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Ben Shapiro: I voted Trump. Here’s what I regret

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My objections along those lines are less

he's becoming a dictator, which is what

the left would have you say, and more

this is not a pragmatic way to approach

these issues successfully. American

politicians should not be taking gifts

from foreign countries. Does that kind

of apparent money-m around the office

make you uneasy? Yes, it's bad. It

should not be happening and it's bad. I

think that it's very difficult to

actually discern what the policy of the

administration is. So pretty much

everything that the administration has

demanded of Keeve at this point,

Zilinsky is now attempting to do and

pretty openly. Meanwhile, Putin has not

moved one iota so far as I'm aware in

terms of any concession whatsoever.

Wait, you think the Biden administration

was less strong on Israel? Significantly

less strong. Significantly less strong.

Yes. Absolutely significantly less

strong. More consistent and more

consistently bad. Yes. Because the

Overton window was shrunk so tight, the

sort of political response was to not

just widen the Overton window more

dramatically, but to destroy it

completely. There is no Overton window

anymore. Yeah, I think that's right.

Hello and welcome back to Unheard. Ben

Shapiro is one of the most recognizable,

one of the most influential conservative

voices in America. His fast-paced

monologues have been leading his

millions of followers on YouTube,

podcast, and social media. and now also

as co-founder of the Daily Wire where he

hosts the Ben Shapiro show. This is our

first time talking. It's a pleasure to

have you on the show, Ben. Thanks so

much for having me. I appreciate it. So,

I want to start by talking about none

other than Donald Trump. You voted for

him. Uh you hosted a fundraiser for him.

And more recently, you've been asking

some slightly more critical questions

about him. I guess let me start with the

easy bit. What What are the things you

are most happy about since he took

office? what in what areas has he

surprised on the upside? So, I I think

that he has done a good job of keeping

his promises in a lot of areas. One of

those is obviously shutting the southern

border. Uh the dramatic decrease in

illegal immigration from literally the

day he took office is is really obvious

and has been incredibly successful. I

think that it's been so successful that

actually the issue as a whole has

dropped to four or five or six on

people's priority list because obviously

it's not percolating nearly as much.

When it comes to fighting diversity,

equity, and inclusion inside the federal

government, the sort of use of racial

preferences uh in executive policy, he's

been very good on that. uh when it comes

to his attempts to impose the the Civil

Rights Act on college campuses where he

feels that they've been in violation of

the Civil Rights Act, I think that he's

been great on that sort of stuff. We

have to see sort of where we land in

terms of the economy, uh in terms of the

tax cuts. We'll see what the bill looks

like. But obviously business I think the

reason that that the stock market has

you know retained it its relatively high

level despite all of the other issues

that I think he has created on the

tariff front uh the reason for that I

think is because business is recognizing

that he is oriented toward deregulation

low tax rates and all the rest on issues

surrounding social issues like for

example the the trans issue he obviously

has taken strong measures from the

executive branch to cut down on the idea

of for example men and women's sports.

There a bunch of areas where I think he

he's done a lot of good work obviously

and then there's some areas where where

you know he and I disagree. Yeah. Which

I'd be keen to get in on. Before we get

into the specifics, have you been

surprised by the amount of criticism you

get or blowback if ever you dare to

criticize the president? Is that

something new in your career that the

that your audience are more kind of

critical if you are then in turn

critical of the president? I don't think

that that's anything new. I mean, the

truth is that that's been happening

since 2015, 2016 when when he first ran.

And the good news about my audience is

my audience knows me. I've been doing my

show for a decade at this point. They're

aware that if I disagree with the

president, I'm going to say that I

disagree with the president. And so I I

don't really believe that my audience

has has given me outsized blowback for

disagreeing with the president on things

intensification of the blowback. Uh I

mean the blowback was really bad in

2015, 2016. So if anything, I would say

a consistent level of blowback has been

probably the actual mode. I won't say

that that I think that it's worse now

than it was when you know this this

whole, you know, Trump era began. So

let's just talk about some of those

examples. In fact, let me open with the

the more general question. What are the

things that have most disappointed you?

