LOS ANGELES — Ben Shapiro says he has lost over $100,000 in income for his decision to go NeverTrump.
The conservative author and editor-in-chief of Daily Wire made the revelation on the “The Jamie Weinstein Show,” where he also discussed how Trump succeeded in the GOP primary, the likelihood of Trump TV, how the GOP should handle Hillary Clinton judicial nominations and much, much more.
Listen:
Show Map:
- What Trump’s nomination says about the Republican Party (4:19)
- How Trump succeeded (12:24)
- Whether we will see a Breitbart News-Trump media collaboration (15:29)
- Twitter and the consequences of going NeverTrump (17:40)
- Who Ben is voting for and why (22:08)
- What happens to the GOP if Trump loses (23:33)
- How the GOP should handle Hillary Clinton’s judicial nominations (36:47)
- On Israel and Syria (38:31)
- The time Elizabeth Warren recruited Ben to go to Harvard Law (42:02)
- What you need to do to become the next Ben Shapiro (43:31)
- On his influences (50:50)
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“It’s harmed me fiscally,” Shapiro, whose first fiction book “True Allegiance” comes out Nov. 1, said of his decision to go NeverTrump. “One of the great ironies is all the Trump people saying, ‘You’ve been bought, you’ve been bought.’ I’ve lost at least six figures in this election cycle because I refuse to stand by Trump.”
Shapiro has also been the subject of more anti-Semitic attacks on Twitter than any other journalist, according to a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League. Nonetheless, Shapiro doesn’t think Twitter should be banning people for using racist and anti-Semitic language.
“I don’t thing Twitter should do anything,” he said. “I’m in favor of people being able to say what they want to say as long as they’re not explicitly advocating violence. You know, that doesn’t make life easy on me necessarily, because that means that my entire Twitter feed has been filled with anti-Semitic memes and crap for months.”
“I will say that I did not advocate and I still don’t think that Twitter should have banned Milo [Yiannopoulos], who I think is a scuzz-bag of a human being,” Shapiro added, speaking of the Breitbart News writer banned by Twitter shortly after leading a Twitter attack campaign against comedian Leslie Jones.
“I will say that when Milo was banned, the amount of anti-Semitism in my feed dropped by at least 50 percent immediately, because that’s sort of the group that he runs with and was incentivizing,” Shapiro added.
Here’s a very small excerpt of Shapiro’s conversation on “The Jamie Weinstein Show” (to hear the rest, you’ll have to listen to the podcast):
Why conservatives are partly responsible for Trump
I think a lot of mistakes have been made on all sides of the aisle. …And the conservatives sinned — and I’m part of this, I think a lot of us in the conservative movement are part of this — by acting as though every hill that was worthy of fighting on was also worthy of dying on, meaning that it wasn’t just that everything was bad, it’s that everything is at the ultimate crisis point, and if we don’t stop it right now, the world ends. And so that leads to this kind of panic, “OK, who’s the guy who is the most famous, has the biggest name recognition, is the angriest, will fight the hardest.” And so that was a mistake. It’s possible to be urgent without being alarmist, and I think that we have to be careful about that in the future.
On the Republican base
I think they believe in some of the conservative policies. I think they believe in some of the conservative language with regard to political correctness, but I think that the idea that we had, which is that everybody who is conservative knows who John Locke is, or everybody who is conservative understands what the Constitution actually says, as opposed to some of the sloganeering about the Constitution. That’s a very deep gloss on what a lot of voters do. Most people who consider themselves conservative are conservative because they don’t like, as I say, political correctness or the establishment, they don’t like the idea of the government taking more money out of their pocket. Most people don’t spend all day thinking about politics.
On the mainstream media and the 2016 election
The great irony of this election cycle is a lot of the things the media have said about Trump are true. A lot of those things are true. And a lot of the things conservative media have said about Trump are actually not true. But that’s a reversal of the roles.
On whether we will see a Breitbart News-Donald Trump media collaboration after the election
I will be shocked if we don’t. Bannon will do some sort of documentary like he always does about Trump. It won’t be very good, just like all of Bannon’s other crappy hagiographies and then we’ll move onto a broader project. Steve Bannon does not play games where there are losing solutions. And for Bannon, joining up with Trump was always a winner, because if Trump wins, he’s chief of staff and I’m preparing for my IRS audit, and if Trump loses, Bannon is preparing for a new business plan with Donald Trump as the head. Remember, all Trump has to do is draw a few hundred thousand people, and he’s going to get in this election cycle, you know, sixty million votes. If he draws a million subscribers paying $10 a month, he clears $120 million gross. That’s a lot of money for any new startup…
He doesn’t have to do a 24-hour network, right? That’s a lot of work and that’s a lot of cost. All he has to do is a four hour [online] network, and it’s Laura Ingraham, and it’s Milo Yiannopoulos, and it’s Trump just — he doesn’t even have to have a show, he just stops by as a guest on all of these things. And he hires a few relatively prominent names, and some not so prominent names, and midnights with Bill Mitchell and his poll expertise.
On what Twitter should do with anti-Semitic and racist tweeters
So I don’t think Twitter should do anything. I’m in favor of people being able to say what they want to say as long as they’re not explicitly advocating violence. You know, that doesn’t make life easy on me necessarily, because that means that my entire Twitter feed has been filled with anti-Semitic memes and crap for months. I will say that I did not advocate and I still don’t think that Twitter should have banned Milo, who I think is a scuzz-bag of a human being, but I think that Twitter shouldn’t have banned him. I will say that when Milo was banned, the amount of anti-Semitism in my feed dropped by at least 50 percent immediately, because that’s sort of the group that he runs with and was incentivizing…
On the consequences of being NeverTrump
It’s harmed me fiscally. I think that people who have taken the anti-Trump position on the right — one of the great ironies is all the Trump people saying, “You’ve been bought, you’ve been bought.” I’ve lost at least six figures in this election cycle because I refuse to stand by Trump, right. I lost a fair bit of chunk of change when I left Breitbart, obviously, and then there have been other situations where I’ve had speeches booked that have been canceled because I’m anti-Trump. That’s silly talk, you know. You’re fighting a headwind when 80 percent of your party wants to do something and you don’t really want to do that, then obviously, that’s not something that’s a business decision, that’s a decision that’s made based on different risk calculation or different principles.
On his ideal presidential candidate
I’ve said before that I think that Thomas Sowell, if he could run, would be spectacular. I think that politicians actually make poor presidents, at least in the modern era. I’m trying hard to come up with some names. There’s some governors that have done a good job. I think Greg Abbott has done a very good job in Texas, obviously, but, in terms of who would make a good candidate? Somebody who can speak intelligently on the issues, not make a lot of big boo boos, and speak morally, that’s why I say Thomas Sowell, for example.
Will he ever run for office?
You know, apparently anyone can do it. So I don’t rule anything out. If Herman Cain and Ben Carson and Donald Trump can be seen as viable candidates for higher office, then I don’t see why we shouldn’t have more people running for higher office who are capable of making decent, conservative arguments that are convincing, particularly to young people.
Listen to past episodes of “The Jamie Weinstein Show” and subscribe to it in iTunes:
Is Tomi Lahren the future face of Trump TV?
Bill Kristol On NeverTrump, The State Of The Republican Party And Why He Didn’t Run For President
Jack Abramoff on why Hillary Clinton’s Corruption
Grover Norquist On Trump, NeverTrumpers And Meeting George Soros
Matt Lewis On How He Went From Flipping Burgers To CNN
Roger Stone On What Donald Trump Learned From Roy Cohn
Former Israeli Amb. Michael Oren On Trump, Clinton, American Leadership And His Future Ambitions