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Ben Shapiro: I voted Trump. Here’s what I regret | UnHerd | YouTubeToText
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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
like
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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