What is top of your list or or things

that are most concerning to you about

the uh new administration? So I I think

that there are a few things that are

concerning. I think that even many of

the things I agree with him doing, I

wish that he approached in a different

way. So, for example, I think that Doge

is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I love

the idea of having a department of

governmental efficiency that's going to

go through and find waste, fraud, and

abuse. I would prefer a more systematic

method of doing that and then explaining

to the American public what exactly the

cuts are as opposed to what appears to

the public to be a sort of haphazard

approach, some of which ends up being

struck down by the Supreme Court. Same

thing when it comes to some of his

immigration policies. I'm very much in

favor of deporting criminally illegal

immigrants. You do have to actually

fulfill the the necessities of due

process because otherwise it will get

struck down by the Supreme Court. So on

a sort of pragmatic level, I wish that

even the things that I agree with in

some cases were done better. In terms of

actual kind of broad just to dig because

that's so interesting. So there's a

there's an objection about the kind of

method, not just the means. I mean,

listen, I think that President Trump

from his first term was always the kind

of president who sort of ran up against

the various sort of guard rails that

that prevent government from falling off

the cliff. I don't think that's actually

unique to him. I think Barack Obama did

it, too. I think Joe Biden does it as

well. Uh, and so I think that he does it

less deliberately, actually, than I

think Biden or or Obama did it. I think

that they very deliberately attempted to

sort of run right through the cross

through the through the guard rails. I

think that President Trump almost

through bruskness, the kind of bull in

the china shop approach, tends to rub up

against those those guardrails. My my

objections along those lines are less

he's becoming a dictator, which is what

the left would have you say, and more

this is not a pragmatic way to approach

these issues successfully. And the

reason I say that it's not dictatorial

is because when a court tells him not

to, he actually stops doing it. Uh and

so if if the guardrails hold, then he

has not actually endangered democracy as

as it stands. And with that said, I

think that the broad-based sort of

expansion of executive authority

generally is a real danger to the

constitutional structure and that's why

actually where the pragmatic and the and

the sort of more moral principle cross

streams in my objection would be things

like for example the tariff war where I

don't actually think the executive

branch should have or does have under

the constitution the capacity to simply

declare a tariff on pretty much

everything coming into the country. I

think it's bad economic policy. I don't

think it's good constitutionally. Uh so

that that's that would be an area of of

broad disagreement with the president,

not just sort of the pragmatic

disagreement with the with the means

rather than the end. So actually the

whole kind of the slew of executive

orders, the sense that he's not going to

Congress for these things. As you

mentioned, constitutionally tariffs

would normally be a matter of Congress,

not for the executive branch. That

unsettles you, not just because you

think it's ineffective, but because you

think it's actually somehow a risk to

the constitution. If those kind of if

that method becomes normalized then when

the other team are in that they'll do it

too. Is that your thinking? My

assessment of President Trump very often

is that he is sort of blamed as the

murderer of American politics when very

often he's the corner where he stumbles

upon a dead body and he says, "Hey, this

body is dead." Uh and I I think that

that happens a lot with with President

Trump. Barack Obama dramatically

expanded executive authority. Trump then

expanded executive authority from there.

And then Biden radically expanded

executive authority. I mean, my company

literally had to sue the Biden

administration to stop the

implementation of a vaccine mandate on

80 million Americans through the

Occupational Safety and Health

Administration. So, the the notion that

executive power has been radically

growing over the course of my lifetime,

that certainly is true. And I don't like

that whoever is actually implementing

that thing, do I think that Trump is a

unique danger in that way? I don't. I

think that Congress should actually take

back a lot of its own authority in in

these areas. is I think it's a del I

think it's a a complete abdication of

duty by the legislature that is

multi-administration in nature because a

lot of the philosophical liberals would

kind of agree with your critique there.

They would say you know these are sacred

processes and institutions that need to

be as neutral as possible and that

basically strongarmming them in service

of a particular political agenda whether

they are universities or the press or

the courts or whatever is a dangerous

illiberal direction. That's a big

criticism of of Trump and I just wonder

where you are on that because on some of

the for example anti-woke stuff you talk

about pushing back against DEI pushing

back against the universities that comes

up against the same atmosphere doesn't

it where the executive is is being much

more muscular with these institutions

that previously were considered kind of

outside the purview of the state. Well,

actually, I think that to be fair to

President Trump on on those particular

things, many of the things that he's

doing via executive order are deliberate

reversals of things that Joe Biden did

with executive order. So, for example,

Joe Biden literally said that he was

going to implement DEI in every area of

the executive branch. And Donald Trump

came in and he said, "We're not doing

DEI in any area of the executive

branch." Is that him expanding executive

power or is that him basically undoing

many of the things that Joe Biden was

doing? When it comes to the

implementation of the Civil Rights Act

on college campuses, the Biden

administration was extremely robust in

its pursuit of the implementation of the

Civil Rights Act on campuses, just a

different area of the Civil Rights Act.

So, for example, they were pushing Title

9 of the Civil Rights Act, suggesting

that men should be able to go into

women's bathrooms and if colleges and

universities didn't abide by that, then

maybe they'd look into their federal

funding. So, President Trump is looking

at a different area of the Civil Rights

Act, and he's basically using very

similar authority. My point in all of

this has been throughout, and this is

true for Biden, for Obama, for Trump, is

that if people want an offramp here,

there needs to be a bipartisan agreement

that the rules don't only apply to one

side. In other words, you have to

actually criticize the executive action

when it's coming from your own side and

when it's coming from the other side. I

noticed that a lot of the people on the

left only like to criticize the

expansion of executive authority when

it's Donald Trump doing the expanding.

But when it's Joe Biden or Barack Obama

doing it, then suddenly they go

radically silent. I hope that I've at

least been consistent enough to call it

out when I think that there is an

expansion of executive authority that

moves beyond what it was before. But I

do think there needs to be a radical

rethink frankly of of the entire

administrative state. And I I would hope

that that is pursued. But like let's

take universities as an example. Ivy

League colleges. You yourself went to

Harvard. You know those institutions.

You've been saying they need reform.

They've been pushing bad ideas for too

long etc. and I guess would be

supportive of the state matching funding

requirements to requirements to follow

certain principles, but are you worried

that they're going too far? Well, I

mean, I think that that a lot of what

the Trump administration is doing right

now is is basically using the legal

leverage that they have in order to get

these universities to abide by the law.

Now I have said for example that I think

that for example with with Harvard

University uh the the administration has

attempted to suggest in its its sort of

demand letter to Harvard that the the

administration should have some input

over say curricula. Uh that seems to me

likely to be struck down in court. So

that falls under that sort of first

bucket of critique, which is I agree

with some of the ends, but if those

means are not calibrated to the ends,

they're likely to be unsuccessful and

actually to wipe out some of the

successful tactics that might be used in

order to get Harvard and other

universities to abide by by federal law

along these lines. So yeah, it's it's a

little bit more complex than just I wish

that they wouldn't take money away from

grants uh or I wish they would leave

money in particular areas. I mean, the

truth is that as a somewhat libertarian

person when it comes to funding of of

higher education, I think there's a

strong case to be made that that federal

student aid in general should be wildly

cur, but neither party seems to want to

do that. So, let's take a couple of

other examples and see if we can

separate out this means ends question.

Most recently, you were critical of the

idea that the administration would

accept as a personal gift this $400

million jet from the

Qataris. Was that a process objection?

and you would object even if it were

people who you were ideologically

aligned with giving such a gift to the

president or was it about the fact that

the Qataris were supporting Hamas and

you felt were a dangerous administration

that we shouldn't be taking gifts from?

