't condemn them.
Because those young men were born into a concentration camp.
You don't know that.
It has been a terrorist state.
Okay, Israel right now is imparting a genocide and a holocaust on the Gazan people.
Listen, it's Piers' choice who he decides to have on his show and how he decides to conduct the kind of clown car battle royale that he does on a show every night.
And it's my choice not to join that circus.
We all make our choices and we all live with them, but some of us make our choices based on, you know, actual principles and not the quicks.
Well, the last time Ben Shapiro appeared on Uncensored to discuss Israel's war on Hamas specifically was in March 2024, at which time I was being accused on a daily basis of being a paid-up Israeli shill.
He lacks the self-awareness to realize that many pro-Palestine contributors got very angry with our show for hosting so-called genocide enablers like him.
That's exactly why I'm not partisan and don't want to be.
There is more than one view on any emotive or consequential subject.
You can't possibly know you are right if you don't know what the other side thinks.
That's precisely why free speech exists as a principle we all defend.
And when it comes to principles, as Mr. Shapiro puts it, I'd remind him that I've left several high-profile jobs over my principles.
Principles like my views on gun control and my belief that criticizing a princess is an essential right.
I give my opinions about everything based on the information I have at the time, and I change my views when facts change.
Some people might find that highly irritating, but it's because I'm not an ideologue and I never will be.
Ben Shapiro calls our debate a clown show circus, and that's fine.
He's perfectly entitled to his opinion.
Many people do choose to watch Uncensored, including clearly Ben Shapiro.
It's ironic that the clips he showed were not from our so-called battle royale debates, but from long-form one-on-one interviews, which we do a lot of the time.
And it's outrageously disingenuous that the clips he showed did not include the parts of those interviews where I called out every single one of them about things I didn't agree with.
His montage of the same interviews could have looked like this.
You sound like a Nazi.
I mean, why do you say that?
That's literally what Nazis would have said in World War II.
You think if half your family had been wiped out by very fucking cool Hitler, you'd still think he was very fucking cool.
Or would you think that actually he was a despicable monster who murdered 12 million people?
The comparison which is more apposite is ISIS and Hamas.
They are both nihilistic terror groups intent on killing as many Jewish people and others as they can possibly kill.
That's not true.
As the numbers...
Okay, it's just not true.
Pierce.
Well, Professor, we're just going to...
I'm not going to...
It's not true.
Pierce, Pierce.
Yeah, but you have to listen to what I say.
You want me to believe you when you say you weren't aware of the scale of this for several days.
And I find that just, I'm incredulous.
You want me to believe that?
This country, which was formed in 1948 by pretending to be refugees, if you will, and being invited into the homes of Palestinians, the horrific stories of the people.
Well, they weren't pretending to be refugees.
They were people fleeing a Holocaust.
You can take the view, as many do, that interviewing people with extreme opinions is pointless.
You can stick your head in the sand like an ostrich or hide behind your very big desk and wish they didn't have an audience.
But they do.
My view is that they already speak unfiltered to large audiences.
And whether you like it or not, and at least on my show, these audiences get to see them being challenged.
Ben Shapiro used to make a mockery of de-platforming when the person being de-platformed was Ben Shapiro, usually by shrieking protesters on woke campuses.
But his uncompromising views on Israel and America's military and political support for Israel have turned him into a cancelled culture vulture with the very same sneering intolerance he used to loathe.
If you disagree with him, you're a Nazi, he says, channeling Kamala Harris.
Everybody knows my position on Israel.
I vehemently defended Israel's right to respond and defend itself after October the 7th.
I became increasingly critical of Israel because its government's actions in Gaza became impossible to defend.
We don't need to relitigate all of that now.
But as Dave Smith correctly points out, it's not just me.
Polling shows the American people have turned against Israel and its government in particular for precisely the same reasons.
If Ben listened to some of the arguments instead of just throwing tantrums about them, he might understand why.
Just as I continue to host people who defend Israel's conduct in Gaza where many people wish I wouldn't and say I shouldn't, Ben Shapiro does.
He, of course, has my phone number and my email address.
He could have discussed his differences with me in private, which I would have preferred.
But he hasn't bothered to even politely reply to my occasional messages for a very long time now.
Oddly, since the very moment I started criticising the Israeli government.
And he chooses to get on his own podcast and throw pathetic pot shots at me instead.
So let me use my platform to respond directly.
The difference between me and you, Ben, is that I'm heavily criticised by both sides because I listen to both sides and very often I criticise both sides too, without fear or favour.
You're only criticised by one side because you choose to air only one side and you choose to ignore or even silence the other.