Ben Shapiro recapped the reaction to his presence at Podcast Movement, a podcast conference held in Dallas last week. The conference later apologized for Shapiro’s presence at the event, which created a stir in conservative media circles.
On his podcast Friday, Shapiro, who tops the political podcast charts and has one of the largest podcasts available, detailed why his outlet purchased a booth with the conference.
“Our podcast network at The Daily Wire is the sixth biggest podcast platform on planet Earth and so when we decided we were going to take a booth at a conference that, frankly, I had never heard called Podcast Movement this was sort of a sign that we were just going to be part of a ‘community of nations’ so to speak. That we were part of the podcasting community. We were reaching out to advertisers, reaching out to other podcasting networks trying to find maybe new employees. Its just like every other professional conference.”
Shapiro said his business partner, Jeremy Boreing, asked him to fly to Dallas — where Podcast Movement happened to be — for a retirement party for a friend. Shapiro then went to the event, made an appearance at The Daily Wire‘s booth, and took a walk around the expo center. His “presence” was enough for the conference to issue an apology to it’s attendees, which Shapiro mocked.
“According to the left, I’m one of the most intimidating people on planet Earth. I’m absolutely terrifying. I am scary. I am threatening. And I’m Darth Vader. If I just walk into a room, you don’t know if I’m going to force choke you, you don’t know if I’m going to strike you down with my light saber, you just don’t know. I am a dangerous human being according to the left. You can see it on the video.”
“I literally walked around the floor, shook some hands, and walked out. That’s it,” Shapiro said.
He later explained Podcast Movement’s apology came from a transgender attendee with 150 followers tweeting the conference saying Shapiro made them feel unwelcome at the event.