Well, I mean I I think the answer is

both but in in sort of different

quantities to be fair. So would I be

nearly as troubled if the British

government were giving the United States

a a jet to be used as Air Force One? No,

because it wouldn't provide nearly the

same security risk. I would I would

figure the strings that were attached to

such a gift would be significantly more

limited than the strings I think the

Qataris are trying to attach to the

gift. And obviously the source of a gift

is going to make a very big difference

in how you assess what the intention of

the gift is, what the goal of the gift

is. Um but yes, I I do not think that

overall the president uh or his

presidential library to be actually you

know real about what the what happened

here. I mean the the the gift is a gift

to the defense department that will then

be conveyed to the Trump presidential

library after a few years time is my

understanding. You know I I would be

objecting to that but certainly not as

strenuously as I'm objecting now given

the fact that it is coming from a

country that does materially support

terrorism around the world. And I don't

think that's a bizarre position any more

than you know I think it would be a

bizarre position if if you know a member

of my family were to take a gift from

from a family friend. That's not quite

the same thing as taking a a gift from

somebody they were overseeing in a

regulatory position. So to be clear

then, for example, the other side of the

Middle Eastern controversy, if it was a

gift by Benjamin Netanyahu, a jet to

Donald Trump, you would also object to

it. Yes, that is not good. There there

American politicians should not be

taking gifts from foreign countries. the

the nature of my objection to the to the

gift. I'm I'm not going to pretend that

I will be quite as loud about again the

British, the French, the Israelis, uh

you know, people who are stated allies

of the United States giving gifts to

politicians. Bad. Taking gifts from

Qatar, which actively funds Kamas to the

tune of $2 billion, uh or or actively

does the work of the Iranians in

negotiations. that seems to me more

troubling because that has implications

for policy that I think are more

troubling for America beyond simply the

the question of of imalments for

example. I guess it also touches on this

sort of corruption is a strong word and

you have to legally prove it. Uh I think

the phrase you used recently is skezy

stuff. You said if you want President

Trump to succeed this kind of skezy

stuff needs to stop. Do you think

there's an issue there? Like for example

in the past week we had Don Jr. I think

it was launching a new $500,000 ahead

members club called the executive branch

which provides access to his dad and his

dad's friends. Does that kind of

apparent money-m around the office make

you uneasy? Yes, it's bad. It should not

be happening and it's bad. And uh and I

think that as as I said on my show, if

we were talking about Hunter Biden

starting an executive branch club in

which the attorney general Merrick

Garland was appearing at the opening

party and for $500,000 you can be a

member, I think that Republicans would

be rather perturbed about that. So yes,

I I do not think that that is a a good

thing. Whether it violates the law is

another question because again, I think

that that violations of law require

statutory violations. I I haven't really

put on my lawyer cap with regard to, you

know, that specific case. But as far as

is that a good thing for the country? Is

that a good look for the administration?

Uh, does that suggest to the public a

sort of generic level of of skeziness or

corruption in sort of the generic sense,

not the not the legal sense? Uh, then

yeah, I don't think any of that is

beneficial to the administration. And

actually, I think that it creates

vulnerabilities for the administration

that I think are unnecessary on a

pragmatic level because, as I've said to

many people over the course of the past

few weeks, you know, all of this is is

sort of fun and games until the economy

goes south or there's some other

exogenous event that that harms the

administration. The way that that

presidencies tend to collapse is that

there a bunch of sort of latent flaws in

the structure and then there's a big

scandal and it hits and everything

collapses because all the latent flaws

are then made apparent. So, let's say

that there's an economic downturn and

suddenly there are all these questions

about, okay, but who got rich while the

economy was downturning? That's the sort

of thing that takes down an entire

administration. And so, when I say that

it's bad for the administration, I I

think it's bad on a on just a raw level

to have members of your family who

appear to be benefiting from proximity

to power as a general rule. I thought

that you think it's bad politics as well

as bad principle to go down. That's

that's correct. Yes. I guess what we've

spoken about so far is is means more

than ends. and you've got a certain

objections to atmospheres and techniques

that the administration is using. On the

more substantial side in terms of actual

policy issues, the one number one issue

I suppose that seems to be dividing

people on the political right is foreign

policy. Uh it's the relationship that

America should have in the wider world

particularly when it touches on Ukraine,

Israel, the Middle East and so on. H how

would you characterize your objection

with what you're seeing in parts of the

administration? I mean, so first of all,

I think that it's very difficult to

actually discern what the policy of the

administration is. And to be totally

fair, on pretty much all of these

issues, you have multiple voices from

the administration. They very often are

conflicting with each other and

sometimes you'll have voices in the

administration, Steve Wood being a

perfect example, the the negotiator in

Ukraine as well as Israel and with Qatar

and and all the rest in Iran who seems

to contradict himself on an almost daily

basis where he will say something that

contradicted something that he said

literally the day before and whether

that's a change in administration

position or whether that's him badly

articulating the position or whether

those are sort of the the chaotic nature

of the negotiations is totally unclear.

So when we say where I'm at odds with

the administration, the first question

to be asked is you know which position

of the administration. So to take the

most obvious example, Ukraine, right,

where a giant war has been continuing

since 2022. The administration has taken

sort of a wide variety of positions

ranging from the utterly isolationist,

we should not be involved at all, we

should get out completely. uh that was

articulated by JD Vance before he was

actually the vice presidential candidate

saying he didn't care at all basically

if Russia took Ukraine to the sort of

new position which is the United States

has a heavy stake in trying to negotiate

an offramp between Russia and Ukraine

but it's unclear exactly how we get

there or if the United States is going

to continue to support Ukraine if there

is no negotiation that ends in the way

the United States wants and so that

level of vagueness I I I frankly

disagree with the level of vagueness

itself I wish there was a clear and

concise position on on the actual US

position with regard to Ukraine because

I think that that's actually necessary.

Sometimes you want the madman theory of

of international politics to apply,

right? Don't don't slap us because you

don't know whether we're going to

absolutely pound you into dust. And

President Trump being unpredictable can

be of benefit. You saw this during his

first term sometimes with, for example,

North Korea. When when it comes to

Vladimir Putin, however, Putin has had a

very long-standing vision of what he

would like to see in in Eastern Europe

and in the Eurasian sphere more broadly.

