Candace Owens continues to make enemies at The Daily Wire after departing the conservative digital outlet last month. Now, she’s publicly sparring with the founders Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing.
In a post to X, Owens shared her interest in debating Shapiro “on Israel and the current definition of antisemitism.”
In response, Ben Shapiro argued that he sent a message to Candace Owens on Thursday, February 29th “offering this very thing.”
He then offered a time, a location, a length, and a platform for the proposed debate.
“Let’s do it on my show this Monday at 5pm at our studios in Nashville; 90 minutes, live-streamed,” Shapiro said.
Owens declined, stating her hesitancy to appear on a show platformed by the company she just departed.
“I’m sure you can appreciate why I’d prefer to keep this off the Daily Wire platform— as well as the true reason why we were never able to make any discussion happen. Let’s choose a neutral, trustworthy platform,” she wrote, before suggesting the two appear with Patrick Bet David.
Shapiro suggested he had “no idea what the hell you’re talking about it,” in regards to Owens’ insinuation that there was a reason the two had not previously held a debate on the topic while she was employed with The Daily Wire.
He also declined to appear with the host Candace Owens suggested, stating that Bet-David had recently claimed the company should rename itself to “The Daily Jewish Wire.”
Bet-David subsequently offered $250,000 to the family of Laken Riley, the Georgia college student who was murdered by an illegal immigrant, if Shapiro would debate Owens on his podcast. The Daily Wire co-founder has not publicly responded to that offer.
After claiming that Owens was attempting to “hide behind a moderator”, Shapiro gave an ultimatum.
“We can sit down and have a healthy debate like adults, and we’ll live-stream it on X and YouTube,” suggested Shapiro. “Take it or leave it.”
“I cannot laugh hard enough at (Ben Shapiro’s) obvious ‘I’ll only do this at the daily wire at 5pm ET on Monday or not at all’ stunt. This dude literally got on a plane to go debate Destiny the streamer (as moderated by Lex Fridman) two months ago,” Owens retorted. “Stop making a show of it, Ben. Man up. Let’s pick a date, time and a mutually agreed to platform—regarding which I have just offered you five viable options.”
That led The Daily Wire’s CEO, Jeremy Boreing, to chime in to the exchange, arguing that Owens was being unreasonable with her demands for a debate she originally suggested.
“There will be no ads on the video and no charge to watch it. No one cashes in,” Boreing said after Owens argued the company was only interested in creating more revenue from hosting a debate with its former employee. “You…have debated plenty of people without a moderator on your own show. You asked for a debate. If you want it, come have it.”
The response from Boreing led Owens to backtrack, stating that both he and Shapiro knew that she was currently in London and unavailable for an in-person debate in Nashville on Monday afternoon.
She suggested a virtual debate, with one caveat.
“I can certainly swing this virtually on Monday, one-on-one if you guys really just cannot wait for me to get back, but I am refusing to allowing this to happen on any Daily Wire platform,” Owens wrote. “This request seems perfectly reasonable and understandable to everyone but the Daily Wire. Why is that?”
That exchange led Jeremy Boreing to say the debate could be streamed on Owens’ platform, offering several concessions about studio space, camera crew, date, and time. However, he would not budge on agreeing to a moderator, and would also not agree to a virtual event or an edited video released after the debate concluded.
“The rest of this is just noise,” Boreing stated.
“I fully accept. No moderator. I will get in touch privately to get this set up,” Owens replied. “Major win!”
Neither Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, nor Jeremy Boreing have commented publicly about further details of a proposed debate.
