Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro attacked JD Vance, suggesting he has been “relegated to placating the crazies” such as Tucker Carlson in the MAGA movement, to the Iran war.
On the latest episode of The Ben Shapiro Show, the commentator took Vance to task for his appearance this week at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Georgia, where he was heckled and many attendees expressed disapproval over Trump’s spat with Pope Leo XIV over the conflict.
The VP, who reportedly advised against Operation Epic Fury behind the scenes himself, attempted to appease the administration’s critics in the crowd by saying he recognized that “a lot of young voters don’t love the policy that we have in the Middle East” and urging them not to “disengage” and to instead “get more involved.”
Shapiro played a clip of Vance’s comments and warned him that any assumption that he can simply inherit Trump’s coalition if he becomes the Republican presidential nominee in 2028 is “deeply flawed.”
He cited Hillary Clinton's inability to garner the same level of support as Barack Obama did when she attempted to succeed him in 2016.
He then pivoted to attacking Vance over his “consistent defense” of rival broadcaster Tucker Carlson’s “disgusting demoralization op,” by which he meant the latter’s opposition to the war and U.S. support for Israel more generally.
Shapiro continued: “You have to feel a little bit bad for Vice President Vance. Tucker helped him become vice president. The VP appreciates it, as he should.
“But now, because of his connections to Tucker or his desire to maintain Trump’s coalition, a coalition that is broad and complex, he’s been relegated to placating the crazies, assuming he doesn’t actually agree with them.”
After deriding Vance’s attempts to square the circle with his comments to TPUSA, Shapiro continued: “Here’s the bottom line. It is not possible to humor low IQ slop [like Carlson] and then assume it will not have consequences. Honoring garbage is exacerbating garbage.
“Laughing along with the purveyors of bulls*** while occasionally tut-tutting, and then when push comes to shove, defending the overall importance of grifters and nuts and even endorsing them, popularizes the worst ideas and that matters.
“It matters because when these same figures push the demoralization op that America is run by nefarious forces beyond your control, when you prop up and promote those people who do that sort of stuff, you make people’s lives worse.”
He concluded: “You’re making American politics worse, and that does make the world a worse place. Terrible low IQ slop ideas have consequences. Stop burnishing them.”
In addition to attacking Vance and Carlson, Shapiro also turned his fire on popular podcaster Theo Von, dismissing him as “just a Bernie Sanders leftist who does not like the censorious impulses of the left and engages in all the same conspiracy theories,” accusing the VP of kissing his “half-r*****ed a**.”
Shapiro has form in going after his fellow conservatives, taking to the TPUSA stage himself in December to accuse Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens of antisemitism and spreading baseless conspiracy theories.
Vance’s awkward reception at TPUSA was the latest episode in a bad week for Trump’s deputy, who led failed peace talks with Iran in Pakistan, saw his endorsement of Viktor Orban in Hungary’s elections backfire spectacularly and then had to defend the president’s attack on the pope at a time when he has a new memoir forthcoming about his conversion to Catholicism.
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