And so saying to Vladimir Putin, listen,

you should take the offramp because

we're not going anywhere, right? Your

two choices are that this just

continues. This this meat grinder just

continues and we know that you're

willing to do that for a very long

period of time. But guess what? So are

we. So either we come to an offramp here

or it's just going to continue. And yes,

we will support Ukraine sufficient to

prevent Ukraine from falling to Russia.

That's the only way I I believe that you

can actually get Putin to the table. And

I think that this is one of the things

that the Trump administration is running

up against over and over and over. And

so far, the only personality who's

changed any of his positions in this

entire math is actually Zilinsky, right?

Zilinsky went from saying, "I don't want

a ceasefire." to Trump says, "I want a

30-day ceasefire." So Zilinsky says,

"Sure, let's do a 30-day ceasefire." And

then President Trump says, "I want you

to negotiate directly with Vladimir

Putin." And Zilinsky says, "Sure, I'll

go all the way to Turkey to negotiate

with Vladimir Putin." And President

Trump is angry because he doesn't get

the rare earth's minerals deal. And so

Zilinsky says, "Sure, I'll I'll do all

those things." So pretty much everything

that the administration has demanded of

Keev at this point, Zilinsky is now

attempting to do and pretty openly

attempting to do that. Meanwhile, Putin

has not moved one iota so far as I'm

aware in terms of any concession

whatsoever. So ironically, I mean, he's

known for the art of the deal. Your

critique is actually that he's not being

a very good dealmaker at this point

because he's not holding a strong enough

position that is getting proper movement

from the other side. Yeah, I mean I

think that that's right when it comes to

when it comes to Putin and Zalinski. It

seems to me that that President Trump

believed that through kind of force of

personality, he could convince Putin to

come to the table and make a deal with

Zilinski. And he figured that if he got

Zalinski to move, that actually Putin's

demands would be met in some way. And

the thing that I think Putin is now

making clear is that what his actual

demand is is for the negotiations to

drag on long enough that the United

States gets bored. I mean, Putin is that

seems to be happening arguably already.

Yes. I I mean I think that that's

definitely a possibility that's on the

table and Europe cannot ramp up its

weapons shipments fast enough to

actually fill in the gap left by the

United States is what I've been told by

by people in Ukraine if the United

States were to pull its support. It's

not that Europe would not fill the gap.

It's that it would take too long for

Europe to fill the gap to prevent a

further significant Russian invasion.

Meaning that most of the weaponry that

the Ukrainians are currently using is

based on American model. And so to shift

that all over to Europeanmade weaponry

would be the process of 18 months, two

years and and that gap in coverage could

be a real problem. We've seen that

before. A good example being Afghanistan

where the United States essentially

withdrew air cover from the from the

Afghan government and that led to the

collapse of the government. So I think

that again if you're if you're dealing

with Putin at a certain point it can't

just all be carrots. I think President

Trump tried the carrots approach with

with Vladimir Putin. I think the the

sticks that he prefers tend to be in the

form of economic sanctions. That the

problem there is that of course Russia

has been evading economic sanctions for

for years at this point. The Europeans

have been helping him evade a lot of

those economic sanctions by allowing oil

and and natural gas to be shipped into

Europe. But they've been evading it also

by working with China, working with

India and all the rest. And so in the

end, the way that Ukraine is going to be

able to hold its ground is through

further weapons shipments, which is

precisely one of the things that the

President Trump has suggested he doesn't

really want. And if there's a slight

divide or a substantial divide on

Ukraine, the divide on Israel appears to

be even more profound. I mean, there are

powerful voices that are theoretically

supporters of Donald Trump who really

are not very keen on the United States

Israel alliance at all, it would appear.

You've obviously had a disagreement with

Tucker Carlson about this, but there are

other names that you could think of.

Most recently, in the last few days,

Trump has come back from a big Middle

East trip. You described his Saudi

Arabia performance as a triumph. So

apparently you were broadly supportive

of that, but are you worried that he's

cutting out the Israelis that he appears

to be very unconssistent in his support

of what they're doing? How worried are

you about the USIsraeli situation? I

mean I I think that it's kind of again a

question of what exactly that position

is. So you you hear different messages

from the administration on different

days and you certainly hear a bunch of

very inaccurate reports apparently

according to both the US and the

Israelis uh that that are coming out in

the in the legacy media suggesting the

relationship is totally broken and then

you'll get a US official coming out and

saying that's total nonsense it's not

true there have been many of those

reports over the course of the last

couple of weeks and then you start to

wonder okay if there are a lot of those

reports are any of them true right so

that that sort of stuff obviously is is

roing underneath the surface as far as

as kind of what the Trump

administration's position is I think are

kind of a wide variety of positions

inside the Republican party and the

Trump coalition right now with regard to

the US's relationship with Israel. There

there is a full-on anti-Israel position

that says the United States should

basically treat Israel as an adversary

uh rather than as a an ally. And who do

you think of like if you were to name a

name that epitomizes that position? I

mean I I think increasingly Tucker has

been moving from the sort of quasi

isolationist position into that into

that position. He did a recent interview

where he suggested, for example,

boycott, investment in and sanctions, I

believe, to push a two-state solution.

Uh, or he has, you know, obviously had a

lot of guests who have been sort of from

that wing. And do you think there are

people inside the administration, I

mean, you think of JD Vance as someone

who is definitely more what they would

call, you know, skeptical of

interventions. They would not like the

word isolationist. Do you think there

are people right up to JD Vance who are

sympathetic to that corner of the party?

I don't know how sympathetic the the

party is to that generally. I I haven't

gotten that from that far from from the

vice president and certainly not from

the president. You know, again, the

rhetoric coming out of this

administration and and the action

continues to be the most pro-Israel in

the history of the USIsrael relationship

and and to try and I think that there's

there's let's put it this way. There's

stuff that I think that that people who

are, you know, advocates of the USIsrael

relationship would love to see the Trump

administration do in furtherance of that

relationship that is not being done. But

the contrast between what the Trump

administration is doing and what the

Biden administration did is wide and all

in the direction of the of the strength

of the USIsrael relationship. And so

wait, you think the Biden administration

was less strong on Israel? Significantly

less strong. Significantly less strong.

