The New Yorker:

The conservative commentator on the antisemitism in maga media and why he condemns President Trump as corrupt yet sticks with him.

By David Remnick

Ben Shapiro is a conservative provocateur. Ever since he was a teen-ager at U.C.L.A. writing op-eds for the Daily Bruin, he has shown a penchant for the rhetorical grenade. Women who have abortions are “baby killers.” Western civilization is “superior” to other civilizations. “Israelis like to build,” he tweeted in 2010. “Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock.” Shapiro is now forty-two, and his rhetoric has mellowed only somewhat. On college campuses and on his podcast, “The Ben Shapiro Show,” he has been an advocate for the Trump Presidency, even though he refused to vote for him in 2016 and allows that the President is—as we discuss here—financially corrupt and morally wanting.

Earlier this week, I spoke with Shapiro for The New Yorker Radio Hour, mainly about the battles within the maga movement in which he is currently engaged. Recently, Shapiro has gone into attack mode against some of his fellow maga media stars, including Tucker Carlson, for their indulgence, if not outright support, of antisemites like Nick Fuentes. It is a drama that has implications not only for the Trump era but for what might follow. J. D. Vance, for one, has refused to join Shapiro in rebuking Carlson. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

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