Ben Shapiro clapped back at Tucker Carlson after the former Fox News host claimed his Israel-centered statements could “destroy” the country and “obviously” shows that he doesn’t care about what he feels are the nation’s more pertinent issues.
“Bit of an astonishing statement there from Tucker. I would never doubt his love for the country even though he and I disagree wildly about a number of topics,” Shapiro said during a sit-down on Megyn Kelly’s podcast series “The Megyn Kelly Show,” which aired on Tuesday.
At the time, Kelly asked the political pundit what his response was to the comments Carlson made about him during an appearance on the podcast “Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar.”
First things first, Shapiro said he’s spotlighted the topics Carlson mentioned, like border security.
“First of all, he [Tucker Carlson] attributes to me a bunch of things that simply are not true,” Shapiro began. “If anybody has listened to my show…over the course of the last several months, you’ll see that I talked about all the issues that he mentions there, – including the border issue – all the time… [He] actually attributes to me, I believe in that interview, the view that, for example, the United States has some sort of duty to import Palestinians from Gaza. I overtly oppose that because it’s ridiculous silly and would be awful for the United States of America. So he just attributes to me a bunch of views I don’t hold and then proceeds to say that I don’t care about the country. Obviously that’s silly, and that’s untrue.”
Shapiro went on, saying that Carlson often exudes an all-or-nothing mentality when it comes to his opinions, while providing background on his family’s history in the country, as Carlson outlined that his lineage in the U.S. traces back hundreds of years.
“I think it’s part and parcel of something that Tucker has had a habit of doing recently, which is, ‘We disagree, therefore, you don’t care about the people that I care about. You don’t care about the country…’ As for the notion, by the way, that his people have been here for hundreds of years,” Shapriro said. “All four of my grandparents on both sides have been here since the early 1900s. So over a century, my family has been here on both sides of the aisle. I also have no intention of moving… I don’t know what more there is to say about that other than it’s an absurd accusation. It’s unfortunate. I certainly don’t feel that way about Tucker as much as I disagree with Tucker, as we said on…a wide variety of issues.”
Shapiro’s response comes after Carlson and Shapiro have exchanged a back difference in opinions on social and political subjects, specifically with the war in Israel. Carlson previously called out Shapiro as being one of the notable right-wing voices he feels is too focused on problems taking place outside of the U.S.
“There are people on the ‘right’ who have spent the last two months, every single day, focused on a conflict in a foreign country as our own country becomes dangerously unstable on the brink financial collapse, with tens of millions of people who shouldn’t be here in the country. We don’t know their identities or the purpose of them being here,” Carlson said during his time on “Breaking Points.” “Like, stuff that could destroy the country for real and make it impossible for my kids to live here. They’ve said nothing about that and they’re focused with laser intensity on foreign conflict. So they don’t care about the country at all, and that’s kind of their prerogative…but, I do because I have no choice. I’m from here. My family has been here for hundreds of years, I plan to stay here. Like, I’m shocked by how little they care about the country, including the person you mentioned. I can’t imagine how someone like that can get an audience of people who claim to care about America because he doesn’t obviously, right?”
Watch video of the interview at the top of this post.