Yes. Absolutely. Significant perhaps. Uh

more consistent and more consistently

bad. Yes. Uh, I think that that's the

delta uh for for those who are, you

know, hoping for more from the Trump

administration really is from a position

of hoping for more from the Trump

administration, not that the

administration has quote unquote turned

against Israel. So, for example, the

this administration got rid of all of

the arms embargos that were on Israel

that had been placed by the Biden

administration, right? That that has

that the the shipments of weapons have

not stopped into Israel in the middle of

its of its wars. Uh certainly there

there are people I I would be one of

them who who believe that the United

States uh pulling out of the the sort of

attacks on the Houthies without

achieving any sort of real safety in the

Red Sea. Uh that that's a tactical

mistake. So I'd hope for more from the

Trump administration along those lines.

But the Trump administration actually

decided to at least take on the

Houthies, which is something the Biden

administration never really did. The

Trump administration has made

significant overtures to the Saudis.

Now, do I wish that the Trump

administration had maybe conditioned

some of the things that we are doing

with the Saudis on Saudi joining the

Abraham Accords? Sure, that would have

facilitated something better. But is

that uh is that's compared to what could

have been not a sort of critique that

what's happening right now is is

anti-Israel. Like you can you can make a

case that it has nothing to do with

Israel or shouldn't have anything to do

with Israel. So the complexity of the

the variety of strains I would say that

there are people who are broadly

speaking without regard to Israel just

generally in the Republican party there

are people who are extremely

interventionist what what President

Trump might call neocon which I think he

just means interventionist there that is

a very small minority of the party

people who really believe that the

United States needs to be militarily

committed in order to foster nation

building and democracy since the end of

the Bush era that has basically been

wiped out of the Republican party

there's not much including yourself

would just to be clear you would not

consider videos. No, I'm I'm not on

that. I opposed I opposed intervention

in Syria. I opposed intervention in

Libya. There are a lot of places where I

don't believe the United States needs to

be militarily involved. Uh then there is

the isolationist wing which says

essentially the United States should not

be involved anywhere. Uh and the United

States needs to pull out of as many of

these regions as possible and sort of

let the world fend for itself. Uh there

is a a wing that that seems to be beyond

the isolationist and actually suggests

that we need to make alliances with

countries that are overtly

anti-American. uh that that in the

Ukraine Russia war it's not a matter of

we shouldn't be involved it's a matter

of actually Russia might be the good guy

uh and and actually Ukraine might be the

bad guy right that that's where again to

site Tucker Carlson I think that he

might be more in that wing and then

there is sort of a spectrum of realist

opinion that ranges from more hawkish

realism which says we don't want to be

involved any everywhere but there are

certainly places where we should be

involved because the world's a complex

place and if we leave a vacuum

somebody's going to fill that and then

there are people who are more dovish

realists who say well you know we could

afford to ignore this part of the world

because you know that it doesn't meet

our standard of what American

intervention should look like. Which of

those buckets do you sit in? I'd

probably be the hawkish realist would be

the way I'd put it. Right. I mean, it

did feel very significant and kind of

extraordinary to watch a sitting United

States president give that speech in

Saudi Arabia. I mean, he said, "We are

not here to lecture. We are not here to

tell other people how to live." It

sounded like essentially a repudiation

of decades of United States foreign

policy. It sounded like the era of

America projecting its power across the

world and trying to organize everyone's

regions for them is over. We are

stepping back. Do you think I'm wrong to

hear it like that? No, I think it can be

read that way, but I don't think that

that's a necessary read. The reason I

say that is because if you were going

full isolationist, I'm not sure why you

would then cut a bunch of defense deals

with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE,

right? All of which get the United

States more heavily invested in the

Middle East, not less invested in the

Middle East, especially. Some of the

isolationists are unhappy about this.

Yes. I mean, and especially because

President Trump is the first person to

recognize that economic involvement in

an arena is typically going to have to

be backed by military involvement in an

arena, right? That that's something that

he had even suggested with regard to the

rare earth minerals deal in Ukraine. So

again, I think that that was almost a

slap at a wing of the movement that no

longer exists. this idea that like we're

going into the Middle East to nation

build and that we are going to judge

nations based on their standard of

democracy rather than their utility to

the United States which always was was a

bit of a fig leaf. I mean the Biden

administration used to use language like

that a lot. They would talk about things

being a war for democracy. And then the

obvious rebuttal was okay so then why

are you allied with Saudi Arabia or why

are you allied with UAE or why is it

that the United States has relationships

with with all sorts of regimes all over

the world that aren't particularly

democratic? Which is an obvious and and

true rebuttal. And the answer is there's

a spectrum. I mean, I think that if you

were going to sort of lay out the

countries America should prefer to work

with, the answer would be allied and

democratic and then it would be go and

then it would go allied and

non-democratic and then it would be

nonallied and democratic and then

non-allied and non-democratic. If you

were talking about sort of the spectrum

of countries and how to deal with it

there's another aspect to this. We start

were talking about Israel just now.

That's the big picture philosophical

foreign policy question. You know, how

how much America should project power

outside its borders. There's also a real

question of anti-semitism, is there not?

I mean, it feels like ex formerly

Twitter is now really full of the kinds

of memes and

anti-semitic tropes that you really

didn't see a few years ago nearly to the

same extent. And it feels like there are

people inside the administration who are

aware of that and kind of like it and

are are factoring it in their calculus.

