It’s safe to say Ben Shapiro isn’t pulling any punches in his criticism of Tucker Carlson after the Nick Fuentes interview.
To begin his podcast on Monday morning, Ben Shapiro had sharp criticism for Tucker Carlson after the high-profile interview with self-avowed Christian Nationalist Nick Fuentes.
In describing Fuentes’ faction — know as the Groypers — Shapiro noted that they “hate women, Jews, Hindus, many types of Christians, brown people of a wide variety of backgrounds, blacks, America’s foreign policy and America’s constitution. They admire Hitler and Stalin,” before adding that the sect is “now being facilitated and normalized within the mainstream Republican Party.”
And he believes Tucker Carlson is the main culprit in that normalization.
“The main agent in that normalization is Tucker Carlson, who is an intellectual coward, a dishonest interlocutor and a terrible friend,” Shapiro said. “And Tucker Carlson, last week, was aided, abetted, and celebrated for normalizing Nazism within the Republican Party by the mainstay organization of the traditional right, the Heritage Foundation.”
Ben Shapiro continued by noting that he’s not against free speech or participating in “cancel culture” by criticizing Carlson, or Fuentes, for that matter. But he is against the normalization.
“I believe that Nick Fuentes is odious and despicable, but I’ve never called for his cancellation,” Shapiro said. “Despite the fact that I think he’s odious and despicable, it is not cancellation to draw moral lines between viewpoints. In fact, we used to call that one of the key aspects of conservatism. It is not cancellation to refuse to signal boost Hitler’s supporters like Nick Fuentes. It is not cancellation to criticize Tucker Carlson for rhetorically fluffing Nick Fuentes and other anti-American crackpots. It’s not cancellation if you urge others to stop promoting those who rhetorically fluff Nazi apologists. Those are all elements of free speech, and anyone who says differently is lying to you and lying for the most cynical reasons: to misdirect from their own defense of those Nazi apologists and their promoters.
“The issue here isn’t that Tucker Carlson had Nick Fuentes on his show last week. He has every right to do that, of course. The issue here is that Tucker Carlson decided to normalize and fluff Nick Fuentes, and that the Heritage Foundation then decided to robustly defend that performance. Those who criticize both Tucker and Heritage aren’t canceling. They’re quite properly drawing a moral line.”
Shapiro went on to provide plenty of clips and context of Fuentes sharing views glorifying Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, sharing anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and anti-Muslim sentiments, arguing that Carlson should have known those views were held by Fuentes.
After Shapiro’s comments were published, several other media figures responded, sharing their appreciation for the views expressed in the podcast from The Daily Wire.
Fuentes also responded to the comments made by Shapiro, mocking the host for his comments in the process.
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