Ben Shapiro released a video today arguing that the right "should dump Andrew Tate." Why is this coming up now? Because a few days ago Benny Johnson had Tate on his show along with Trump lawyer Alina Habba. It was a love fest by all accounts, with no touch questions for Tate.

And that created a divide between those who criticized Johnson for the content of the show and Johnson and his defenders who argued he should be allowed to talk to whoever he wants as a matter of free speech. Others pointed out that he was still making a choice.

Does everyone have a "right" to be on your show? Are you censoring everyone you do not allow on your show? You made a choice here. Way to kill your own brand and do damage to the movement as well.

— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) January 11, 2025

Johnson even quoted a Bible verse to defend himself and wound up getting community noted.

If you interviewed him and grilled him on his sex trafficking and played back his past videos to him on the crimes he committed, I'd defend you.

Instead you want us to take a lower demon into our living rooms and treat him as one of us.

He is not one of us.

— FilmLadd (@FilmLadd) January 11, 2025

For the record, I'm in agreement with William Jacobson and FilmLadd on this one. Benny Johnson should be free to interview anyone but the choice to put on Tate and the choice not to ask him any tough questions suggests that Johnson thinks Tate's self-described behavior is fine. 

I made this same point when Tucker Carlson did a very similar interview with Tate about 18 months ago. If you do a full interview with Tate and give him space to deny all the claims made about him but never once ask him where he got his millions for all the fancy cars, you're intentionally giving him a pass.

Today, Ben Shapiro makes the case that the right needs to dump Tate. The core of his argument is that at some point virtue has to matter. Tate has been accused of doing nearly the same things the UK grooming gangs are accused of doing, i.e. taking advantage of young girls for money. And yet some people who claim to be outraged by the UK grooming gangs seem to admire Tate. Shapiro says Tate is "an actually evil con artist" telling different groups whatever they want to hear.

"Andrew Tate is, at best, a crap sandwich. He presents totally differently to different audiences," Shapiro said. He continued, "To traditional people on the right, when he's in interviews with them he will present as a sort of low rent, anti-feminist talking head. Doesn't know much but he's saying the things that need to be said, bashing left-wing wokism.

"And then to the crazier side of the internet he'll present as an anti-Semitic radical who is willing to violate any taboo for the fringes. And then when he's sitting down with someone who is actually conservative he'll pretend he's and upstanding person who cares about family values who has been out of the sort of sex-cam business for a while.

"In the end what he really is is a con artist. He's actually kind of an evil con artist. Not kind of if you believe the allegations against him, and there are lots of them, an actually evil con artist."

Listen to the whole thing here the quote in my headline comes about midway through it. I suspect Shapiro will get a lot of backlash from Tate's fans and he knows it. 

The Right Should DUMP Andrew Tate pic.twitter.com/oRdHNFs7l9

— The Ben Shapiro Show (@BenShapiroShow) January 13, 2025