Do do you think that's something that's

real and should be acknowledged that

there's a genuine anti-semitism that is

really having an influence on the

administration? Yeah. Okay. So, I'm very

hesitant as an orthodox Jew to call

people in the administration

anti-semites without actual evidence of

anti-semitism. And here I do want to

actually make the distinction that I

think is critically important between

criticism of Israel and anti-semitism. I

criticize Israel a fair bit usually from

the right. And uh and that doesn't make

me anti-semitic. Criticism of Israel is

not necessarily anti-semitic. it can

shade over into anti-semitism when you

are applying a double standard to Israel

that you would never apply to anyone

else under any circumstances for

example. Yeah. As far as the the sort of

bubbling up of anti-semitism on X and

and here I'm not talking again about

criticism of Israel. Here I'm talking

about like actual Shurmer memes and and

you know swastikas and not Kanye West

promoting songs that literally say Hy

Hitler like actual open by everyone's

definition anti-semit. Of course, that's

bubbled up enormously on X. Uh I I would

say that that is a result of lack of

safety protocols on X. Uh and I don't

think it's relegated to X. I think it's

it's true in in a lot of social media. I

think X because the safety protocols are

are so wide and because frankly I think

they're understaffed on the safety side.

You've seen an uptick in that. And I

also would suspect that a certain

percentage of that is in fact being

fostered by other entities, meaning

outside the United States. I'm not sure

how much of that is organic and how much

of that is being fostered by by other

countries, China, Russia. You see you

see this bubbling up a lot on on Tik Tok

for example and China obviously runs the

algorithm on Tik Tok. So it's not

relegated only. So you think there's

foreign interference encouraging

anti-semitism within the US? Yes, I I I

do think that I would be surprised if

that's not the case actually, especially

because again there's been open sort of

statements to that effect from a variety

of enemies of the United States. The

attempt to, for example, polarize

America along racial and identity lines

is something that Putin's supposed

brain, Alexander Dugan, has been

preaching since the '90s. I mean, yes,

that could be a factor, but even within

your own organization, Daily Wire, you

had an issue with Candace Owens.

Famously, she left. Do you think she is

now sounding anti-Semitic in her public

pronouncements? You know, I'm I'm going

to let her statements speak for

themselves rather than rather than

criticize, you know, or or label what

Candace is doing. Uh I will say that a

fair number of her shows would fall into

the category of conspiracy theorizing

about Jews. Uh that I think goes well

beyond claims about you know

disagreements about Israel. Right. But

that's such an interesting example and

there are many more of an intelligent

person who clearly you rated highly

because you hired her into the Daily

Wire not very long ago. She's brilliant

and talented. There's no question. who

has gone on this journey and now finds

herself and there are many others like

her talking about and just absolutely

being marinated in this kind of

material. What is your explanation for

that and how did that happen? So I I

think one of the ways that that you are

seeing this breakdown is happening not

just with regard to know open sort of

Jew hatred and memes and all that sort

of stuff is happening with regard to a

lot of taboos is specifically because of

that. So I think that we're living in a

very reactionary era for a very long

time in the United States. It's the

Overton window. The window of acceptable

discourse was shrunk to about the size

of a pin head. Uh you people like me,

for example, were being basically

silenced on social media for the crime

of saying that men are not women back in

2014, 2015. And I think that because the

Overton window was shrunk so tight, the

sort of political response was to not

just widen the Overton window more

dramatically, but to destroy it

completely. And there is no window

anymore. Yeah, I think that's right. I

think now that the Overton window has

been destroyed, uh the the range of

acceptable discourse now is everything.

But we've even gone beyond that to a

certain extent, which is that we have we

have gotten to the the point where if

you criticize somebody, this is now

considered equivalent to censorship,

right? We're so paranoid of the idea

that a new Overton window is going to be

imposed and that and that we're going to

silence people that if you criticize

somebody, then that in and of itself is

now considered a new form of of

censorship, shutting down debate or

whatever. And so what that's actually

created is a bizarre incentive where

it's actually in some parts of social

media better to be a Nazi than to

criticize a Nazi. If you if you if you

are a Nazi, you're violating long-held

taboss. You're being transgressive.

You're breaking boundaries. You are

you're asking the questions that need to

be asked. And because we were deprived

of the ability to ask questions for so

long, we basically destroyed the ability

to seek answers. I think is one of the

things that's happened. I think we are

now a huge swath of the internet is now

devoted to the quote unquote just asking

questions. That's not really asking

questions with the desire to seek an

answer is just asking questions with the

desire to tear down the established

narrative without evidence and and that

is I think a real problem that that that

I don't think is relegated to the right.

I think that's true on nearly every

side. But do you think there's this

phrase that's going around at the moment

the woke right? I guess the point of it

is that where the woke progressives were

constantly looking for new barriers to

break down, new ways to transgress, new

villains to destroy, the right-wingers

now are looking for new taboos to break.

There's almost a kind of mckismo, like a

competition who can be most scarily

racist, who can be overtly pro- Hitler,

whatever it do. Do do you see a symmetry

there? Do you do you endorse the woke

right concept? Well, so I I don't use

the term woke right because it's become

semantically overloaded and I think that

is misapplied in a wide variety of cases

from I mean I've seen a bunch of

different definitions. Uh what I would

say is that there's an element of the

right and you can label it however you

want. Uh there's an element of the right

that mirrors the left-wing desire to

seek a grand conspiracy theory in

everything and sees all disparities as a

result of discrimination by a conspira

conspiratorial elite. And it's very much

akin to what you saw during sort of the

the BLM era with this idea that if

there's a discrepancy in any of the

stats, it must be because of white

supremacy, a white superructure that has

designed the system for its own benefit.

And you see that now in part rightwing

version would be the Jewish

superructure. Yeah. I mean, it comes up

a lot in that context, right? And that

if you and that the minute you say,

well, it isn't the Jews, like, well,

you're not asking the right questions.

It's like, well, I mean, how about you

give me the right answers? Like, the

answers are more important than than the

question. I mean, at least they should

be. The question is designed to elicit

an answer. And here you run headlong

into the idea of conspiracy theory

versus actual conspiracy. Obviously,

actual conspiracies do exist. I mean,

groups of people who get together to to

find an end. That is a thing that

happens. I mean, that that happens in

life. It happens in business. It happens

in government. Those sorts of things are

real. But the difference between a

conspiracy theory and a conspiracy is

that a conspiracy requires evidence to

show that it exists. A conspiracy theory

requires no evidence. And in fact, lack

of evidence is seen as part and parcel

of a of a way of establishing the

reality of the conspiracy theory. So the

absence of the evidence for the

conspiracy theory is in and of itself

evidence of the conspiracy theory. And

so when you see that sort of stuff

arising on the right, obviously I think

that that has very little to do with

traditional conservatism, with with

biblical values, uh with any of the

things that that I I stand for and and

so I object to it. How does this mesh

with the free speech debate? Because

something I've really noticed is that

people were fellow travelers with

unheard. We were raising flags about

social media being overly sensorious uh

on trans issues on COVID questions and

all of that for the many of the last few

years suddenly seemed quite comfortable

with the Trump administration's actions

towards student expression on campus

with regard to Israel. ideas like

drawing up lists of undergraduates and

what societies they're part of, what

events they've attended, uh, in order to

make sure they don't get the right kind

of jobs in the future. In some cases,

summary eviction of green card holders

based on attending unsavory political

rallies. you've been criticized for this

that you were if you weren't you've

never described yourself as a free

speech absolutist in any way but you

were definitely riding the free speech

wave when you were the victim of those

sensorious actions what do you say to

people who are like hold on you were

free speech guy before why why are you

not free speech guy with regard to

opinions that you don't like on campus I

mean so I am a free speech guy with

regard to opinions I don't like on

campus but that doesn't mean that every

opinion falls within the guise of value

so again like the some of these are are

legal issues and some of these are are

sort of moral issues. So when it comes

to green card holders, do I believe that

a green card holder we owe it to every

green card holder to be allowed

permanent residency if we believe that

their views are non-beneficial to the

United States? No, I don't believe that.

I think that the United States gets to

pick and choose who gets to stay in the

country. But you like due process,

right? So ununiformed gangs coming up to

students and bundling them into cars

would you would not like. Yeah, you

should have you should Yes, you should

have a hearing, right? Right. I mean,

that that would be the due process, but

that's a different question than if

somebody expresses support for a terror

group, do we now owe them citizenship in

the way that if somebody's already a

citizen, you can't be arrested for

expressing, you know, kind of moral

support for a terror group? That that

that's a different question. Green card

holders versus citizens. That that

that's a legal question. But to be

clear, the the free speech, full free

speech should not be afforded to green

card holders in your view. Full free

speech is not afforded to to green card

holders dependent on their

qualifications for full citizenship. I

mean, it just isn't just legally

speaking. And no, it should not be. We

do not owe you, we do not owe anyone a

citizenship in the United States. If

somebody enters the United States on a

green card and it turns out that they

are a rabbid communist, for example, I

don't feel the necessity to say that

person needs to be a citizen of the

United States because we gave them a

green card. The first amendment applies,

I think, to green card holders as well

as full citizens. Uh, well, it applies

to green card holders who are here on a

green card. It does not apply to green

card holders in terms of their being

able to overstay a visa and gain

citizenship, right? But if you're here

on a green card, should you be have the

protection of the First Amendment? I

mean, I don't know the legal answer to

that question. I'd have to look at the

president of green card holders. But

would you honestly that's like a legal

question. A student, let's say, or let's

say you're a green card holder and then

you say nasty things about Israel and

you say you like Hamas. Mhm. Which for

an ordinary citizen, you can say that.

That's you're protected on your under

your First Amendment rights. Would you

say that green card holders should not

have those same protections? I would say

that green card holders should not have

those same protections. Correct. Green

card holders are held to a higher

standard because we don't have to let

anybody we don't want to into this

country. Period. So that that's that's a

different standard. Now again ask me

about citizenship and should a citizen

have their citizenship revoked for

saying that they hate Israel? No. You're

a citizen now. Different standard

applies. We've spoken about some

blowback on different issues, but your

organization, the Daily Wire, did get

criticized for letting Candace Owens go.

There was another presenter, Brett, who

was there one moment and then the next

minute she wasn't. The idea was that it

was supposed to be a kind of free

speech-based platform and then people

whose opinions you didn't like, you got

rid of. What do you say to people when

they when they alleged that at you?

Well, so okay, so first of all, the the

Brett conversation is totally different.

that was actually more of a business

issue from what I'm aware of than it was

anything to do with anything that she

she'd ever said or any position that

she'd ever taken. I think Brett would

tell you the same w with regard to

Candace. Uh it was it was a bit of a

different story that I'm not going to

get into for a variety of reasons, but

the the broader critique that that

you're making, which is that thei that

that somehow the Daily Wire owes

employment to people who violate our jud

our editorial judgment, obviously that's

not true. So, we, for example, are a

pro-life company. If somebody came out

tomorrow on our platform, one of our

hosts, and said, "I'm not just a

pro-choice person. I believe that it is

a moral good to abort babies. I It's

anor it's a moral good and and babies

should be abortable up to point of

birth. That person likely would not be

employed here very long. And we we are

not in fact a free speech platform. We

are in fact a a an actual publication.

And as a publication, we have editorial

judgment. You fit within our Overton

window, too." We have our own Overton

window of people we're willing to hire.

There there's a reason that we're not

hiring Naen Strawson. There's a reason

that we're not going out of our way to

hire Medie Hassan. There are plenty of

hosts who who would not fit within the

brand of the Daily Wire. And there are

people who if they are hired and then

move beyond what we believe is within

the brand of the Daily Wire, are not

going to work here. I mean, that's just

the way that that any editorial company

works. And I'd be surprised. Honestly,

I'm kind of surprised at the suggestion.

What would the limits be then? Like, are

there any limits at all? Do do we have a

moral obligation to hire Kanye West

after he makes the Hy Hitler video or

what? Like what? How precisely does

that? I would definitely not suggest

that you have a moral obligation to hire

Kanye West. No. Or if we had hired Kanye

West priestly and Kanye West then came

out legally and morally you can hire

whoever you like obviously but I think

it it does it touches on the free speech

question there doesn't it? because

because it's it's an interesting case

study of of a a publication that was

born at a time when those voices were

all in opposition to the government and

there was a general sense of solidarity

that we were, you know, all in

opposition to the liberal elite or

whatever it was. And then as the

opinions became more clear, the

divisions became more clear and suddenly

there was no free speech gang anymore.

There were just opposing opinions that

didn't agree with each other. Well, I I

think that there's truth to the idea

that originally the so the sort of free

speech movement was in opposition to the

anti-free speech movement, but I will

also say that there is a conflation of a

few issues that's being made here. One

is free speech, meaning I have never

called, for example, for Candace Owens

to be deplatformed from YouTube, from X,

from any other place. In fact, there are

people who I find even more egregious in

in some of their viewpoints than some of

the stuff that Candace says, who I've

called for to be replatformed at many of

these places. even if these people are

personally attacking me because yeah, I

think there is a difference between a

platform like an X or a YouTube and what

we are a publication that is supposed to

have a specific editorial guideline. And

so I I think that we actually need to

make some of these finer distinctions

because otherwise we run the risk of of

being unclear in what it is we're

talking about to suggest that free

speech means I have to patronize

somebody or hire them or pay them.

That's not what free speech suggests. to

suggest that free speech means that I'm

not allowed to criticize somebody or

that if I do criticize somebody, I'm now

a sensor, that's actually a violation of

free speech in the other direction

because criticism is a form of free

speech. And so the the the conversation

is a little bit more complex than I

think it got simplified down to, which

was either everyone has the obligation

to talk to everybody, hire everybody,

patronize everybody, or you have the

obligation to do that for nobody. I like

I don't think that that's correct. I

also don't think that all conversations

or opinions are equally valid or true. I

think there are a wide variety of

opinions that I find absolutely

egregious and with which I don't feel

the necessity either morally or

business-wise to engage with. And I

think that's true for virtually

everybody. I I don't think that that

anybody wants to spend their days on the

street corner arguing with the, you

know, heroin addicted homeless guy who's

who's shouting that he's Napoleon.

That's that's not an opinion or a

conversation that is going to be

particularly useful. We all have our

limits. The question is what those

limits are. I I've never suggested that

there needs to be no Overton window.

There does need to be I think a a window

of let's say instead of acceptable

useful discussion. I don't think all

discussions are equally useful and I

think that we only have so many breaths

in our lives and to engage in every

useless discussion would be a waste of

some of those breaths. Final question

for you Ben because I know we're running

out of time. We've spent quite a lot of

this conversation talking about some of

the negative aspects of the new

administration and you've been pretty

honest and upfront that you've got some

issues with them. net

net. Do you still feel proud and happy

that you voted for Donald Trump and

proud and happy that you hosted a

fundraiser for him? And can you see a

point where that would no longer be

true? Uh so the answer is yes and yes.

So of of course I am very happy that I

voted for President Trump. I think the

right man won the election. Uh the the

math that I did, you know, to give my

sort of electoral history, I didn't vote

for either candidate in 2016. Neither of

them met my minimum minimum

qualifications to be president. By 2020,

President Trump had already been

president. And so I saw what his record

looked like and I saw how he had

performed in office. And now there was

no real concern about forestalling a

Trump presidency. He'd already been

president and and Democrats put up Joe

Biden. I voted for Donald Trump. In

2024, I was faced with the prospect of a

second Joe Biden presidency or a Kla

Harris presidency more likely. Uh that

was moving in an increasingly radical

direction. uh and President Trump had

already seen do one term and so I

endorsed, voted for and campaigned for

for President Trump and as you mentioned

did a fundraiser for him. Are there

circumstances where I could regret that?

Of course, because that's true for

literally every politician and but we're

not we're not approaching them. We're

not approaching that point. No, I I

think that you'd have to go quite a ways

further to approach that point because

again, in order for me to retro, first

of all, don't have a time machine. in

order for me to gain access to my

magical time machine that I don't have

access to and then go back in time and

reverse my vote. Regret that's a that's

right. No, no, no. Understood. But you

know, for me to regret the vote would

imply that I that if I had the the same

opportunity today knowing then what I

know now, I would either not vote or

vote for Kla Harris. Right? Those would

be the two options. And you'd have to go

ways before you get me there. Uh because

now you're talking comparative terms.

And once you're talking in comparative

terms, I can have absolute criticisms of

what President Trump is doing and still

recognize better than Harris is

absolutely a thing. So that that that I

think is the the sort of general take on

on President Trump. And again, I'm very

happy with many aspects of his

administration. We've talked only about

sort of the the critiques and we we let

off with some of the things I'm h I'm

very happy about a lot of things that

the administration h has done and is

doing, but my overall perspective on

every politician is that politicians are

plumbers. And if the plumber is doing is

overall fixing the toilet, I'll be

generally happy. And if the plumber is

actually throwing cherry bombs down the

toilet, then I will be upset. And that

that remains true regardless of who the

president is. I'm going to take the fact

that President Trump is overall fixing

the toilet as a great uh moment to end

on. And also, I think you said there's a

ways to go. I'm going to take that as a

as an offer to come back on the show.

Let's let's set our clocks for 20th of

May, 2026, and we'll see if you're any

closer to that point. Sounds great. I

appreciate it. Thank you, Ben. That was

Ben Shapiro, Trump voter, Trump

supporter, one of the most influential

conservative voices in America, listing

out things that he's really not very

happy about to do with the Trump

administration. He doesn't like some of

the skeziness, as he put it, not quite

corruption, but nearly there. He doesn't

like the methods, the chaos in foreign

policy, the lack of a clear objective,

the inability to get meaningful

concessions from the other side. in the

case of Vladimir Putin, a whole list of

things that he was really not very happy

about. But when it came down to it at

the end, I asked him was he still happy

that he voted for him? And for now, the

answer is yes. We'll revisit that in a

year. Thanks to Ben Shapiro and thanks

to you for joining. This was Unheard.

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